“I don’t. I didn’t, even then.” And she did not protest as he slipped his arm beneath her shoulders, drawing her closer. Her legs slid along his as her fingers curved over his shoulder. And there, the slight swell of her belly as she curled into the spot that had always belonged to her. Couldonlyhave belonged to her. It had been hers before he had even met her, and he hadn’t even known howemptyhe had been then.
Her nails prickled along his shoulder. “Sebastian, I can’t sleep just yet.”
“But you must be tired.” Exhausted, more likely. There were still those shadows beneath her eyes, attesting to her lack of sleep. She’d admitted she had not been sleeping well. What she needed most wasrest, and yet—and yet her thigh drifted along his, higher, higher.
And she draped herself against him like a blanket, soft flesh molding to his. “I am. But I can’t sleep just yet—probably not until morning. I have my evening shift at Ambrosia tomorrow, and I can’t be dead on my feet because I slept through the night instead of the day.”
“A dilemma.” The words crept out uncertainly. There was an implication in the slow glide of her leg up and down his own, and the remnants of the light doze in which she had found him when she had returned had faded. His mind was alert, agile—perhaps reading too much into the sinuous slide of her skin on his. “What do you want, Jenny?” She had to be aware of his cock between them, burning against the soft flesh of her belly.
Her hand moved so slowly, fingertips grazing in light touches from the curve of his shoulder, down the planes of his chest, his abdomen—a whisper of sensation, nothing more than the delicate brush of a butterfly’s wings. Until she wrapped her hand around him, her little palm enveloping him in its heat. “This,” she said, pressing the word into the hollow of his throat, and he choked on a groan.
“Christ.” His fingers tangled in her hair, nudging her face up to his. He took her mouth in a desperate kiss, a hard, wrenching sound dragged from his lungs as she swirled the pad of her thumb around the head of his cock. “I was going to woo you. I swear I was.” He wasn’t certain how comprehensible the words had been; they’d seemed to have come out a garbled mess.
But she had understood them just fine. “I don’t want to be wooed. I wantthis.” Still she let him kiss her, let him thrust his tongue into her mouth as he wanted to thrust into her body. Let himmateher like the wretched animal he had become—someone he hardly recognized.
It was a struggle to wrest that part of himself back under his control; to ease his fierce grip and tuck away that madness that lurked inside of him. “Jenny. Not like this. Let me love you.”
“Do you not?” It was a curious whisper, and he sipped it from the corner of her lips.
“You know I do. Youmustknow I do.” His chest shuddered with each breath, and she wouldn’treleasehim. Those slow strokes, the clasp of her fist inescapable, unrelenting.
For a moment there was only silence; the deep, pensive sort. And then: “You are going to give me,” she said, “everythingI want. Correct?”
“Yes.Yes.” He knew he had to be abrading her sensitive skin with the burn of his stubble, but she seemed not to mind. “Yes. Of course. Anything.”
“Shut up, then.” It was a feral demand, and she released him at last to shove insistently at his shoulder, until his back touched the mattress and she had performed a graceful shimmy that ended with her astride him, her palms resting on the flat of his chest.
Her hips rocked. A visceral curse wrenched itself from his lungs; his hands spanned her waist, slid up the delicate framework of her ribs, and cupped her breasts. He felt more than heard the sigh that escaped her, the exhale that pressed those soft mounds deeper into his palms.
There was so little light by which to see her—nothing more than impressions in the depths of the darkness. Maybe so much as the curve of her shoulder. A brief glimmer of her fair hair. But mostly—hefelt.The pinch of her knees at his hips. The flick of her hair as she tossed her head back, the very ends of those long strands tickling his thighs.
She rode him in long, delicious movements, using him for her pleasure. He was dying of it, too, and she hadn’t even taken him inside her.
“Jenny.” His voice sounded strangled, mutilated. “Please. You’re killing me.”
“Am I?” The silky purr wrapped around him, thrumming with delight. One fingertip coasted over his chest, lightly circling his nipple. “I like a man knows when to beg.”
“I’m begging.” It was impossible to sound properly penitent, properlyhumble, when she kept moving like that. And he could so easily have turned the tables and rolled her to her back—but she was enjoying her power, reveling in it. He would not take it from her—even if itdidkill him. “I’m stretched out upon the rack,” he said, though it came out a fierce grunt as she redoubled her efforts. “You’re torturing me.”
Her back arched as he caught her nipple between his fingers, massaged it to an aching point. The delicate strokes she liked; the rasp of his nail across the pointed little tip. A languid sigh curled from her throat. For a moment her hips stuttered in their lazy glide—distracted just long enough that the lift of his brought him poised directly at the entrance of her body. Just a breath away from where he wanted most to be, and he trembled from the effort to hold himself in check.
His fingers found her hip, slipped down a bit further. His thumb stretched across her thigh, found the space between her legs, and touched her—just as she’d taught him. The smooth circles. The light, increasing pressure.
With a low moan of pleasure she sank down, enveloping him in the lush, searing heat of her. The sweet vise of her velvety inner muscles drove all thought from his brain, until he was nothing but feeling and sensation and…hers. Just hers.
“More.” His hands clutched her hips, but she resisted when he would have pressed her down.
“Greedy.” He could sense the smile in the word,hearit. She was drunk on her own supremacy, savoring it. She denied herself just to torture him, taking him only so far—and no further.
“Yes. I need you.” His breath whistled through his teeth, which clenched tighter with each tiny little movement. “I need you to love me. I need to love you. But right now, Jenny, I need you totakeme.” His muscles bunched, straining against the coil of frustrated desire spiraling higher and tighter. He suspected his hands were bruising upon her hips, but it would have been impossible to force himself to release her.
For an agonizing moment, he thought she would deny him. That she was so enamored with the headiness of power that she would stretch out his suffering for hours—days—weeks. He would die from it, surely. But there were worse ways to go out.
Somehow—somehow—he managed to slide his hands up the gentle slope of her back, to urge her to lean closer, to lift his head enough to catch the tender peak of her breast in his lips, sucking sweetly. Her breath came in shallow pants, her limbs quivering with tension. With a plaintive little sound, she took pity on him, and he groaned around her breast as she sheathed him entirely.
They moved in a frantic rhythm, and he could not keep himself contained any longer, could not leash the furious energy she had aroused in him. He helped her rise and fall, nudged his hips to hers, filled her with every bit of himself he could, holding himself deep until at last the pleasure they gave each other spilled over. She came apart with a cry that she muffled against his shoulder as she wilted down to lie against him, and he knew he clutched her too close as he filled her with his seed.
His heart thundered against the cage of his ribs, and he swept his palm down her back, brushing away the tangle of her hair and feeling the mist of sweat upon her skin. Her breaths, quick and short, burst across his throat. It was a slow descent from the heights, and they settled together into a tangle of limbs and kisses and soft strokes of reverent hands.
