Though her eyes gleamed, her smile was uncharacteristically bashful. “What now?”
A little noise escaped her when he jerked her into his arms.
“Now,” he said, letting his voice deepen in the way that he’d noticed had a certain effect upon her, “we finish what we started.”
Sixteen
THE NEXT THING Claire knew, she was flat on the sofa beneath Jonathan’s delicious weight.
It happened so fast. If she felt any surprise, it was promptly subsumed by onrushing desire. This wasn’t the Jonathan she remembered, but the one she’d imagined. As wild and demanding as he’d been in her dream, possessing her and possessed by her.
Yet the reality was even better. For the onslaught of sensation—his hard body crushing her into the cushions, his mouth covering hers, the intrusion of his tongue and of his hands ransacking her skirts—was more vivid and thrilling than anything she could have dreamt up. She could scarcely keep pace, for he seemed to be everywhere at once.
She buried her hands in his hair, that thick, silky mass more luscious than any woman’s. It seemed to glow in the golden candlelight of the room. But her focus shifted instantly when she felt the heat of his palm through her stocking.
Gliding up her bare thigh…
Nearing the place where her legs met…
When his fingertips grazed her there, she heard herself whimper. Then she was fumbling at his trousers with desperate urgency, making quick work of the fastenings before he could stay her hands.
He pinned them above her head. “Not yet.”
Though his denial was firm and his hold on her like iron, the touch of his fingers below was anything but: fiendishly soft, maddeningly slow…
“Please,” she breathed, squirming against him, trying to press herself closer. “I want you now.”
“Shall I tell you what I want? All the many things I’ve dreamt of all year?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I dreamt of doing this,” he told her, teasing her ear with his gruff voice and his hot, damp, shivery words.
And he slipped a finger inside her.
She arched and cried out, and he silenced her with a kiss. She felt his wicked smile against her lips. “Hush, or the footmen will hear…”
But she couldn’t hush amid the sensations building within her, and she especially couldn’t hush when his thumb found her most sensitive spot.
“And I dreamt of doing this,” he whispered against her mouth, caressing that spot in a rhythm that felt exquisite, that threatened to send her over the edge...
That did send her over the edge.
He released her arms so he could clasp her face to his neck, holding her there as she unravelled, muffling her cries until they subsided. Until she went limp upon the cushions, her breathing ragged, her trembling fingers once again twined in the silk of his hair.
He dropped kisses on her forehead, her neck, her earlobe. “Are you ready for more?” he whispered there. “Because I dreamt of doing more. Much more.”
Still breathless, she could only nod, relishing the feel of his slightly rough cheek against her smooth one.
The next moment he was moving over her with purpose, pushing up her skirts, raising her leg. Her eyes fluttered open to find his intent on her face. In their fathomless depths she saw hunger and fire and just a hint of remaining worry.
Still Jonathan, she thought with wry affection.
He maneuvered to meet her, and whilst he was ill-positioned to stop her, she seized him by his hips and shoved.
And though there was some discomfort attending his entrance, there was so much more pleasure that a full-throated moan escaped her lips. “Sorry,” she gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth.
He half laughed, half groaned. “Forget the damned footmen. Given your reaction, I take it you’re not hurting this time?”
“Not at all.” The momentary pain was gone, not even worth mentioning. “You feel glorious,” she added.
“So do you. So much better than a dream…”
