Rather, her hand reached forward and stroked the fabric of his trousers. His jaw clenched, and a sharp inhalation of air sounded through his teeth. The tip of her finger began tracing the outline of his manhood through coarse wool, her fingernail grazing its rough surface. She stepped forward, their bodies a hairsbreadth away from touching, and rose to her tiptoes. Her lips found his ear. “Oh, I think actions, rather than words, will do.”
His body tensed, and she sensed the last remnant of his rational mind asserting itself. He was attempting to regain control. That wouldn’t do.
She’d made this man lose control before. Those three starved, glorious days in Skye, for example. It was nothing new. Yet . . . it felt new.
Her stomach fluttery and light, the world became clear, crisp, fresh. She hadn’t yet experienced Nick as the person she was today. And she wasn’t leaving this garden tonight until she had experienced every last inch of him.
Her fingers found the waistband of his trousers and hesitated at the closure. “Don’t you want this?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is that simple.” She unlooped the buttons, one . . . two . . . three, freeing his swollen manhood, her point punctuated.
Unable to resist, her fingers wrapped around the naked length of him, her thighs instinctively squeezing together in response. It had been so long, too long, sincethishad been inside her. She could push him down onto one of the reclining sofas and have him straddled between her legs, poised to take him inside her within a matter of seconds. But that wasn’t the way she wanted him.
She unwrapped her fingers from his shaft and registered a note of protest in his eyes. Good. It was a start. “I have a confession.”
“You’re a long way from a chapel,” he all but growled.
“I secretly admire scandalous women.”
“Some might call you a scandalous woman.”
“Those people have no imaginations.” She paused a heartbeat, just long enough to stoke his curiosity about what she might say next. “I’ve been quite genteel and abstemious all these years. Tonight, I long to be a hedonistic Parisienne.” She reached for the bottom of her sweater and pulled it over her head. His eyes lowered to feast on her naked torso. The raw lust charging his gaze increased her desire tenfold. “I’ve always wondered”—She kicked the slippers off her feet—“what would it be like”—She unlaced the closure of her trousers—“to shed all inhibitions and be completely, utterly free?” She wiggled her hips and shimmied free of the trousers—her last stitch of clothing.
“Mariana,” his voice rasped, “what do you want from me?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” She was absolutely intoxicated. And it wasn’t from champagne. “I want you to lose control.”
A canny light sparked within his eyes. “That isn’t what you want.”
His words sounded an alarm bell in her head, but she had no care for it. “It isn’t?”
“It isn’t.” He pulled her into him and dared her to look away. His manhood pressed against her naked pelvis, dissolving her body into a pool of molten lava. “You want me to fuck you.”
A tremor of shock rocked her.Fuck. A vulgar word, but a word ripe with carnality, too. Alongside the shock coursed a thrill of pure lust.
“Isn’t that the same thing?” she asked breathlessly.
“No. Say it.”
“Say what?” she whispered. The power of the moment seemed to be sliding away from her, and she cared not.
“Say,I want you to fuck me.”
Without consideration for possible consequences, or perhaps because of them, she whispered fiercely, “I want you to fuck me,” before immodestly and wickedly adding, “right now.”
One hand curled around her upper arm, the other released and stole down the tight space between their bodies until it reached the intimate slit of her sex, his eyes refusing to release hers, their breath mingling in the small space between their lips.
His hand hesitated, and she thought she would burst into flame if his fingers didn’t reach their inevitable destination. His irises flared as his fingertips feathered across the sensitive nub of her clitoris, a word she’d learned not too long ago from an anatomy book deemed too indecent for females of all ages.
Her eyes closed on an involuntary gasp. All she was capable of doing in this moment wasfeel. A soft mewl of longing escaped her as his fingertips stroked back and forth, eliciting one crest of pleasure followed by another, the next higher than the last. While one long finger continued stroking her, another slipped inside her, inch by exquisite inch.
His lips moving against her ear, he whispered, “You’re so wet for me.”
Pleasure at his words and the feel of him rippled through her body, yet it wasn’t enough. She wanted . . . needed . . .more. She reached around and cupped his tight buttocks with both hands as she pulled him toward her, his ready manhood grinding into her pelvis. Her hips gave an impatient thrust.
It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough until—
