At last, his fingers trailed down the ridge of her spine, making quick work of the fastening of her dress, the knot of her corsetry, pushing dress, corset, and chemise off her shoulders, every article of clothing above her thighs falling to a pool at her feet.
She pivoted to face him, gratification streaking through her as he took her in, the curves of her thighs, her waist, her breasts, upturned nipples hard as cherries, her sex beneath its dark mound of curls, hot and liquid and wanton.
“I want . . .” she trailed.
If possible, his eyes went darker. “What do you want, Isabel?”
“I want your touch.”
“Want it? Or do youneedit?” He closed all distance between them. “Do youcraveit? Do youhungerfor it?”
The breath caught in her chest on a sharp inhalation. “Yes,” she exhaled.
He reached out and grabbed her hips, pressing their bodies together, his shaft thick and hard against her belly. He slanted his head, and his mouth whispered against her ear. “Will youdiewithout it?”
“I shall perish into dust,” she returned, certain of its truth. She liked the way he spoke her past words back to her. He wanted, needed, craved, hungered forher.
His mouth never left her, his breath sending goose bumps racing across her skin, as he kissed her from ear, across jaw, until,oh, at last, his lips found hers, their hard press imbued with the longing, desire, and ache of all they’d experienced together, of all they knew of each other, and of all they had yet to learn.
Her tongue tangled with his, and like the breaking of a dam, of a sudden, time went fast. Her hands found his shoulders, and his clutched her waist as he swiveled them around and fell onto the bed. His boots clattered to the floor. He grabbed both her wrists with one hand, stretching them above her head, and propped onto his elbow with the other, his body poised beside her, his cock hard, ready.
They drank each other in, the moment carnal, yet vulnerable,exposed.
Urgently, she wanted him, but slowly, too. She recognized the same feeling in his eyes. They had to take what they could of each other now, for this moment was fleeting. They would never have another like it. This was what their eyes told each other.
The moment could tip into the purely carnal—oh, how it wanted to—for so strong was the bond between them. But so, too, did another bond connect them, one of an emotion neither dared speak. It deepened,heightened, the carnality. It transformed the physical into the soulful.
Still, the physical . . .
Her body wanted more of it.
Her back arched, impatient, the motion thrusting her breasts up, taking the moment where she needed it. The intensity within his eyes cut through to some deep, dark part of her. He rolled onto her with quick efficiency, his face inches from hers, his manhood pressing against her quim.
His knee nudged her thigh. “Spread for me.”
Her legs went wide, hips tilted, eager to take him in. With a long, slow thrust, he entered her. A breathless, “Oh,” escaped her parted lips before his head bent and his lips took hers in a kiss that stole all the rest of her breath away. Deeper, he pushed inside her, taking her groan into his mouth.
His hand was tempered steel around her wrists, holding them fast above her head, as he thrust in and out of her, slowly, deliberately, exquisitely in control. Her hips gave a wild, impatient buck—why wouldn’t the man just . . . just . . . give hermore—and humor shone in his eyes.
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” she said, without hesitation, with an absoluteness that she wouldn’t think about now.
He must have seen it in her eyes, for serious intent replaced amusement. His face angled into her neck, his thrusts became more intentional, more focused, his control, exacting. His hips rearing back, her body opening wider to him. His hips thrusting forward, her head arcing as he filled her. His ridged stomach tensed, a trickle of sweat running down his neck, down his chest, his body fully concentrated on the task of delivering pleasure to hers, stroke by measured stroke.
How it taunted and teased, just out of reach. “Let me touch you,” she begged. “I need to feel you.”
He released her wrists, and her hands went not to his glorious body delivering relentless pleasure with every thrust, but to his face, cupping either side. In his eyes, she found not only lust, but also that emotion neither of them dared name.
“Use up all your wickedness on me,” she whispered into the space between their mouths.
He increased the rhythm of his hips, and she met him stroke for stroke, as her body joined his in the headlong tumble toward release. As one, their bodies tensed and stilled for an exquisite beat of time that held them suspended outside its narrow confines. Out here, the two of them, stretched infinity. Release broke upon them and carried them to this place only they knew. The blaze of their skin, the rasp of their breath, the slam of their hearts, one.
Oh, that she could be one with him until time had no more use for either of them.
But time had no care for her wants. It beat on. And the heat of their bodies cooled. And the pounding of their hearts slowed. And he rolled off her, to the side so that still he touched her, but the solid weight of him was gone.
She ached for the loss, not for his body—although that was part of it, undeniably—but forhim. Although, they still touched, he was lost to her.
