“You’re so perfect, so lovely, and you taste so bloody good,” Rhys praised, caressing her hips and dropping a wet kiss on her inner thigh.
He was still planted between her legs, as if she were an altar at which he worshipped. She felt like a pagan goddess, on displayand ready to collect her due. She felt powerful. Desirable. She felt things she had never dreamed she could feel.
“Rhys,” she murmured, reaching for him, a curious and uncontrollable jolt of tenderness surging through her, more profound somehow, than mere desire.
Her fingertips drifted over his shoulders, then his arms as she instinctively sought to draw him over her, wanting his body on hers, aligned with hers. Wanting him inside her.
“Darling.” He trailed reverent kisses over her belly, his storm-tossed eyes burning into hers so potently that she could not look away.
His shoulders were broad and strong, his clavicle a prominent ridge above a muscled chest. Fine, golden hairs stippled skin that was a shade lighter than his sun-kissed hands, face, and throat. But she was fascinated to realize he was not nearly as pale beneath his clothes as she might have expected, suggesting that he had spent some time out of doors bereft of a shirt.
What had he been doing? There was so much she didn’t know about him at all, and yet they were naked in his bed, and his mouth had been on her most intimate place. Indeed, his lips were glistening still as he trailed kisses along the underside of her breast before taking the peak into his mouth.
At the hot, wet suction, an answering ache renewed deep within her. Further ruminations died a swift little death, supplanted by the need to feel. Her fingers threaded through his thick hair, the strands silken and cool. His touch dipped between her legs, and her back bowed from the bed.
He strummed lazily over her already sensitized bud as he sucked her nipple at the same time. She was thoroughly soaked, the wet sounds of him stroking up and down her heated flesh almost obscene. And somehow, it made her even wetter. Rhys moved to her left breast, cupping the right in his big hand, histhumb working over the slick point of her nipple as he licked a lazy circle around the tip of the left. Her nails dug into the firm, smooth skin of his shoulder, and she writhed beneath him, wrapping a leg around his hip.
Another sound stole from her, husky and wanting.
He mouthed the peak of her breast, his tongue flicking over her. “Sweet Miranda. Tell me what you want. What you need.”
“You,” she managed, the urgency building, growing.
She felt as if she were a different person. Congress with Ammondale had been an unpleasant, pleasureless duty. But now she understood the sentiments in the bawdy books she had secretly read in private, the feverish yearnings she had so sternly repressed for so many years. Now, she wanted her body to be joined with this man’s in the oldest and most primitive sense.
Rhys kissed his way to her throat, burying his face there as he nipped her with his teeth and teased her pearl. “How do you need me?”
His voice was a tantalizing whisper against her skin, making her shiver, making her stir restlessly against him, her hips chasing his touch.
She wetted her lips. “I need you inside me.”
She wanted him more than she wanted her next breath. Wanted the reassuring weight of him atop her, the brand of his bare skin on hers, the fullness of his cock entering her.
Rhys strung a line of kisses along her jaw, and then his mouth was on hers, firm and possessive and insistent as he fed her the taste of herself. He deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers, as he settled himself more firmly between her thighs. She moaned as he slicked the blunt head of his cock up and down her seam, before notching himself at her entrance.
He broke the kiss, propping himself up on a lone forearm as his gaze seared hers. “Are you ready for me, darling?”
No, she wasn’t, and yes, she was, all at once. It was tonight or never. Here was her chance to seize what she wanted, even though it would have to be fleeting. Tonight and never again. No one need ever know but the two of them.
“Yes,” she told him, bringing his lips back down to hers and kissing him with all the desire raging inside her.
With a hum of approval, he slanted his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss. His movements between their bodies were hasty, almost jerky. Decidedly lacking in the smooth elegance he ordinarily displayed, and she savored the evidence that he, the experienced rakehell, was every bit as affected as she was.
The blunt tip of his cock pressed, seeking. She tensed, preparing herself for what would come. He seemed to sense her reticence, breaking the kiss to murmur reassuring words to her. Soft words. Sweet words.
He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Relax for me, darling. Let me in.”
She inhaled slowly, the scent of him, masculine and decadent, flooding her senses, her hard nipples grazing his chest. Yes, she thought, reminding herself it was Rhys lying atop her, Rhys who was about to make love to her, the man who had so thoroughly pleasured her beforehand that she had briefly lost all ability to think, move, or speak. It was Rhys, a man she desired, a man who didn’t disdain and resent her. A man who wanted her every bit as much as she wanted him. And she relaxed, the tension draining from her body as she waited.
His touch returned to her sex, slicking over her sensitive bud, and he eased forward, gliding into her as if he had been fashioned specifically for her, as if their two bodies had always been meant to join as one. Another thrust, and he filled her, and she gasped at the surprising rightness of it, at the feeling of her stretched around him, his cock buried within her.
But…
Oh, heavens.
That wasn’t all. He moved again, deeper still.
She gasped as sensation washed over her, her inner walls clenching on him in welcome, and he lowered his forehead to hers, his ragged breath ghosting over her mouth.
