To please him.
She remembered watching him fight once, in the yard, surrounded by his friends and the men who would one day serve him. His tall, muscular body had glistened in the sun as he and Rurik’s son took down all the others. Now she wanted to caress his skin to see how it felt under her hands.
Reaching for the ties on his long shirt, she tugged them loose and leaned up to pull it over his head. Cat gasped as her breasts slid along his skin as she pushed it up his arms and off. Though he did not resist, he did not help much either, forcing her to move closer to him to do it. Tossing the shirt aside, she sat back and tried to decide where to touch first.
The dark curls on his chest that trailed in a narrowing path from his neck down to his manhood beckoned her hand, so she began there. She ran the back of her hand across his chest, swirling in the curls, and discovered that touching his nipples drew out a gasp from him. Empowered by such a reaction, she grazed her fingers over them, watching as his eyes darkened and his mouth opened. He’d put his mouth on hers and caused a fiery heat to burn throughout her body—could she cause the same to him?
Leaning forward, she kissed the side of his neck and then she kissed one of his nipples. He shuddered under her. Doing it again brought another shudder. When she tried to suckle on it as he had hers, his body bucked beneath her. Cat liked the way it felt, to be the one causing him to respond with her touch.
She caressed his chest, running her fingers over the curls and tracing them down, down, down until she reached his belt. Without looking at him, she unbuckled it and then tugged on the laces of his trews.
He stopped breathing then. Aidan closed his eyes and leaned his head against the board behind him, giving her leave to do as she willed to him. So, she loosened the leather laces and spread the fabric apart to take him in her hand.
Smooth, like a rich fabric she’d felt once, and hard, his flesh rose against her palm, the skin drawing back to expose the tip of it. A bead of moisture appeared at the tip and she rubbed her thumb across, causing the flesh to surge against her hand. Aidan’s breathing stopped and his body tensed under her. Cat slid one hand down the length of his manhood and touched the rest of him there.
‘Cat,’ he growled through tightly clenched jaws. ‘You are killing me!’ The guttural tone caused vibrations to echo into her, deep inside of her, and her body began to tighten at the sound of it. When she glanced up, her hands still encircling him most intimately, the desire glowed in his eyes.
‘Should I cease?’ she asked, not knowing if this was pleasure or pain for him.
‘Nay,’ he shouted aloud. Then he smiled at her. ‘Nay.’ A bit softer then, but still thick with his need.
She was teasing a caged animal and she knew it. His control would break and it would be her doing. That should have terrified her and yet it did not. Somehow she knew she was safe in his arms. At least her body was. A man like this could be dangerous to a woman’s heart.
He raised his hands and covered hers then, guiding her into a pattern of caressing the length and then around the width of his flesh. His breathing grew louder and raw, his jaw still clenched and his body tensed beneath her. In her grasp, he hardened and she knew his release was nigh.
‘Cease,’ he whispered, lifting his and her hands off his flesh then. Leaning back on her heels, she knew he wanted to finish within her body.
But could she?
‘You have that look in your eyes again, Cat.’ He shifted and lifted her off his legs then. Sliding from the bed, he stood and pushed his trews down and off. ‘I do not want that look to be between us.’
He stood before her then, bathed in the fire’s light, exposing himself to her and letting her just gaze on him. Unashamed. Unabashedly male. Hard everywhere, strong muscles that tensed as he moved towards the bed. His manhood rose from the curls at its base, inviting her touch once more.
‘That is the look I wish to see in your eyes,’ he said.
‘What do you see?’
‘You look hungry and curious at the same time,’ he said on a laugh. ‘Your tongue keeps peeking out of the corner of your mouth as though you would...’ His words became strangled then, as she did what he was describing.
‘Taste it?’ she finished.
His flesh pulsed then, his body tensed and hers answered with the same. She reached out, but he stopped her questing hands.
‘Not this time.’ He shook his head and reached for her now.
Pulling her on to her knees, he grabbed hold of her shift and pulled it over her head. Tossing it aside, he climbed back on the bed and knelt before her. After only a moment’s delay, he tugged her towards him and embraced her. The heat of his skin shocked her as their bodies touched.
‘Do not think, Cat. Just feel what I do to you,’ he whispered as he tilted his head and touched his mouth to hers. Her body understood and reacted to his promise now.
She let go and let him do as he would then, her body a thing unknown to her as it blossomed under his touch. Whether hands or mouth and skin, it mattered not for he used every part of him to bring the need within her to life, to stoke it like the fire and to promise to vanquish it before she burned up from it.
As the first moments of release began, he moved between her legs and drew them up around his hips. Instead of fear, she felt need. The need for him to fill her emptiness, to take her over the edge to mindless pleasure.
And he did.
His flesh slid into her, the moisture of her body easing its path. He lay over her, his face intense from his own building arousal, as he moved deeper and deeper within her flesh. Ever did he watch her, waiting for some sign he needed to stop, she supposed. Then all thoughts evaporated as he took her to the edge of release over and over before letting them, nay, pushing them to, both crash over it.
He toppled on her and then rolled them both to their sides, never letting her go. They lay in the silence, not speaking, as she listened to the pace of their breathing. A while passed as their bodies calmed and his flesh withdrew from her. But she would never lose the sense of awe or forget what he’d wrought within her during this joining.
