“Harry…” she whispered.
He shifted, propping himself up higher, so he could reach her more easily, his heavy-lidded gaze locked with hers.
“Tell me what you want…” More insistent this time.
“This.” She would not be coy. “You.”
She should have realized there was danger in being alone with this man, in allowing herself to be close to him. There was a natural conclusion to intimacy, and it had been building with every lingering look.
He was gathering her skirts, slowly revealing the length of her stockings. And when his gaze left hers to watch the hem edge higher and higher, Melanie should have felt exposed.
But seeing his mouth open, watching the tip of his tongue appear, hearing his breaths come just a little more rapidly, left her feeling…
Feminine. Womanly. Beautiful.
Powerful.
As though she was finding pieces of herself she hadn’t even known she’d lost.
Melanie raised one of her knees, and her skirts fell around her hips. At the same time, she sat up a little, resting on her elbows.
She could see the line where her stockings ended, exposing the naked flesh of her thigh—offering this man a view of a very private part of herself.
His fingertips began drawing feathery circles again, this time over her stockings, but also the shimmery skin peeking out of them.
“This?”
“Yes.” She swallowed hard. “You’re… very good at this.”
His hands were strong and sinewy, but also elegant. Melanie’s thighs were soft and smooth. Opposites. Simply, wonderfully, perfectly matched.
But he was shaking his head. “I’m not.” His voice was almost guttural. “I’m not good at all.”
She wanted to contradict him, but couldn’t seem to organize her words. Not when he was…
“Ah… Ahhhh…”
His thumb was moving more deliberately now, and the ache in her core, the sweetest ache imaginable, was throbbing now.
He paused.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, sensing a war within him.
“Please,” she said. She had never, ever been a person who would beg, and yet, in that moment, she was prepared to do just that.
But she didn’t need to, because his mouth was on hers again, and his hand was doing wicked, decadent things between her legs.
“Wet for me.” He breathed the words between breaths. His air was her air. Her body was his.
He devoured her mouth, even as she felt one of his fingers slide deeper between her legs, into her sex, and then out again. Tentative at first, and tender, but then deeper. And the feeling, mimicking his tongue, it was everything, and then—it wasn’t enough.
I was made for this man. I was made for this.
She widened her legs and he shifted closer, and while she nipped at his lip and twisted her head to feel the scraping of his whiskers, the jut of his chin, she delighted in the varying textures of his face.
Harry’s kisses became more deliberate, but also savage. His mouth was hot and demanding, moving from her lips to her ear, her jaw, the base of her throat.
His growls vibrated in the night air.
