She planted her hands flat on the warm slabs of his chest and curled her fingers around his shoulders to pull herself up. She had to taste that strong, corded neck, and it was warm and soft and she felt him groaning deep in his throat as she nibbled along the tendons there. When she closed her teeth over him, giving a sharp nip, he shuddered, his arm tightening around her.
“Maia,” he murmured. “Take care.”
She shook her head in the warmth of his neck, smelling his particular smell, now fresh with bergamot. “You won’t hurt me.”
He gave a short laugh, and she shifted, realizing she was now pressed against him all the full length of their torsos and legs. She could feel the outline of his powerful thighs, fairly twice as thick as her own, her skirt and shift tangled in with them and the hard rise from behind the buttons of his trousers. The very feel of it made her belly ache and her center tingle with sharp pleasure.
Before she could slide her hand down over the gentle ripples of his stomach, he moved, easing all along the length of her until his knees were on the floor. Before she could sit up, he had his hands up and under her skirt, sliding the layers up and baring her legs. When he bent to kiss the inside of her thigh, Maia felt uncontrollable shivers starting up along her.
What if he bit her…there?
His tongue danced sleek and strong along the sensitive skin inside her leg, and Maia watched his dark head moving against her ivory thigh. She caught a glimpse of his teeth, white and sharp, against her flesh, her breathing coming faster and harder as he inched up higher. The flash of a fang had her veins surging and pounding, and when he spread her legs, burying his face down in the heat of her there, Maia nearly arched off the sofa.
His fingers were clever and gentle, baring that most sensitive, most private part of her, and somewhere in the back of her mind, Maia realized she shouldn’t be doing this. Not her, not Miss Woodmore, not the woman who was going to marry someone…else…
But she didn’t care. This was it, this washim,this was what she wanted…and his mouth was hot and fervent, and she quivered, swollen and wet, and when his tongue slid over her quim, she knew she couldn’t stop this. She didn’t want to, especially when he did something that made her insides gather up and explode into deep, trembling waves.
Nothing…she’d never felt anything like that before.
“Oh…” she whispered, her hand closing over his head, still settled between her legs, her fingers buried in his warm hair. But she knew there was more, and she wanted it.
“Please,” she murmured as she’d done before, not knowing precisely what she wanted or needed, but knowing that he—only he—could give it to her.
He shook his head against her, down by her knee, giving her a quick slip of tongue in the curve there.
“More,” she whispered.
“No.” His breath and lips were hot against her. “Don’t be a fool.” He slipped his tongue down around in the heat of her and she gave a little squeak of pleasure, a shot of fire rippling through her. “You can’t,” he said.
“Yes…please.I want…all of it.”
And when, suddenly, he pulled away, his face hot and eyes burning, she almost wailed in distress. She throbbed, ready again for more. For the rest of it.
But then he was tearing at the buttons on the fall of his trousers, and she was helping him, and he gave a short, sharp shake of his head as he muttered, “Always interfering, Miss Woodmore,” and then he was there, against her again, this time his bare chest warm, printing on her skin.
She didn’t see him, that hard bulge she’d felt earlier, and for a moment, she was bereft, feeling lost…but then his fingers moved between them, and found the very hard, tight core of her being, and before she knew it, they’d slipped and slid around so that she was even more full and hot and throbbing, and then he paused.
“Maia,” he breathed, withdrawing his hand. She knew it was a question. “This is?—”
“No,” she said, shifting against him, in distress. “Please.”
He made a soft, strangled sound, and the next thing she knew, he shifted and fitted himself to her. Maia sighed: this was it.Yes.
Then he moved and she felt a snap of pain deep inside. Maia froze for a moment, her eyes opening, the pleasure filtering away…but before she could think, he began to move. And her mouth gaped, her body heated, and everything in her world became focused on the sleek slide, in and out. It was long and beautiful, this feeling ofright,the tingle of desire centering there between them.
He muttered something deep and low near her ear, but she couldn’t understand. She didn’t care. There was the heat and the rhythm and the growing blossoming, and she cried out when he sank his teeth into her shoulder, her body seeming to explode deep inside.
Pleasure undulated through her in little echoing ripples as he groaned against her skin, his body hot and damp. And then he moved one last time, hard and deep, with a soft cry of exertion. He pulled his face away, burying his forehead into her neck, the scent of blood in her nose as he shuddered his release.
16
OF APOLOGIES AND RECOMPENSE AND INFLATED DOWRIES
No sooner did the blaze of pleasure and fulfillment begin to fade than a cold, hard stone settled in Dimitri’s middle.
By Fate, what have I done?
A chill washed over him and he drew in a deep breath, his mind shooting off in many different directions.
