“Please,” she murmured against his lips.
Near them, Ezra made a soft sound in his throat and Oliver glanced toward him. Ezra was still sketching, but his pupils were widely dilated and his arousal was clear and almost as tempting as Anna’s.
“Please,” she repeated, tugging on Oliver’s jacket and returning his full attention to her. Her gaze was lifted to his, beseeching. He nodded slowly and then he unfastened the buttons along the front of her gown. As he loosened them, he revealed more and more of the silk chemise beneath. It had lace at the top, which outlined her breasts. God, her breasts. So perfect, like they had been sized to fit his palms. He slid his hands past the fabric of her gown to test that theory.
She gasped and rubbed herself against his hands. Her nipples were hard and got harder. He was nearly washed away by it all, but he carefully centered himself and slid her gown to pool at her feet.
She was wearing just that chemise now and pretty stitched stockings. He leaned back to look at her, drinking her in, memorizing every gorgeous curve and hollow of her full figure. She was glorious. His every dream and fantasy come to life.
“Touch me, Oliver,” she whimpered, grasping his hand and returning it to her breast. He stroked her nipple through the lace with his thumb, and she trembled. When he bent his head and sucked her through the fabric, she cried out and her head fell back. Her fingers came into his hair, holding him against her. He sucked harder, swirling around the tip through the lace, and she ground against him.
He continued to suck her, one nipple, then the other, even as he looped his fingers beneath the straps of her chemise. He moved away and slid the fabric down, leaving her naked but for the stockings. He stared at her. Her nipples were a dark rose, almost brown, and they were puckered with pleasure.
Next to them, Ezra gasped softly. Oliver looked at him again. He’d stood and his trembling hand hesitated over the sketchpad he still held. He was clearly enraptured by Anna—he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. And Oliver was jealous. He recognized that feeling in his chest. He’d certainly felt it before when it came to the late duke, who got to have Anna’s company any time he desired it and yet squandered that gift.
But he also felt something else as he watched Ezra fall under Anna’s spell just as he had. Oliver felt excited. He gently turned her, giving the other man a better view of her. Of them. Then he brushed his cheek against her now bare breast.
She gripped at his shoulders at the rasp of his beard against the sensitive flesh, and he smiled. God, how he loved to please her. He would do it all his life if he could. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t afford to forget that, either. This was a beautiful little stolen moment, nothing more. It would never be more.
He pushed all those thoughts aside and returned his focus to her body. He glided his fingers down her sides, across the softness of her curves. Just as he had that long ago night when he pleasured her in the dark, he memorized every line of her. And now he added the look of her, too. The way she panted, the way she shifted, the gorgeous glow of her skin, the fact that she had a dark pink splotch of a birthmark along her ribcage.
He began to kiss along the under curve of her breasts and down along her side. He traced the line of her, lightly nibbling and sucking as he went to his knees at her feet. When he looked up at her, her eyes were wide and wild.
“What is it?” he asked, even as he brushed his fingers across her hip.
“I want you inside of me,” she whispered, whimpered. “Not just your tongue.”
He stared at her, this amazing woman who was begging for him, and he felt such a swell of possessive desire that he could have put her on her back on that settee and drilled into her in a heartbeat. But he tempered it, carefully and smiled up at her instead.
“I promise you, I want to be inside of you. But I’ve been dreaming of your taste for a very long time. I want that on my tongue again.”
“Yes,” Ezra breathed, and the scratch of his pencil increased.
Every reminder that he was witness to this moment was more and more exciting to Oliver. And he could tell by the way that Anna looked at him, it was for her, as well. Oliver pushed her legs wider. She balanced against his shoulders, as she had done that night in the hallway, tilting her hips to give him better access to her pussy.
He slid his hands up her thighs, over the garters tied neatly there. She murmured his name. She shouted it when he spread her lips and revealed the wet shine of her entrance.
“Goddamn it,” Oliver muttered before he leaned up and licked her.
She tasted the same. Earthy and sweet, salty and fresh. He cupped her backside and buried his face between her legs, licking and sucking her over and over as she gripped his hair and ground against him in building pleasure. He looked up her writhing body, reveling in her flushed cheeks, her panting breaths, the thin sheen of sweat that broke out on her brow. She was so damned close and he wanted to feel her release flood his tongue like it had all those months ago.
When it happened, it was spectacular. Even better than his most vivid memories of that moment. She cried out, her body flexing against him, out of control and wild. She tugged his hair, she smashed her body into his and her knees buckled so that he had to support her with his hands to keep her upright.
Only when the flutters of her body subsided did he rise back to his feet. She cupped his cheeks instantly and kissed him, licking her essence from his lips even as her hands fumbled at his jacket.
“Slow,” he groaned, because he feared if they moved too quickly he would lose all semblance of control.
She broke the kiss and shook her head. “No. I don’t want you to leave again.”
There was something in the way she said those words. Some pain hidden behind the arousal. He glanced back and saw that Ezra had stopped sketching. His brows were lifted. He’d heard it too.
Oliver caught her hands and lifted them to his lips. “I’m not going anywhere, Anna. Not tonight. I promise.”
Her desperation faded a fraction and she drew a deep breath. “Good. But I still want to see you. All of you. Please.”
The addedpleasewas what hit him in the gut. Said so damned sweetly even though her voice was rougher with desire.
He nodded and unbuttoned the jacket. He tossed it behind himself and went to work unbuttoning his shirt. He tugged it over his head and heard both Ezra and Anna take sharp breaths. She was staring at him, her eyes wide. She extended a soft hand and laid it against his bare chest and his heart almost stopped. She let her hand slide down, across his stomach, around to his side. It was almost as if she had no idea how much her touch moved him.
