“Fuck,” he muttered, and his hands shook as he pressed her back to the edge of the high mattress, letting his fingers stroke over her bare skin.
She was only in her stockings now and she looked good enough to devour. He would have to be very careful not to go too fast, but when she said things like that, when she made him picture her mouth and hands on him, it broke some of the thin threads that made up the rope of his control.
“Yes, you’ll touch me. But it won’t be to ready me, Marianne, because I’ve been hard for you for days, weeks.” He caught her hips as he kissed her again, drinking deeply of her taste and the way she surrendered and arched against him. He pulled away and lifted her so she was on the edge of the bed, their faces more even now.
“Your legs will be wide for me, like they were that wonderful night in the orangery,” he continued while he cupped both breasts and massaged them. She whimpered and he continued, loving how she shifted against him. “And you’ll be dripping so when I finally rub my cock against you, it will feel so good for both of us. I’ll slide inside, very gently this time.”
“It will hurt?” she gasped.
He heard both her desire and the touch of fear in her tone. Of course she would be fearful, ladies were often told that this act would not be pleasant. And some men, he would not call them gentlemen, made no attempt to help it be so.
He lowered his mouth to one nipple and began to stroke his tongue across it. He sucked and she turned her mouth into her shoulder to stifle a little cry. How he wished they were at his house instead of her brother’s so he could hear her moan and gasp and cry out at full voice. Like it was an opera of pleasure.
“It might a little, since you’re untried. But if I’ve done my duty, you’ll be very wet to ease the way. I’ll be gentle, even though you’ll be driving me so mad by then that I’ll want to claim you like a wild animal.”
Her gaze jerked to his and he could see how she liked that descriptor. The idea of him losing control and pounding into her, rough and desperate. It was too bad this could only be one very imprudent night, for he’d love to get to the point where he could learn all her likes. Teach her how to unleash her wild. Teach her how to tame his.
He swallowed at that unwanted thought. He’d avoided being tamed for a very long time. He didn’t want that.
“And then what?” she asked, smoothing her hands over his still fully clothed shoulders and chest.
“I thrust into you, over and over. I rotate my hips against you so that you feel the echo of me in your clitoris. And you start to rise in a rhythm no dance master ever taught you but you’ll know by heart. You’ll feel the pleasure bloom between your legs, like it did the night I licked you. And you’ll come and it will ripple around me and drive me to the edge.”
She was trembling and she nodded. “What happens when you reach the edge?”
“I come. Different from you. I won’t spend inside of you, so we won’t create a child. But it will be glorious. It will rock the world from its axis for a few brilliant moments.”
“Sebastian?” she whispered.
He nodded and met those dark brown eyes, losing himself for a moment in the warmth of them. “Yes?”
“I’m so wet already,” she whispered. “I can feel it on my thighs.”
He felt his eyes widen at that unexpected, wicked sentence. Goddamn, but this woman had depths she hid. She was a natural at eroticism and it drove him wild.
“Can you now,” he drawled, pleased he could still utter a sentence when she was saying such things.
“So if you want to skip the first part…”
He laughed as she trailed off and then lowered her back on the bed with her legs hanging off the side. “Oh sweet, the first part is so wonderful. I wouldn’t want to skip a thing.”
And he realized it was true. He didn’t want to miss a moment of this wicked, stolen night with her. He wanted to savor each one just as he savored her body. He knew that he wouldn’t come out of this unchanged, any more than she would. But for the first time in his life, that thought didn’t worry him. It excited him. As did she as he lowered his mouth back to her throat and began a lazy trail down the apex of her body.
She was his tonight. He wasn’t going to rush anything.
Sebastian’s mouth was hot on her bare skin as he trailed it along her collarbone and then between her breasts. Marianne tried to stay in the moment as he paused there and kissed a heated trail to the breast he hadn’t kissed or sucked earlier. She hadn’t known that her body was such an instrument, one that could be played by the right man. That was him, for every time he stroked his fingers over her skin, every time he licked or sucked her, it was like he brought some new part of her to life.
She rose up against his tongue, digging her hands into his thick hair as he sucked her nipple gently, then harder, and sent sparks careening through every nerve of her body. How had she never known she could feel this kind of pleasure? Or was it only accessible with this man, who was so much more experienced than she was? Who knew how to wake her like she was some fairytale princess in a distant tower.
He returned to the other breast, taking his time to tease and torment. What she had said to him earlier, the words that had made his eyes widen and his hands grip tighter at her body, was true. She already felt so wet. If that was what he needed to take her, he had it in spades.
And yet he didn’t rush. His mouth glided lower, across her ribcage, along her belly as he smoothed his hands to her hips. She expected him to duck between her legs like he had before, but instead he nibbled the line of her hip and down her outer thigh. She was writhing by then, covering her mouth just as he’d said she would to keep the moans and gasps of pleasure from being too loud.
He looked up at her with a wicked, knowing smile as he dragged his mouth across the line where her stockings were tied to her thighs. He caught one end of the bow in his teeth and drew back, unknotting the ribbon and loosening the stocking. She sat up on her elbows, unable to stop staring at him with her clothing between his teeth, his hands denting her flesh, his eyes flashing with heated desire.
She had never imagined she could make a man look like that. Most especially not this man. This known lover of women much more interesting than she.
He dropped the ribbon from his teeth and ducked his head to kiss her thigh again. “God, you drive me mad.”
