“You will go back to society, and things will change, but tonight…tonight is yours.” He rubbed one hand along her cheek, capturing the movement as she leaned into him. He abruptly snatched his hand away as if burned. “Do you see? It is hard for me. Second nature to try and take control. Take it away.” He moved beneath her. “Free me.”
Love me.
She reached for him, her hand heavy and shaking. Everything culminating in this one moment.
Chapter 20
Gabriel watched her eyes as she reached for him. Wondered what she was going to do. Her long fingers moved over his body, flattening and pulling over the ridges of his stomach, the planes of his chest. Touching the hair at his ankles and moving up farther behind his knees, to his thighs. She paused for a moment, then her fingers curled around him, already alive with interest.
She moved her hand and fingers over the surface, eyes narrowed as she concentrated, her eyes darting to his stomach briefly before connecting back with his.
“Does this feel good?”
“Yes.” Her fingers were smooth, a little too gentle, but that was to be expected. Better gentle than rough at the start.
Determined eyes held his.
“You don’t have to do anything, you—”
Her tongue touched the head of him. He nearly shot off the bed at the sensation.
Sure, bravery was one of her dominating traits, but most women he had been with had eschewed this particular act, and it hadn’t upset him. It was too open. His face too easy to read. Entirely out of his control. He had never even come close to orgasm.
Marietta grew more intrepid and began to investigate all parts of him. He looked at the top of her head fondly. Even if he hadn’t known that she’d never done this before, it would have been obvious from her first tentative motions. It was the thought that counted though, that she would—
Holy—
Her lips slipped around the head of him, her tongue grazing the sensitive spot underneath. An accident, no doubt, her finding that spot. His stomach rose and fell in a higher arc than before. He tried to keep his breathing steady. She paused for a moment, and eyes peered up at him through a haze of hair shaded with gold in the lamplight. The sight of her like that, wanton and beautiful, was enough to tickle that coil of interest that usually stayed dormant under these types of ministrations. But it was Marietta herself who caused the coil to appear. It wasn’t—
Holy—
The second time wasnotan accident. The touch of her tongue pressing against him, tentative yet strong, was entirely a question. His damn body responded with another spike of breath. She did it a third time, a stronger press, more confident, and when he breathed in audibly, she concentrated more fully on those spots she was touching.
His resolve, his control, started to dribble right out of his ears, pushed out by all of the blood draining downward. She seemed to be cataloging each spot and its reaction, then systematically combining movements and finding new ones. Yet always basing subsequent actions on his reactions, onhim.
That’s what had been missing in every previous encounter. Every other woman quite content to let him fulfill all her desires, but none of themtrulywanting to fulfill his. To learn what exactly made him jump and shift and groan.
Mariettaknewhim, knew enough to gauge his reactions, and gave every indication that she wanted to know more.
Something foreign hissed from his mouth as she took all of him into her mouth and her tongue pulled along the length of him, up, up, pressing into the top, lips caressing.
Her name was a silent litany in his head. And in about thirty seconds it was a verbal litany from his lips.
She picked up her pace, a combination of untried maneuvers and those with which she had already found success. And the sight of her…dear God…
He couldn’t stop from pushing into the pillow, couldn’t stop the groan from passing his lips, the harsh breaths as his body spiraled from his gut up toward his tip. His arm went over his face, to block his expression, to stifle his cry. Lips popped from around him, the movement nearly ending the battle. His arm was suddenly batted away.
“Stop that.”
His eyes snapped open. “What?” He stared at her, uncomprehending, breathing as if he’d just run the length of the Thames.
“I want to see you.”
He could do nothing but stare.
Teeth nibbled her lower lip and she leaned one hand on the coverlet. “What you look like when you—” She moved her free hand in a circular motion, teeth worrying a soft track across the glossy surface of her lip.
He flashed a grin, his body simmering back to a controllable state. “When I what?”
