Eyes flying to his face, she drew away. But just as she was about to apologize for hurting him, his eyes squeezed shut again, and his hand came up to cover hers and press it insistently back to his battered flesh.
“Doesn’t it pain you?” she asked, anxious.
His throat worked for a moment. “It only hurts when you stop touching me.”
Her heart stumbled in her chest, but then he opened his eyes. And released her. Giving her the choice, once again. All of that iron control, still on display.
Well then. If it was up to her? Her choice? Bess knew precisely what she would choose to do with this man.
She lifted her hands away from his skin, registering the flare of weary resignation in his seafoam eyes for the instant before he realized she’d started unbuttoning his breeches.
Savoring the conflagration of shock and need that slammed into him as she opened his falls, Bess put her hand inside to grasp the satin steel of his straining cock.
It flexed in her grip as though welcoming her touch. Nathaniel ground out a low sound that encouraged her to measure the length and width with curious fingers.
Much bigger than I remember from the last time I handled one of these, Bess thought dizzily. But then, everything about this man was big. Her core tightened in anticipation. Her thighs were damp and trembly beneath her skirts.
“You don’t…” His hands were still fisted at his sides. “You don’t have to do this.”
She shook her head. This again.
Only one way to convince him.
Sinking gracefully to her knees before him, never letting go of her prize until it was angled directly at her moist, open, wanting mouth, Bess whispered, “I know I don’t have to. That must mean…you’re going to have to believe that I want to.”
She put out her tongue and licked him, from root to tip, before opening her lips around the smooth head.
A burst of brine, the stretch of her jaw, the rub of him along her tongue—she barely had a moment to enjoy the sensations of having him in her mouth before his hands curled firmly around her upper arms and lifted her, astonished, to her feet.
His eyes burned down at her, his fingers like ten individual brands on her arms.
“You should not be on your knees for me,” he said hoarsely, as certain as she’d ever heard him. “Not when you’re the one who needs worshipping.”
And he shoved himself back into his breeches and knelt.
Bess blinked and found herself seated on the chair, Nathaniel’s sure grip pulling her forward until she was on the edge of the seat. Her skirts were up around her hips. His hands—his hands were on her thighs, the thin muslin of her drawers no barrier at all.
In the next instant, those dexterous fingers found the seam in her drawers. Bess shook and clutched at the hard wooden seat.
He spread her knees wide around his shoulders, so wide her inner thighs ached. He curled his hands around her hips to tilt her to his mouth.
Bess’s head hit the back of the wooden chair, stars wheeling across her vision at the first slow, implacable stroke of his tongue and all she could think before the pleasure wiped her mind clean of any thought at all, was, I must provoke him into losing control more often…
Chapter Fourteen
Nathaniel had never experienced such torment. No opponent in the ring had ever brought him as close to the breaking point as this small woman and her relentless caring.
He’d promised himself he would let her go, he wouldn’t drag her deeper into the shadow world The Berserker existed in, but he was no match for the pure clarity of her desire.
For some unfathomable reason, she wanted the beast she’d seen unleashed in the fight. And, God forgive him, Nathaniel wanted her, too. Beyond measure, beyond reason.
Beyond honor.
When she touched him, when she looked at him with those warm whiskey eyes. When she smiled at him. What did his honor matter in the face of that?
Here, now, with his hands full of the soft roundness of Bess’s hips and his lungs full of the miracle of her scent, the taste of her secret flesh salty sweet on his tongue, Nathaniel knew he would willingly sacrifice his honor at the altar of her desire.
He nuzzled the crisp, damp curls that guarded her entrance. He kissed her there, the slick silk of her folds unfurling beneath the delicate, searching swipe of his tongue. Above him, all around him, she shuddered and gasped and quivered, and the feeling that had eluded him downstairs enveloped him in a heated embrace.
