“And big and strong.” Her voice was husky. Her softened grey gaze traveled up and down his frame. “And beautiful. How the devil was I to resist you? How could you think I could?”
“I didn’t realize you were so shallow.” He climbed onto the bed and straddled her legs.
“I suppose it’s just as well,” she said. “Otherwise…” She slid her hand up his thigh. “Oh, Dain, if you had guessed what was going through my mind when I met you…”
Gently but firmly he removed her hand and set it upon the mattress. “Tell me.”
“In my mind, I took off all your clothes. I couldn’t help it. It was a dreadful few moments. I was terrified my reason would snap, and I’d actually do it. There, in the shop. In front of Champtois. In front of Bertie.”
“You took off my clothes,” he said. “In your mind.”
“Yes. Ripped them off, actually. As I did a short while ago.”
He bent over her. “Do you want to know what went through my mind,cara?”
“Something equally depraved, I hope.” She stroked his chest. Again he took her hand away.
“I wanted…to…lick you,” he said slowly. “From the top of your head…to the tips of your toes.”
She shut her eyes. “Depraved, yes.”
“I wanted to lick you and kiss you and touch you…everywhere.” He kissed her forehead. “Everywhere it’s white. Everywhere it’s pink. Everywhere else.”
He trailed his tongue over one sleek eyebrow. “That’s what I’m going to do now. And you must lie there. And take it.”
“Yes.” One sibilant sound of acquiescence and a shiver—of pleasure, apparently, because her soft, ripe mouth curled upward.
He brushed his lips over that small, cat-in-the-cream-pot smile, and said no more, but gave himself up to realizing his fantasy.
The reality, he found, was sweeter, and the taste and scent of her more intoxicating by far, than the dream.
He kissed her nose and savored the satin of her cheek. He inhaled her and tasted her and discovered her all at once, all over again: the perfect oval of her face, the slant of her cheekbones, the skin so fine and flawless that he’d wanted to weep when first he beheld her.
Perfection, he’d thought then, and it had nearly broken his heart, because he couldn’t have her.
But he could, for now at least. He could touch his lips to that perfection…the heartbreaking face…the tantalizingly dainty ear…the smooth column of her neck.
He remembered how he’d stood in the shadows and hungered for the white skin exposed in the lamplight. He trailed his parted lips down over the snowy shoulder he’d gazed at from his hiding place, and down her right arm to her fingertips and back up again. He made the same lingeringly possessive path up and down her left arm. Her fingers curled and her breath came in sweet little sighs that murmured in his veins and made his heart thrum like a violincello.
He lavished kisses over her firm, round breasts, rising and falling with her quickened breathing. He trailed his tongue over the taut, blushing nipples and savored her tiny moans briefly, then made himself move on, because there was more, and he would take nothing for granted. He’d experience it all, because the world could end tomorrow, for all he knew, and Hell open up and swallow him.
He continued downward, washing kisses over her smooth belly and the luscious curve of her hips…down the outside of her slender, shapely leg, to the slim ankle and on to the tips of her toes, as he’d promised. Then slowly he worked his way up again to her satiny inner thigh.
She was trembling now, and his loins were heavy and hot and more than ready.
But he wasn’t done, and only the present could be trusted. This moment might be all he had. And so again he kissed and savored, all the way to her toes and back.
Then he trailed his tongue over the velvety skin just above the dark nest of curls between her legs.
“You’re beautiful, Jess,” he said thickly. “Every inch of you.” He slid his fingers into the damp, dusky curls.
She moaned.
He brought his mouth to the warm, moist core.
She gave a low cry, and her fingers caught in his hair.
The feminine cry of pleasure sang in his veins. The rich scent and taste of Woman flooded his senses. She was all he wanted in the world, and she was his, wanting him, slick and hot for him.
