And I reached for it anyway.
I let go of Desmond’s tunic and slid my hands over his chest, my fingers finding familiar comfort in smooth planes and hard angles I had no memory of ever touching, until my hands slid behind his neck and locked there, anchoring my body to his.
Desmond groaned and turned us toward the empty workstation on my right. He lifted me onto the countertop, where I yipped from the cold seeping through my skirt.
He caught the sound. He devoured it, his hands trailing up my bodice, now that I sat higher. Now that his hands were both free.
I moaned when his mouth trailed from my lips toward my jaw, then down my neck. I leaned back on the table, my neck arched, and his left hand slid behind my head, fingers plunging into my hair, loosening my coiffure as he cradled my scalp.
My breathing felt ragged, every sensation heightened, as if one of Wilder’s elixirs had left my skin sensitive and my nerve endings ablaze. But there were no chemicals at work here. There was only Desmond.
And instinct.
“Why, in the name ofutteranarchy, do you taste so good?” he murmured against my skin as he worked his way back up my throat toward my mouth. We kissed again, hands wandering, desperate, as I tugged his tunic up over his waistband.
He moaned as I ran my hands over his chest, beneath the material. Greedy, I pulled him closer, even as I nibbled again at his lips, hungry for something I could hardly even name. My hands slid around his back, then down, until my fingers dug beneath the waist of his pants.
Desmond pulled away, imposing a cold gap between us, staring down at me with his lips swollen and his gorgeous copper-brown eyes dilated. Breathing hard. Powerful muscles bunching beneath my hands as he resisted the same tension—the sameneed—driving me. “Do you want this?”
I nodded as my gaze trailed toward his chest, then lower.
“Amber.” He took my chin in his left hand and drew my gaze back to him. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “Assuredly, yes.”
The truth was that I wasn’t even sure what I was asking for. Certainly Iknew, in theory. I also knew that I’d likely already done this. Though I could not remember it, the feeling was an instinct housed deep in my flesh.
In the moment,thatseemed the real tragedy of my lost memory, alchemical theory be damned. I’d forgotten more than just schooling. I’d forgotten my own experiences. Mylife.
With a vast carnal ache driving me toward a culmination I could not remember ever having reached, all I really understood was that I wanted more. I wanted to keep touching him. I wanted him to touchme. I wanted to kiss him, and taste him, and I wanted the conclusion to this throbbing that pulsed within me, in scandalous places.
“Yes.” I said it firmly, holding his gaze.
He made that sound again, that hungry growl deep in his throat, and this time it tugged at something low and sensitive in my own body. It made me crave things I lacked the vocabulary to express and the boldness to demand, and…
Desmond lifted me from the counter and set me on my feet, leaning down so he could kiss me again, long, and hard, and deep. Then he stood, pulling away from my mouth. Leaving me panting. Urgently sucking in more oxygen to feed the flames. He met my gaze, his burning with passion like I’d never seen from him. Like I’d never imagined could exist in Desmond Gregory, with his stoic scowl, censuring gazes, and the intimidating breadth of his shoulders.
An ache throbbed between my legs, and my feet moved with an understanding—aninstinct—my mind lacked.
I turned, my heart racing, and bent over the workstation, a bit in awe of my own bold invitation.
Desmond groaned. His hand caressed my lower spine, and suddenly I felt the warmth of him against the back of my thighs. Lifting my skirt.
My pulse roared in my ears.
My legs felt chilled, exposed so suddenly to the air, but then Desmond’s very proximity gently warmed me, as if his flesh glowed like banked coals through his own clothing. His hands felt scalding as they slid my linen undergarment down, letting the thin material pool at my feet.
I stepped out of the garment, gasping as his hot hand caressed my backside, then dipped between my thighs. He stroked my most sensitive parts slowly, gently, and my thoughts scattered like leaves tossed by a fierce breeze. The maelstrom refused to settle, each thought seized from my attention before I could interpret it, leaving me with only fleeting, primal impressions, entirely subjugated by an explosion of sensation far too intense to be sorted.
What I felt could not be understood. It could not be analyzed.
It could only be experienced.
“Close your eyes,” Desmond ordered in a fierce whisper, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.
I obeyed, and my entire existence narrowed to what I could feel.
The cold, smooth table leeching warmth from me through the front of my frock, cooling my overheated cheek. The hard, straight edge of the work surface, cutting into my palms as I grasped it, anchoring myself to this last semblance of the real world as everything else churned around me, a seething storm of sensation.
