“A range of complicated emotions,” he replied, a little softer. “Not all of them polite.”
She flushed a little, her lashes flickering, and kicked off her dark-blue slippers, climbing further into the bed and letting him watch as she stretched out onto the pillows, her orange-and-gold skirts splayed out around her as she gazed up at the ceiling, languishing and stretching like a cat. “Ah,” she said. “I am so very ready to retire today. Are you?”
“Yes,” he said, not moving a muscle, save to watch all the delicious, little ways she moved as she settled into repose. “Retire from everyone’s company but yours.”
“Do you want to go to the master suite?” she asked, giving him a knowing little smirk. “Or do you like seeing me here, in this bed?”
“I like seeing you here very much,” he confessed, reaching out to stroke the silky line of her ankle through its stocking. “I think this is the part that would confuse young Elias the most because whether he liked it or not, he pictured it many, many times.”
“Ah, yes,” she said softly, letting him push her skirt higher, his fingers tracing over the curve of her calf under the silk, thedelicate little crux behind her knee. “You had an awakening, you said.”
“I did,” he confirmed, licking his lips as he pulled the ribbon free at the garter and began to roll the stocking down, baring her pale flesh to him. “When you came out of the ocean that day, I could see more of you than I’d bargained for. I was still furious with you but… also…”
“‘Also’…?” she pressed, lifting her now-bare leg and draping it onto his lap, her foot pressed into his arousal as he released a hissing breath and took up her other leg, firmer with his grip this time, his eyes snapping to hers.
He jerked the ribbon free on this leg, raking the stocking down her leg as she smirked at him from her back, the arch of her foot sliding meaningfully against his cock. “Hattie,” he said, with the only resolve he had left, the only warning he could muster.
“Elias,” she replied, almost singsong. “There’s nothing else under that skirt, you know.”
“I know,” he rasped, running his thumb along her naughtier ankle before pulling it away so that he could crawl into the bed above her, his fingers dragging along the sides of that glorious, fiery skirt as he pulled it farther up, along the curve of her thighs. “There never was, was there?”
She shook her head, her eyes on his lips. “Indeed not. Imagine what you might have been getting away with, all this time.”
He groaned, falling onto her mouth with a desperate need, catching the spiced sweetness of her tongue against his as he rolled his hips against her, testing the promise of what he’d wanted for such a very long time. He slid his hands up along her waist, his thumbs brushing over her breasts through the dress, tugging down the fabric along her arms, hungry to reveal what he could of her but unwilling to let her up to do it properly.
She slid one of those bare legs around his, drawing him closer, and the world spun, light flickering and flashing behind his eyes as he tasted her deeper, demanded more from her, filled his hands with her breasts until her nipples were taut and straining against the fabric that hid them from him.
He kissed down the column of her throat, nipping and tasting her, burying his face in the swell of her bosom as he ground himself between her thighs.
He did not know why he was waiting, only that the waiting itself was just as delicious as the promise of taking her fully. That perhaps he had been truthful when he’d told her the torment was part of the pleasure.
She slid her fingers through his hair, gripping him firmly as he tasted her, rocking back against him like the madness was catching.
“I want you,” she murmured. “Je te veux, Elias.Pozhaluysta.”
It ripped something from his throat, his mind going white with heat. He reared up to hold her face, his thumb tracing her cheek as he claimed her mouth again. “Ask with your body,” he said against her lips. “Like I taught you.”
Her eyes slid open, blazing and golden against his as her hands ran down his back. She hooked her fingers into the waistband of his trousers, urging them down, her fingernails trailing underneath them, squeezing into the flesh hidden below as she arched her back into him.
“Nu,” she breathed, watching him fumble for the ties at his navel with satisfaction as she filled her hands with his backside. “Lige nu.”
“Hattie,” he groaned, certain he was going to collapse before he could claim her.
“Ah,” she said as the fabric loosened, using first her hands to push the barrier away and then her feet, and legs, pullinghis trousers down the length of his body with a serpentine coherence of limbs and movements. “Muy bien.”
“God,” he muttered, filling his fists with her skirts, fighting the world around him as he dragged air into his lungs and collapsed forward again, sinking his teeth gently into the soft flesh at her clavicle as he used his hand to guide himself against her. “Oh, God.”
He pushed into her, at long last. He took her. He filled her.
She was his.
And he could barely stand it.
He wanted to revel in this, to linger in it and gloat, to fuck her slowly and watch her come undone underneath him. And perhaps he would, someday. But just now, he couldn’t. He couldn’t.
He lost all powers of language, of elegance, of civilized strategy. He gripped her to him like she was the only thing keeping him alive, his hands clinging to her, filling with her hair and her skin, his mouth dragging against her lips and her throat and her breasts as he lost himself in the roll and snap of his hips against hers.
She wasn’t speaking anymore, either. Instead, she simply clung, her hands gripping and clawing, pulling at the clothes on his back as she met him thrust for thrust, her voice reduced to nothing but whimpers and gasps, mingled with the most delectable little cries of pleasure.
