“Your wish is my command,” he said, and got up.
There was an easy confidence to his movements as he unbuttoned his shirt. She sat up, hands clenching in the bedclothes as he tugged the linen fabric from his waistband and then over his head.
After that, there was no breath left in her lungs. She’d pictured what he might look like half-naked like this. She felt the lines of him when they touched and knew he was firm and broad and well-made. But seeing him…that was something else entirely.
He was beautiful. That was the one descriptive that leapt to her mind. A beautiful man, carved from her every wicked fantasy when she still dared to have those in the night. He had muscular arms and shoulders, but not too bulky, just enough that he had curves and lines to him she wanted to trace with her tongue.
His trousers barely clung to lean hips and she motioned her head toward them. “All of it, please.”
He inclined his head and unfastened his trousers, kicking them aside. She stared. There were a great variety of cocks in the world and she knew as well as any courtesan that the way a man moved his made far more difference than length or even girth.
But when one saw a perfect cock, a true work of art, one was still a bit startled.
“You look like you might run screaming into the night,” he said. “It does little for a man’s sense of worth.”
“I certainly hope I’ll do some screaming into the night again,” she whispered, and shifted to her knees. She beckoned him closer. “I want that.”
His eyes widened. “So direct.”
“That’s the benefit of taking a courtesan to your bed,” she murmured as she took him in hand and stroked. “She knows exactly what she wants and won’t mince about it.” She lifted her gaze as he let out grunt of pleasure. “Unless that’s what you like, Alexander. Oh, please, won’t you let me touch it?”
His eyes fluttered shut and his breath grew short when she made her voice a little softer. “I think I just want you, Julia. No masks, no acts. Just you and whatever you desire.”
There was a thought, that she could be truly and fully herself with the person standing before her. That she could demand space in his world and he would simply grant it. But that was the stuff of daydreams and this was about pleasure.
She slithered from the bed and went to her knees before him. “This is what I desire.”
She licked him, just the head of him. He gripped the bed edge on either side of her shoulders and let out a shaky moan. Oh yes, this was definitely what she wanted.
As if there was a lifetime left between them, she took her time. She tasted and teased his length with her tongue, she sucked and nipped and watched his reactions because there was something magnificent about taking a man’s power from her knees.
He gave it without hesitation, rocking his hips in time when she finally took him fully inside and began to thrust her mouth over him. He tasted clean and filled her perfectly, all the way to the very edge of her throat. She rolled her tongue over him, memorizing every inch of him and it was a celebration of desire and pleasure as they moved and moaned together.
She could feel the edge of him coming, taste the increase in his desire, dance along the shaky movement of his hips as she continued. She waited for him to come, to give her every drop. Perhaps they would take a break and continue. Perhaps hewould be like so many men before him and that would be the end of it.
But instead, just when she thought she’d stolen every remnant of his control, he caught her arms and drew her up, claiming her mouth even as he pushed her back on her bed.
She opened her legs to allow him in, but he didn’t take her. Instead he rolled to his back, pulling her on top of him. They shifted together—she felt the hard ridge of his cock nudging the very wet entrance to her body. She ground back and they both gasped at the sensation of their bodies so close to being one.
“Do it,” he growled, all pretense of gentlemanly behavior gone, only animal need remaining. “Take it.”
She didn’t have to be asked twice. She adjusted herself, moved him a little between her legs, and then he was sliding inside. She rocked and he was fully seated inside her clenching sheath. God, he was thick. She felt stretched and full and already trembling with the pleasure of just his body inside hers.
He caught her hips, his fingers digging into her skin, and together they began to move. She rode him hard and fast, rolling her body against his, squeezing and grinding as if he were just a toy for her to play with. He seemed to like it, for his breath caught again. He sat up, cradling her tighter to him as they kissed and kissed and kissed.
Her strokes over him grew more erratic as the pleasure mounted all over again. He continued to hold her hips, working her over him and now he encouraged her.
“Yes, yes,” he whispered against the skin of her throat. “So good. God, you feel so good. I want to feel you all around me, Julia. I want to feel you shatter for me.”
She dropped her head back and there was no choice anymore but to do just that. Her body flexed out of control with pleasure so powerful she nearly unseated herself.
But he wouldn’t let her, he held her to him, continuing to lift with the same steady rhythm even as she fell apart around him, barking his name, cursing the gods, praising the heavens for such sharp, unending pleasure.
And it was only when she half-collapsed from exhaustion and release that he rolled her again, covering her so that he could continue to take her, this time hard and fast and steady. His mouth never left hers, he claimed her in every way. When he gave a hoarse cry, he pulled away and the heat of him splashed between them before he collapsed over her, continuing to kiss her like he never wanted this to end.
And in that moment, neither did she.
CHAPTER 20
