She bit her lower lip and shook her head.
“Then move your hand from your mouth and give yourself totally. I want you to accept just how shockingly wonderful it can be.”
Her hand fell away. He caressed her slowly, watching how passion made her more beautiful and radiant. Her breathing turned staccato when he stroked her vulva. He inserted onefinger, then two, into her tight velvet passage. Her lips parted for two sharp intakes of air. He stroked deeper. She grasped the sheet she hugged and moaned.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, yes.”
She was wet and open and more than ready. He was far gone himself, pushed to the limits of his restraint. His head and body urged completion.
He rolled her over. They shared one long, deep, unbearably erotic kiss while he sought to fight back the storm. Only the kiss did the opposite, and his mind darkened to everything except thrusting into her. He licked and sucked her breasts until her soft cries grew louder, more insistent. She grasped at his shoulders frantically, helplessly. When he added caresses to her vulva again, her cries became a long series of exclamations of both affirmation and frustration.
It was time. Now. Except—
He did not ask. He did not think. He moved his kisses lower, down her body, not caring if he shocked her, not considering anything except the primal drive directing him. Lower yet, until he kissed her mound. Lower yet, while he pushed her legs apart.
She screamed. Not happily. He looked up her body to where she watched him, eyes wide.
He kept his hand on her, letting pleasure make his argument for him.
“I’ve never— I did not know that—” She could hardly speak in her frenzy. “That seems truly wicked, not in an average way.”
He settled down between her thighs. “I will wait until you ask me. I will only caress you until you ask for more.”
“I do not think I will— I would never—Oh.” The plaintiveohcame when he carefully pressed her clitoris.
He knew how to keep a woman on the brink. He left her on the edge until she writhed in glorious agony. He experienced morethan the usual torture himself, and only kept control because he focused on her reactions.
“I— I— Please— I—” Her words emerged as short, gasping breaths.
“Do you want more, Eva?”
She looked down through heavily lidded eyes. A special madness showed in them. Her nod was tentative, but that was enough.
He kissed her thigh while he leashed his mind to what was left of his sanity and physical restraint. Then he turned his head and gave her the most intimate of kisses.
***
Oh.
The sensations were unbearable. Shocking. Incredible.
She tensed, as her body recoiled from such intimacy. Pleasure quickly defeated the retreat. She dwelled in a place not of this world, and her whole body and mind begged for more, for relief, for an eternity of such unworldly arousal.
She glanced down at him, at what he was doing, at what he must be seeing. Shocking. Scandalous. Within the intense need on which her entire being focused, odd, disparate thoughts drifted. What her mother would have said if she knew. How Charles had never wanted her like this. How surprised the people of Langdon’s End would be.
Shouting them down, dominating any other voice, was the one that had brought her to this bed.Know it all. Take it all. It may have to last you a lifetime.
Something changed. Subtly, but undeniably, Gareth became more demanding, as if he heard those voices and sought to silence them. The pleasure became demanding, too, as it had thelast time, only many times worse. It pushed all thoughts out of her head, and obliterated all control.
She no longer owned herself. He did, with what he did to her. He pushed her deeper and deeper into an insanity of need until nothing else existed. Deeper still he sent her. Groans and cries sounded in her head. Then it all constricted and her consciousness screamed and begged and reached for another wonderful end.
It did not come. Instead Gareth came up over her, into her arms, his body lining hers, dominating it. He pressed into her slowly. She clutched at him as a new awe and a new shock took hold. She could not resist him even if she had wanted to. She did not control her body enough to do so yet.
He pressed deeper. She felt him distinctly against flesh still sensitive and swollen from his kisses, and inside her as her body stretched to accommodate him. She sneaked a look at him. His fiery eyes and tense expression stunned her. She realized, just knew, that this was not how it normally would be for him, and that he was forcing a restraint for her sake.
She closed her eyes and gave no voice to the discomfort he now caused. She let herself feel it fully, as she had the rest.
He stopped finally, filling her. He did not move. She looked again. His eyes were closed and he appeared less harsh. She wrapped her arms around his neck and brought him down so she could kiss his shoulder, then his lips.
