Her mind spun with a hundred thoughts jumbled together. She should think about her reputation. She should pretend joy and triumph had not rung like bells in her head when she saw who it was. She should not allow his beauty to sway her, but, oh, his appearance awed her now worse than ever before.
The suspense in the air heralded pending disaster or victory. The excitement in itself mesmerized her, but he did too.
“You should not be here.” It breathed out, barely a whisper.
“No.” Nothing in his expression changed. Not the set of his jaw nor the fire in his eyes. “You can close the door if you want.”
She gripped the door’s edge. Shecouldclose it, of course. And she should.
His gaze locked on hers. He looked for her decision. He saw it before she knew it herself.
With one step he was over the threshold and she was in his arms. Passion crackled through him, silent lightning in a palpable storm. He lifted her, kicked thedoor closed, and swung her around. Breathless and unsteady, she found herself pressed against the door. His body imprisoned her there while he claimed her in a furious kiss that made the world spin even more. He dominated her, and commanded her response with searing kisses to her mouth and neck.
The arousal she had carried to her chamber, which had distracted and taunted her, surged in a wave of sensation. His heat and strength titillated her whole body. The feral energy he exuded as he handled her incited erotic stirring low and deep. When she clutched his shoulders desperately, to hold on to something tangible and real, he would have none of it. He captured her hands in his and forced them above her head, so she could only submit to the sensual chaos. Submit she did, to the kisses coaxing her primitive self, to the ache throbbing between her legs, to the body so close it became the focus of all her senses.
He stripped away the shawl from her shoulders and neck, and it floated out of sight. Kissing her hard, he pulled up her nightdress impatiently. Air cooled her legs, then her thighs and hips. He pressed his knee between her legs, raising her so she rode a hard ledge pressing up against her vulva. Her toes barely scraped the floor. The pressure aroused her, thoroughly. Deep, dark tremors of pleasure overwhelmed her.
“Enough of this.” He released her hands and peeled up her nightdress. A cloud of white cloth engulfed her head. Then she was naked, her body inches from his, waiting for the torture his caresses could create.
He looked down while his hands moved up her legs and thighs. He paused, briefly, to slide one thumb between his knee and her mound. He pressed with precision on the very spot she kept moving to relieve. Her deep moan brought wicked lights to his eyes.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, while he watched his hands slide up her body. “You are elegant. Sinuous.” His hands cupped her breasts. His thumbs grazed her nipples. Tantalizing excitement streamed into her blood. “Kiss me now, while I drive you mad with pleasure.”
She circled his neck with her arms and kissed him hard, as best she knew how. She tried using her tongue the way he did, and her teeth. All the while his hands teased at her breasts, forcing the pleasure higher until that special madness did close in. The erotic torment left her whimpering within the kisses, and gasping out urging breaths.
His hands left her. She wanted to scold him, until she saw him strip off his shirt. He pulled her into an embrace so their bodies met with no interference. Holding him like that, feeling his skin beneath her hands and arms and against her breasts, enthralled her. The pleasure changed in that instant. Even his kiss felt different. A new intimacy touched her, and she could not ignore its power.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. He laid her down and started to remove the rest of his clothes.
In a slice of clarity, she saw where she was, what he was doing, and what would happen. Her nakednessfelt stark. Scandalous. More than when she was on that table, even if she had been equally exposed. She instinctively covered her breasts with her arm and her mound with her hand. When his trousers lowered, she looked away.
Warmth beside her depressed the mattress. Intimacy descended on her like a mist. His scent, his skin—
“Do not be shy with me now, Padua.” He lifted the arm from her breast. “You were not before.”
She had not been so naked before. So vulnerable. She had not been in a bed either.
He banished her misgivings with a kiss that sent her reeling. Pleasure abolished hesitation and shyness. His kiss commanded that she not only acquiesce but also participate. While the fever took control again, he came over her so his body covered hers. He pushed her legs apart so his hips could settle between her thighs.
Another shard of reality broke through the sensual fog. “Are you going to...?”
“Not yet.” His arms slid beneath her torso. “Soon.”
His embrace made her arch so her breasts rose higher. He tasted her shoulder, then moved slowly down her skin. She arched more, offering, urging. Anticipation made her wild and so aroused that her hips rocked.
“Very soon, if you do not stop that.” He kissed the tight tip of one breast, then the other.
Stopping her hips meant suffering without that small relief. Flicks of his tongue sent currents of exquisite torment down to the sensitive, weeping void where all the sensations pooled and waited.
He aroused her until she could barely see, barely breathe. She thought she might die from it, or scream. She held on to him, hard. Her body moved again, without her direction. Her knees pressed his side, and her hips insisted on that slow rock.
He had given fair warning. Now she learned why. Restraint fell off him like armor dropping. He commanded a new wildness in her with scorching, biting kisses and the most possessive caresses. His hand slid down between them and pressed her mound, then ruthlessly sought the places that made her cry. He forced her higher, to the peak, and with one devastating stroke sent her careening into the glory of completion.
No slow recovery this time, however. No floating in a cloud of perfection. Another touch, lower, deeper, sent shudders into her contentment. He shifted, and raised one of her legs onto his hip. Within the tremor a fullness filled the ache of want that had tortured her.
More fullness made her gasp. His strength hovered above her, taut and hard while he thrust deeper. She welcomed the relief but feared it too. He both awed and frightened her.
He took her then. There was no other word for it. Too ignorant to take, too, she could only wonder at the power controlling her. Engulfing her. Her past did not prepare her for this. For him. The sensation of his movements made the echoes of her completion go on and on until at the end, deep in her mind, she cried out yet again.
