The lawyer in him began marshaling the arguments he would use to convince her otherwise. The rogue in him imagined all the pleasures he might never know.
“No negotiations, you said.”
Her crown moved as she nodded.
“Good.” He lifted her shoulders. She blinked, confused. “Here. Like this.” He guided her until she straddled him, sitting on his hips, looking down. Her dark hair fell in a tumble all around her face and shoulders. “Stay like that.”
He could see her clearly this way. He watched her while he caressed her. Her expression displayed her reactions to what he did to her. She watched, too, from beneath lowered lids. Her lips trembled when he slowly teased at her dark, erect nipples. His erection swelled and prodded against her bottom.
He pulled her down over him so he could use his mouth the way she liked. Trembles of pleasure shuddered through her, into his hands, where he held her waist. Her faint cries rained down on him. He pushed her further, until she whimpered with need.
He set her back, upright. She was wet now, and lost in her abandon. So beautiful in her abandon. “Up.” He urged her to her knees so she towered over him, her white body and lovely limbs open to his gaze and his hands.
He slid his fingers between her thighs and stroked. A thousand stars glinted in her eyes. He explored the folds of flesh and watched desire overwhelm her. She swayed, unsteady, unable to control what the pleasure did to her. A primitive wildness entered her eyes.
She surprised him then. She turned her body so she faced away from him. Her lovely back and rounded bottom enticed him. He caressed her cleft in a long path that ended again at the hot velvet of her swollen lips. As he did, he felt her take his cock in her hands.
It could not last long, their mutual pleasure. His arousal took on an edge he knew too well. He grasped her waist and lifted her enough to slide out from under her.
She looked over her shoulder and began to turn.
“No. Stay there.”
She looked over her shoulder again, confused. He pressed her shoulders down. She looked back once more, but this time she understood.
She hugged the mattress while on her knees. Her bottom rose, round and taut. He caressed its swells, and her hips circled subtly, tantalizing him.
He rode the erotic torment a little longer. “What do you want, Padua?”
Her bated breath told him. The small of her back dipped, raising her bottom more. He reached low and caressed her. “This?”
She cried out and nodded. “Yes, please, yes.”
He kept his hand on her until she moaned, then begged. Head hot and jaw clenched, he replaced his hand with his cock and pressed slightly, so its head entered her. He paused and sought an anchor in the storm breaking in him.
“Yes,” she whispered.“Yes.”
He thrust into her, stayed to savor the sensation, thenwithdrew. She moved her bottom, impatiently. He thrust again and she cried out.
The storm claimed him then. He let the fury rule and let the pleasure own him, until the excruciating tension snapped in a profound relief of sensation.
In the sensual stupor afterward, he bent and kissed the small of her back. And while he did, he used his hand to send her to her own ecstasy, one that left her screaming into the sheets.
CHAPTER14
Standing beside the bed, Padua looked down on the evidence of the night. The bedclothes appeared as if marauders had fought in them. Half the pillows lay in the wrong places. Ives, sound asleep, lay naked, sprawled in abandon. She reached for an edge of a sheet and dragged it, so he might be covered from the waist down at least.
She donned her undressing gown and padded into the dressing room. The sky outside had lightened to a dark silver-gray.
The servant girl scratched on the outside of the dressing room’s door to the corridor. That had never happened before. Yesterday when she heard Padua up and about, she just came in.
Padua wondered if the woman suspected there wasa naked man in the apartment. If she did not, she probably began wondering when Padua would not let her in, and insisted she would do for herself this morning.
She pried the pail of hot water out of the servant’s hands and shut the door. She gave herself a thorough washing. Ives had affected her body enough that she still felt as if he were inside her. If she closed her eyes, she sensed the echoes of his thrusts still making her throb.
She had been very bad last night. Self-indulgent and irresponsible. She might well regret every minute one day. Right now, however, she did not. Could not.
The light outside had turned from gray to gold when the door to the corridor opened again. Eva walked in. She wore a morning dress and a cap festooned with lace. She carried a stack of garments in her arms.
