And so she had not.
She had thrown herself at him, a determined combination of the Old Tessa and the New Tessa and a Fourth or Fifth Tessa who had grown weary of talking and was so very much in love with him.
“Tessa,”Joseph breathed, fighting for words between kisses. “This is not... part of... my plan. I’m so afraid of frightening you,” he said.
“My only known fear at this moment is, ‘a plan,’ ” she said and she jumped up, catching him around the haunches with her legs and wrapping her arms around his neck. He was given no choice but to gather her up, groaning as he pressed her to him.
“And now what am I meant to do?” he rasped.
She pulled back from the kiss. “But you don’tknow?”
He laughed, a low guttural sound, and it thrilled her. He staggered across the room, kissing her as he went. When they reached the bed, he tossed her. She landed in the center, gave a little yelp, and reached for him.
“You’ll tell me,” he warned, kneeling toward her, “if you need to pause?”
“Please don’t ask that again.”
“You will give me the time I require ifIneed to pause.”
She sat up. “Why wouldyouneed to pause?”
“I don’t,” he said, and he shrugged off his dressing gown, revealing his bare, tanned, muscled chest and buckskins.
Tessa sucked in a breath.
He laughed. “But this will not be rushed, I swear to you, Tessa.”
His oath was short lived. He dipped his head to capture her mouth; his body came down next, bare chest against the thin silk covering her breasts, his hip heavy against her thighs, his legs tangling with hers. The kiss grew deep and sensual very quickly, his tongue sweeping her mouth. Tessa reveled in the tingling sensation of all of his tanned muscle pressing against every soft, rounded part of her. He was so very substantial. And so very hard. Strength and beauty, sewn into a perfectly formed human male.
She was desperate to learn every part of him, and while they kissed, she set her hands to work on the planes of his back, the giant ball of his shoulders, his roped arms.
He stopped kissing her mouth and delved lower, kissing her neck, grazing her with his emerging beard, and then lower still. He used his nose to nudge open the edges of her dressing gown, laying a fiery trail of kisses as he went. He pulled back to stare down at her, and she felt the coolness of the room on her neck and shoulders.
“Alright?” he asked.
She nodded. “I want my dressing gown off.” She sat up and he smoothed the burgundy silk from her shoulders, massaging her arms as it went. She shivered in her bare pink night rail and felt the instinct to cross her arms over her chest, but she resisted. She was brave, she wanted this. She had just leapt at him, she’d just explored his body with voracious hands. She wanted this.
He leaned on one elbow and propped over her. “I want to touch your—”
She cut him off. “I don’t want to discuss each body part before it’s called into question,” she said.
“You’re certain?”
She nodded her head.
“Right,” he said, and while she watched, he dropped his gaze from her face and stared at the deep rise and fall of her chest. Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised his hand. She watched it hover above her breasts. And then he extended one finger to the thin silk between her breasts and traced a slow line in between.
Tessa sucked in a breath.
He drew the line back up, tickled beneath her chin, and traced it down again, lower this time. The third time, he traced the line with two fingers, grazing the sides of her breast when he passed between them. After tracing up and down with two fingers, he lifted his hand away.
Tessa gasped and looked at him.Don’tsto—?
He smiled languidly and looked at her with half-lidded eyes. “Again?” he asked.
She nodded and reached for him. He allowed her to wrap her arms around his neck but he would not be pulled down. He remained above her on his side, slowly, deliberately, pressing two fingers to the pounding pulse beat between her breasts. Again, he began to trace a line between. This time, his finger circled beneath the swell of first one breast, and the other. Just the outline. A half moon that grazed the silk that contained her breast.
Tessa heard a moan and realized it was her own fevered response. Her body burned. Her breasts strained against the pink silk. Her world shrank to his hand and she felt herself bow up in the bed, rising to meet his finger.“Please,”she whimpered.
