“Is this what ye need from me, lassie?”
The question hung between them in the cold night air.
Ava could feel his breath on her lips and his hand still warm at the back of her neck and the full weight of everything she had said still sitting raw between them. She looked at his face. The hunger in it was plain and undisguised and it undid her completely.
“Aye,” she said. “It is.”
He kissed her again, slower this time. His hand slid from her waist to her hip and then lower, gathering the hem of her dresswith steady fingers. She felt the cold air touch her leg and then his hand replaced it, warm and firm, moving upward along her thigh without hesitation.
“Ciaran,” She moaned as she gripped his shoulder hard.
When his fingers found the center of her legs, she made a gasp against his mouth that she could not have stopped if she tried. He did not stop. He touched her rather slowly and she felt her whole body grow heavy and warm. She could not hold still if she tried and her head dropped forward against his shoulder.
He worked her slowly as she pressed her face into the side of his neck and felt his pulse against her cheek. Before she could think better of it, she reached between them with one hand and pressed her palm flat against his trousers.
He was hard.
Achingly, unmistakably hard.
She felt the full extent of him through the fabric and something moved through her low and immediate just at the knowledge of it.
She rubbed her hand against him slowly.
His breath changed at once. She felt it against her cheek, and she pressed harder and felt him push into her hand in answer. She worked her palm against him with more intent and his headdropped back, jaw loose, a rough broken sound escaping him into the night air. She watched his throat move and she watched what must be the last wave of control leave his face.
“Ava, ye cannae—” the rest of his words disappeared in utter pleasure.
His hips rolled forward against her hand. Once, then again, slow and helpless, as a low moan came out of him that he made no attempt to catch. The sound sent heat straight through her while his hand fisted in her hair and his breath came in ragged pulls.
Then, almost out of nowhere, his hand closed over her wrist and drew it firmly away.
“Nae tonight,” he said. His voice was wrecked. “Nae like this.”
Ava lifted her head and looked at him. His jaw was tight, his eyes dark, and he was still breathing unevenly. She did not argue. Something in the way he said it held a weight.
He held her gaze for one moment and then his fingers moved again.
Whatever restraint he had exercised before was gone now. He touched her with intent and precision, reading every sound she made and adjusting accordingly, and she gripped his shirt with both hands and held on.
The pleasure built fast and her thighs trembled. She could practically hear herself because the night was too quiet and it shamed her not at all.
“Ciaran.” His name came out wrecked and bare.
His mouth found hers at once.
He kissed her deeply, covering whatever sound followed, swallowing it whole, and she felt it crest through her like a wave breaking from a long way off.
The climax rolled through her body in a way that locked her breath and arched her spine and dragged a sound from her that he caught cleanly against his lips.
She gripped the front of his shirt and held on while it moved through her in full, every part of her shaking, her face pressed close against his and his mouth firm over hers until the very last of it.
For a moment neither of them moved, then Ava sat back enough to look at his face to watch him.
He said nothing.
CHAPTER 27
Ciaran gotto his feet first and held a hand down to her.
