When Joanna leaned down and kissed him, another bolt of lightning, straight from the hand of Zeus, shot across the sky.
This one came from inside of his soul, but its point of origin made it no less potent or powerful. And as he wrapped his arms around the tempestuous, fiery American who had been driving him wild since she first sauntered into his office, Kincaid’s life was changed as it had been then in that dark factory all those years ago.
Why, he asked himself as their lips parted and he sampled the delicious nectar of her mouth. Why had he denied himself this? Why had he damned himself to hell when he could have been living in heaven?
Yanking up her skirt and all the blasted petticoats that were underneath it, he grasped her hips and lifted her effortlessly onto his lap. Her knees hugged his ribs, her boots falling to the floor with a softthudas she hooked her ankles around the back of his chair.
His cock surged between them, hard as a railroad pike, and her neck muffled his groan when she wiggled closer, inadvertently stroking herself on his arousal.
Had her kiss happened ten minutes ago, he would have stopped their desires here. Before it went too far for either of them to control. They were already teetering on the brink. A ship about to plunge into deep, untested waters. But having stripped his soul bare, he had no inhibitions left. No compulsions to do what was right. What was honorable.
And thus, he chose what was wicked.
But how could this be wicked when it felt so bloodygood?
His fingers dove into Joanna’s coiffure, scattering pins in every direction as his mouth forged a blazing trail down her neck to her shoulder, which he nipped before burying his face between her breasts.
She leaned away from him, shamelessly offering her taut nipples to his tongue. He licked them through her gown, but the fabric mocked him. With a growl, he grabbed the back of her dress and quite simply tore it away, along with the cotton shift underneath. This time, she wore no corset, for which he was exceedingly grateful, and a whistle of appreciation formed between his lips as the sinking sun bathed her naked skin in an orange glow.
“Better,” he murmured as he devoured the sight of her breasts. Perfectly formed, they were neither too large nor too small, rounded beneath and slightly concave on top, with nipples painted a dusky rose. “Much better.”
He suckled one sweet tip and then the other, lavishing attention upon the sensitive buds until Joanna was all but writhing and her slender arms trembled from the exertion of holding herself upright. Lifting his head, he gazed at her from eyes heavy lidded with lust. Her cheeks were flush with color. Her hair cascaded over her body in a luxurious wave of crimson. Her lips were parted, her breaths coming in small, little pants.
She was a vision. A masterpiece. A goddess.
He’d never seen anyone so beautiful. He was almost afraid to touch her, for fear that some of his darkness might tarnish such raw, ravishing magnificence. But how could he deny himself such delicious pleasure?
As need warred with logic, as past mistakes mingled with new, he picked her up and changed their positions so that she was sitting in the chair and he was kneeling in the middle of her long legs. A few tugs, and her drawers and stockings were gone until the only thing she wore was her perfume. It wrapped around him in a haze of violet that reminded him of the first day they’d met. She’d smelled of rain, then. Rain and flowers and a hint of desperation.
With the exception of the rain, nothing had changed.
His knees dug into the floorboards as he braced his hands on the armrests of the chair, his hungry gaze drawn to the auburn curls nestled at the apex of Joanna’s thighs. She was already damp with passion, and a growl rumbled deep in his throat as he imagined sinking his hard, pulsing length into all of that wet, clenching velvet.
“Let me taste you,” he said hoarsely, lifting his head. “Just a taste.”
Her brows drew together. “I don’t under—oh,” she gasped when he sank between her legs. A gasp that turned into a moan when he pressed his mouth to the inside of her knee and began to kiss his way up, up, up until he reached the center of all her breathless passion.
Using his thumbs, he delicately parted her folds to reveal the glistening pearl within. His hands sliding around to cup her plump bottom, he lifted her to his lips, a king dining on a banquet of riches.
“Kincaid? Kincaid.Kincaid!” She spoke his name as a question, an answer, and a plea as he began to lick with slow, lazy sweeps of his tongue. Her fingers tangled in his hair, nails digging into his scalp.
When the flames threatened to consume them both, he slid a finger into her. Just up to the first knuckle and then back out as he used his mouth to tease and torment her small nub. Gradually, he worked his way to the second knuckle, and then the third.
Her head thrashed. Her legs wrapped convulsively around his hips. He sensed that she was teetering on the brink, and even the gentlest of nudges would send her spiraling into oblivion. But this time, he wanted to go with her. This time, he wanted to jump off that peak together.
Drawing out her ecstasy, he loosened his trousers and sought his own. Using the moisture gathered at the head of his cock to stroke himself as he stroked her, he brought them swiftly to the brink where they teetered, their breaths and souls entwined, before he tightened his fist while simultaneously plunging his tongue into all that slick, satin heat.
Side by side, they fell.
*
“My other stockingis under the bed, I believe. Thank you,” Joanna said when Kincaid retrieved it for her.
Pointing her toes, she guided the crumpled linen up and over her calf before securing it with a plain ribbon tied in a knot. “I think that should do it,” she said breathlessly. “Except for my shoes.”
“And your hair,” he said quietly as he lifted a curl off her shoulder, a rare half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
The same mouth that had just brought her unimaginable pleasure.
