“I know,” he said.
“I’m not —I can’t…” she trailed off, her breath catching in her throat.
“I know,” he said again, and he did not hurry, and the knowing was worse than anything, and then there was nothing to be done about any of it at all.
Her hand went from his hair to his wrist, not pulling him away, and he moved with the direction of it, and when she finally lost any grip on composure—when her voice broke and her back lifted from the pillow and his name came out of her stripped of everything else—he followed her through it.
When she came back to herself, the room was quiet, and he was beside her, his shirt untucked, his expression composed in theway of a man working considerably harder at the composure than he was presenting.
She turned to him, her hand to his face. “Now, won’t you teach me what brings you pleasure, Dominic?” She murmured, reaching for his waistcoat.
His gaze came down from the ceiling to her. “You needn’t?—”
“I am aware.” She reached for his waistcoat. “Answer the question.”
He looked at her. Then he raised himself enough to shrug the coat off and let it go.
She worked the shirt open, button by button, the fine linen parting to reveal the warm plane of his chest, the faint dusting of hair that arrowed downward. He lay still while she did it, his breath controlled, though his pulse leaped under her fingers when she passed his throat, a rapid flutter betraying the composure he clung to.
When she spread her palm flat over his chest and moved down—slowly, without hurrying, the way he had not hurried—his skin heated beneath her touch, muscles tightening in subtle ridges. She felt the quickening of his heart, the way his abdomen drew taut as her hand slipped lower still, beneath the waistband, until her fingers closed around the hard, velvet length of him.
His breath left him in a rush. His hand came to her face, thumb at her jaw, tilting it up until she was looking at him. His eyes were very dark.
“Magnificent,” he said.
And his breathing shifted at once, a deeper draw that caught in his throat. He caught her wrist. Not to redirect. Only to hold, as if anchoring himself while she learned the weight and heat of him, the silken skin stretched tight over rigid flesh.
His eyes stayed on her face, dark and unwavering, even as she began to stroke—deliberate, unhurried glides from base to tip, her thumb brushing over the flushed, sensitive head where moisture already beaded.
She looked back at him and worked by the shift in his breathing and the weight of his grip, finding the pace by those alone: a firm, rhythmic slide that made his hips jerk once, involuntary, seeking more of her palm’s slick friction.
“There,” she said.
His jaw tightened. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Sound pleased with yourself.”
She slowed her grip, deliberately. “Would you prefer I sound displeased?”
He exhaled through his nose, sharp and unsteady, and his eyes closed for a moment, lashes casting faint shadows on his cheeks. His hand on her wrist tightened, not in restraint but in raw need, fingers flexing as she twisted her grip just so.
“Faster,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
His eyes opened. “You heard me.”
She held his gaze. “Say it properly.”
Something crossed his face — the last of his composure making its exit. “Annabelle.”
“That’s not what I asked for.”
“Please.” The word came out low, stripped of everything but the asking. “Faster.”
She held the pace, varying the pressure — slow drags that made him exhale in pieces, then quicker strokes that coaxed more from him, easing the glide until her fingers glistened. His chest lifted with each ragged breath, the lean muscles of his stomach clenching visibly as pleasure coiled tighter within him.
