Eight Hunting Lyons (The Lyon’s Den Connected World)

Chapter Twenty-Four

D aniel wanted to give her everything. Not because she was beautiful and offering herself to him. Of course, he wanted her for that. But also because she understood about his brother. All his life, everyone had praised his brother and passed him over. It wasn’t fair that the simple fact that Peder was first born led everyone to favor him, but it was the way life was in England. Daniel had long since learned that life wasn’t fair.

But it soothed him that she saw the injustice. More important, she saw how he worked for his family and their tenants. She saw him, and that was what he’d wanted.

He kissed her deeply, his hands cupping her face as he plundered her mouth. She met him as he tasted her, twining her tongue around his and teasing him as fiercely as he demanded from her. They were well matched in this game, tongue to tongue. But she was an innocent in other ways, and he ached to teach her.

But this was not what she wanted. Not without marriage. She’d said as much, and he did not want to compromise her even when she’d asked for this. So while he still retained some fragment of his reason, he pulled back to look into her eyes.

“I want you, Li-Na. As I have never wanted a woman, but I cannot promise what you want.”

She blinked twice while her hands caressed his jaw as her eyes focused on his mouth. “I want to know you.”

He chuckled. “This is not the best way.”

“It is the way I want right now. And it is something I wish to know.” She flashed him a coy smile. “I never thought I would have to beg the man of my choice.” She pressed her mouth to his. “Teach me, Daniel. Please.”

He gave in. How could he refuse her? He swept her up in his arms, carrying her easily to his bedchamber. He left her art and her supplies on the table in the great room, not because he’d forgotten them, but because she was so much more important. And while she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, he pressed his face to her neck and breathed in the essence of her.

“I will teach you,” he murmured as he tasted her neck. “But you must do exactly as I say.”

Li-Na had never trusted a man so completely, and yet when he pushed aside his bed curtains, she felt a tremor of fear. Was she being a fool? This was exactly what Mrs. Dove-Lyon warned against. No woman should enter a man’s bed without clear promises first.

But then she watched him light a candelabra and the glow touched his features with gold. She smelled the scent of him in his bed and she grew dizzy with need. And when he pressed his fingers to her hair and pulled out her pins, she let the weight of her worries drop away even as her hair spilled into his hands.

He would hold her. He would teach her. And she was safe as she learned. “I trust you,” she whispered.

“I don’t,” he rasped. “You’re so beautiful it almost hurts.”

She smiled as she let her head drop back. She felt the callouses on his hands as he stroked her face and neck. In her mind’s eye, he touched her as gently as a fine piece of art. He supported her, he admired her, and when he pressed his lips to hers, she lost herself in the pleasure of being precious to him.

She could spend a lifetime in kissing him, but he pulled away. She was kneeling on his bed, and her body swayed toward him, refusing to be released. But he stilled her, and then slowly, carefully, began to unbutton her gown.

How odd it was to have a man undress her. Never before had she allowed another’s fingers at the base of her throat, on the buttons between her breasts, or just above her quivering belly. Once the dress was loose, he pushed it off her shoulders. Air cooled the skin above her stays, but not for long. Soon, she felt the heat of his hands as he traced the fabric across her breasts and then down along her sides. He knew how to unbind her, and his fingers were deft as he pulled the garment away. She was the one who lifted up the shift and tossed it aside.

She had already given him her thoughts. Her body was less important to her, and yet, right now, she quivered with anticipation while her breasts finally felt free. She breathed deeply while he watched her with dark eyes in a golden face. How he had mesmerized her, she thought, this tiger of a man. Dark eyes, soft touch. And yet, his power was undeniable, as he stripped off his coat and shirt. Very soon, his chest was as bare as hers.

She’d touched him before. She’d seen the whole of him in the sunlight and marveled at the size and strength in him. This time, he was the one who seemed transfixed, and she delighted in the way he looked at her.

“Lie back,” he murmured.

She shifted her weight to comply, but he was already there, supporting her back, brushing her hair from her eyes, and easing her onto his pillows.

“Can you tell me how this feels?” he asked. Then he stroked a palm across her left breast.

It felt like what she wanted. Her nipple pebbled beneath his touch. Her skin seemed to tingle and swell. She breathed into his palm, and she whispered two words.

“Tiger fur.”

“What?”

She touched his arms, stroking the bulge in his biceps as she responded. “Have you ever petted a cat when the air is very dry? Your skin tingles, and yet it is so soft.”

His other hand joined the first as he played with her breasts. The tingles grew stronger, the feel sharper, and she gasped when he pinched her nipples.

“I will never understand why you call me a tiger,” he said.

She couldn’t explain. Not with words. She could only stroke his body and feel what he did to hers. He pressed his mouth to her left nipple, and her breath grew short. He nipped there and lightning sparked through her blood. Such things he did to her breasts, that she was soon arching into his touch as she begged him for more.

When he began to suckle her, she cried out, her legs shifting on the sheets as they tangled in the folds of her dress. She knew what came next. He had touched her between her legs before, and she ached for another quickening. But her legs were caught, and he kept his hands on her breasts as his teeth scraped the flesh around her nipple.

She imagined the nip of his teeth as claws piercing her skin. She felt the press of his body like the weight of a tiger with silky smooth fur. And she knew the rough of his tongue as he tasted her everywhere.

Then he lifted up and she whimpered at the loss. A moment later, she understood why. He stripped away the remains of her gown. His fingers untied her stockings and quickly skimmed them away. She was eager as he pressed his fingers to her mound. Her legs spread and her hands clutched at him, but the sensations built too quickly for her to speak.

Feelings collided in her belly, tightening her buttocks, lifting her hips, and heating her breath as she yearned for more.

Her legs were spread open. She had widened them herself, but now he pushed them further apart. Her knees braced on the opposite sides of his shoulders while his teeth scraped tiny bites on the inside of her thighs.

It took a while for the reality of what was happening to pierce the waves of sensation. She knew the mechanics of sex, but he was not settling between her thighs. Not with his cock. Instead, his mouth began exploring her folds. His tongue probed where his fingers had been. He was tasting her, and it felt incredible.

“Daniel!” she cried as his thumbs spread her open.

Then she lost words as his tongue thrust inside her before sweeping upwards until her whole body shivered.

Her legs quivered, squeezing his broad shoulders as if she could draw him closer. Her feet curled into his sides and her body quivered.

Then he raised his head off her mound. “Have you touched yourself, Li-Na? Since the last time. Did you touch yourself and think of me?”

She had no breath to lie. “Yes.”

“I did, too. So often.”

“But it was. Different.” She tugged at his arms, trying to draw him up higher. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted his strength inside her. But he was too big for her to move, and the sight of him grinning up at her from between her legs made her feel even more like a morsel eaten by a tiger.

Odd how that thought pleasured her.

“Touch your breasts,” he said. “Do that for me.”

She couldn’t refuse him. Not when he looked at her like that. So she lifted her hands and cupped her breasts.

“Do what I did to you. Squeeze your nipples. Stretch them out toward me. Yes,” he said. “Just like that.”

She was coiled upward, her hands on her breasts as she manipulated her nipples. He was watching with the candlelight dancing in his eyes. His pleasure was obvious, but no more than hers as excitement coiled inside her.

She bit her lower lip hard enough to make it swell. Then she stuck out her tongue to soothe it while his gaze grew hot and his fingers wandered. He pressed deep inside her, then pulled out. And he dipped his head like a tiger drinking from a stream, and he licked her.

Long, sweet licks.

“Don’t stop,” he said, and it took a moment to realize that he said the words, not her. She didn’t want him to stop. And he wanted to see her breasts.

She molded them as he watched. She squeezed them while he licked. And then he increased the tempo.

He adjusted his hold on her, spreading her knees wider. His palms cupped her bottom as she rose to press into his tongue. Taste me! Suck me! These words shot through her mind as he did everything she wanted and more.

And all the while, he watched her. His gaze fixed on her breasts or her face. She didn’t know. She couldn’t know because the sensations built to a frenzy.

She threw her head back.

Her breasts thrust to the sky.

He sucked.

He stroked.

And she shattered.

Ecstasy! And yet it wasn’t enough. If she had to give up the title of wife, then he could not hold back everything she wished to learn. She already knew about a man’s penetration. This time, she wanted to know about feeling pleasure. About willingness and shared completion.

So she grabbed him by the ears. She swept up and took hold of her tiger and spoke her own demands. “All of it.”

“Li-Na—” he began, but she shook her head.

“You promised to teach me.” She caught his mouth in hers, she thrust her tongue inside him, and she gripped his arms and hauled him close. And when she pulled back from him, she spoke her demand. “I want it.”

“I—” His words were choked off, and his expression tortured. “I’m trying to respect—”

“Me,” she said. “Respect what I am saying.” Then she lifted up. “Do you want—”

“Yes,” he rasped. He lifted himself off her. His lower half was still covered, but within moments, he had stripped himself free. He stood before her as proud as before when the sunlight had bathed his body in glory.

She reached out to stroke him. She wanted to feel his silky heat again, but he ducked away. He pulled out an envelope from a drawer beneath his water basin. She knew what a French Letter was, but she still watched with interest as he rolled it on to his member. He was large and the gut stretched thin but still held. And then he climbed back on the bed as he set himself between her thighs.

“I will stop if you ask me to. I swear!”

She didn’t need him to swear. She needed to feel this act done in desire. She smiled at him and tugged him closer.

He set himself between her thighs. She watched as his organ bobbed between them, felt it touch her opening then withdraw. His tip was wet now, and the light flickered across it.

“More,” she said.

He did it again. He pressed himself inside and she felt the pressure of him as well as the girth. He supported his own weight, and she was so wide that she could watch exactly what he did, exactly how they joined.

Deeper inside while her breath caught at the fullness of it.

“Any pain?”

“No,” she said, awed by the truth of it. It felt full. He felt big. And she wanted more.

She canted her hips and he groaned at the feel. She squeezed him, and she saw sweat on his brow.

“Li-Na,” he said, the sound half growl, half plea.

“Please,” she whispered. “More.”

Then she watched as his arms flexed, his belly rippled, and he pressed in deeper.

She smiled. This is what she’d wanted to feel, but he was not deep enough. Only halfway, she guessed, and she wanted more.

She touched his face and felt the tension in his body as he held himself so still. Such power. Such control.

He looked up and she caught his gaze. She smiled to show him she wanted this. And while his nostrils flared from the sight of her, she squeezed her internal muscles again. She was pleased that she could do that. Thrilled that he groaned in hunger when she did.

“More,” she said. “Give me it all.”

She held his gaze as he held hers. But in her mind’s eye, she saw the whole of him as his arms tightened and his buttocks flexed. And she saw him enter her fully. Inside. Pressed hard against what felt like the top of her belly.

Filled.

So sweet that it was painless. So amazing to enjoy the pressure of it. And so surprising the moment he pulled back.

She gripped his arms, she tightened her thighs, and she cried out, “No!” when she meant to say, Come back!

He pressed forward until he was above her. She had to drop fully back onto the pillows or knock heads. And while he braced himself above her, she wrapped her legs around him.

And he moved.

Hard thrust.

Hot impact.

Shocking jolt.

She gasped in reaction and arched to feel it again.

His breath came in gasps or was that hers? She knew only impact and withdrawal. Connection and release.

Harder.

Faster.

Her belly quivered. “More!”

He gave it to her.

Lightning.

Pleasure.

Explosion!

Revealed.