Chapter 19
Viveca might never breathe again.
And it wouldn’t matter.
As long as she remained inside this moment with Blaze.
The hand smoothing along the volume of Shakespeare was no longer satisfied.
It needed to be elsewhere.
Though only inches separated them, she moved closer, so close her head had to tip back to hold his gaze.
She inhaled a quick sip of air. Him. Blaze smelled so good, like amber and bergamot.
The deliciousness of his scent had taken her by surprise, at first. She’d thought rogues would smell of greasy meats and sweat.
But, no, Blaze Jagger smelled like everything she ever wanted.
Her yet-unsatisfied hand could be held off no longer and lifted to caress the angle of his jaw. “Blaze,” she said, “you are so very good with words, and I think I know why.”
“That so?” His voice had gone to gravel in the back of his throat, lighting nerve endings as it tremored through her.
“Your words are honest and true to who you are in…” Her forefinger followed the line of his throat down until it reached the center of his chest. “Here.”
Though the world didn’t know it, Viveca knew this of Blaze.
He had a bigger and truer heart than anyone she’d ever met.
And to be someone held within that heart was special.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and Viveca noticed something—for a man with his loquacious bent, Blaze had gone strikingly silent.
As if he were restraining himself.
His right hand was planted on the desk and the left clenched at his side.
He was succeeding at keeping himself to himself in every way, save one—his expressive gray eyes.
How they suited his name, for they burned.
Oh, how immediate this gnawing desire to be consumed by his fire.
“Do you know what else you’re so very good at?”
His jaw flexed, and still, his eyes smoldered, but no words came.
“This.” Her hand slipped around to the back of his neck and pulled until her mouth pressed against his.
Perhaps her intention had been pure.
To kiss him as an illustration.
Likely not.
For the light press of her lips to his firm mouth released something within her in the same instant it sparked something else alight—urgency…need.
A chaste kiss would never be enough.
A kiss with Blaze would never be a cold, objective illustration.
Her tongue slid across his bottom lip, and he groaned, and she sensed it—resistance.
“Blaze,” she spoke against his mouth, “don’t you want to kiss me?”
Again, he groaned, but the tension remained in his body, and Viveca understood what she must do.
She shifted back, breaking the kiss and meeting his eyes. It took everything inside her to say… “All right, I’ll stop.”
She braced herself to shift another increment—away—as much as her body protested.
“Don’t.” Staying fingers wrapped around her arm, then lifted to touch the side of her face. “Don’t stop.”
He angled down and pressed his mouth to hers.
This kiss was no dispassionate illustration of how good at kissing he was. It was all passion and fire and urgency, a complete giving over and surrender of himself to her. With his other hand, he pressed the small of her back, and she was swaying into the hard length of his body.
“Wrap your arms around my neck,” he muttered, then he lifted her into his arms and strode into another room. A side room she hadn’t noticed. It was sparsely furnished with a settee, a few tables, and… “There’s a bed?”
He released her legs, so she could stand, and turned the lock in the door. “I sleep here most nights,” he said, his voice distracted as his fingers began working the front buttons of her dress.
She tugged his cravat loose. “You don’t sleep at Tichborne Street?”
He slipped her dress off her shoulders and angled down to kiss one, then the other, sending little electric pulses through her, enlivening her skin and what lay below.
“Naw. That place ain’t home yet.”
She’d finished with his waistcoat, but her fingers were frantic to get at the falls of his trousers.
He must have sensed her urgency, for he stepped back and shook his head, a smile curled about his mouth.
Here was the Blaze she knew, and, oh, the bolt of desire for him—this true Blaze—that struck through her.
“You’re going to be divested—”
Divested?
The vocabulary on this man, truly.
She loved it.
“—of every last article of clothing on your body before you get this.”
Very deliberately, he rubbed his hand over the long, swollen cock straining against his trousers.
Cheeky man.
A giggle sprang from her—how could it not?—even as her thighs squeezed together. They simply must to withstand the sudden, unappeased ache within her.
He reached out and flicked the chemise straps off her shoulders. As she didn’t wear stays, he tugged the hem and dragged the garment down her body, revealing breasts…stomach…mons pubis…his mouth following where his hands led.
He’d lowered to his knees before her. “Oh, these strawberry curls,” he said, so close she imagined his breath on her sex.
She might climax here and now.
Just from the proximity of his mouth.
“I have a more than decent imagination,” he said. “But this, Viveca, you defy belief.”
The look in his eyes—desire, longing, lust.
How her body quivered beneath the heat of that gaze.
He slipped the ribbon of a garter free from its bow, loosening it, then rolled the stocking down her calf, his mouth pressing kisses down the length of her leg. He removed the slipper and off came the stocking. Meeting her eyes, he lifted her foot and kissed the sole.
“Oh,” she breathed.
How good that felt.
Still on his knees, he returned her foot to the floor, then took her hips and applied pressure, turning her so her back faced him, removing the other stocking and slipper.
A hard beat of her heart skipped past, and Viveca felt suspended in time.
Blaze whistled, then said—growled, “Just look at that sweet, plump arse.”
He grabbed her hips, then she felt it—his mouth on her bottom, delivering a kiss and a lick to each cheek, then a light slap for good measure.
Oh.
She liked that.
Her back arched.
He must’ve noticed, for he slapped her bottom again.
A chuckle sounded behind her. “Spread those long, gorgeous legs of yours.”
Oh, how vulnerable she felt as she spread her legs, but how would she get what she wanted if she didn’t do as he said?
“Now, lean forward and plant your hands on the table.” Another chuckle. “You’re going to need the support.”
Behind her, she heard him rise, then the rustle of clothing being shed, and she realized she had a demand of her own. “All of your clothes, Blaze.”
A few more seconds of rustling, then his hands were on her body, sliding down her back, caressing her bottom. One hand tightened on her waist and the other slid between her spread legs.
“Oh, Blaze,” poured from her throat as he ran his fingers along her slit.
Her back arched further, insisting on a firmer touch, but he kept it light.
Then his other hand reached around and firmed on her stomach as he stepped forward and pressed his cock against her.
A finger slid inside her sex, and she gasped, then whimpered as he began moving in and out of her.
He swept her hair aside and pressed his mouth to the nape of her neck. “Put one knee on the table.”
She did as told and felt, oh, so open and vulnerable as he stroked her—and, oh, so ready.
“Blaze,” she begged, “please.”
The hand on her stomach remained as she felt the crown of his shaft at her sex. Her breath caught with anticipation and utter, raw need. How she ached for him. Then—at last—he was entering her on a low, masculine groan, penetrating her slowly, deliciously, one inch at a time. Oh, he was so big.
A hand stole around to her breasts, massaging them…squeezing them…as he found a rhythm inside her. He thrust, and she arched her back, a give and take.
Her body wanted everything all at once.
But that wasn’t the way Blaze did things.
Blaze was a master of restraint when it came to the relations between two bodies.
He didn’t give her body what it wanted, but what it needed—slow…deliberate…taking his time.
She was beginning to understand something about this act.
Climax and satisfaction were linked, yes, but also separate.
The body demanded climax.
The body was an animal in that way.
But satisfaction ran deeper.
Satisfaction required thoroughness and control.
Satisfaction required more than the truth one body spoke to another.
It required a truth between souls.
As good and true as this felt, though… “Blaze,” she somehow rasped. “I need to see you.”
He slowed, and, his breath ragged on the back of her neck, he pulled from her. Her quim screamed its protest.
She turned, and there he was—Blaze in all his naked, tumid glory.
She’d seen enough of him in their encounters to have been able to piece the naked sight of him together. Yet clearly her imagination had been lacking.
What a gorgeous man he was—long and lean, all sinewy muscle.
Well, not all muscle.
There was that huge cock of his, too, making quite a spectacle of itself.
“Got your fill, then?” He tucked his thumb beneath her chin, forcing her gaze to meet his.
“Not even close,” she said, hooking a leg around his waist, her arms around his neck, pulling him close, so his length slid along her slit. He took himself in hand and, without releasing her gaze, he entered her.
Somehow, it felt even better now as he filled her.
His gray eyes having captured hers, he began moving, each thrust deliberate and intentional.
He dipped his head and took a nipple into his mouth, sucking and laving, as he grabbed her bottom, steadying her, impaling her deeper, her sex taking him… just.
Oh, that delicious edge of pain that ran alongside the pleasure.
Her body began demanding more…demanding she break through his control and take her release.
Her other leg hooked behind his back. “Blaze, I’m so close.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said into her neck.