Chapter 18 #2
Withdrawing the gentle invasion, he continued to play with her idly, making her wait, making her arch and squirm in rising frustration.
He caressed her with skillful, circuitous strokes, avoiding the place she most wanted him to touch.
Her eyes were heavy-lidded and unfocused, her face exquisitely flushed.
He kept her hovering at the edge of release, gentling his touch every time the erotic torment seemed about to spill over into pleasure.
Cupping his free hand behind her head, he brought her lips to his, and she kissed him almost violently, trying to draw his tongue into her mouth. He gave it to her, and covered her sex with his entire hand, savoring the fiery damp softness of her.
Breaking the kiss with a sigh, Pandora let herself fall forward stiffly and dropped her head to his shoulder.
Relenting, he picked her up and carried her to the bed.
He set her feet on the floor and bent her over the mattress.
She braced for him, shaking visibly, while he unfastened his trousers.
His flesh was hard and almost obscenely swollen, his groin filled with a savage ache at the sight of his wife laying there waiting for him, so trusting and still.
So innocent. He thought of what he’d once told her, that there were certain things gentlemen didn’t ask of their wives.
She’d said something about being willing, but it had been obvious she didn’t understand a damned thing about what he’d meant.
His hand moved over her narrow corseted back, hesitating at the bow-knot of laces.
Erotic thoughts floated through his head, and he didn’t want to hide them from her.
He wasn’t sure whether revealing more about his private desires would change the way she felt about him.
But if there was ever a woman who could be both wife and mistress, who might be able to accept the whole of him, including the complexity of secret cravings and foolish fantasies, it would be her.
Before he let himself think twice about it, he untied the knot of the corset laces.
Wordlessly he reached for Pandora’s arms, guiding them downward and behind her back.
She tensed but didn’t resist. The position drew her shoulders taut and arched her bottom upward.
His heart drummed as he deftly tied her wrists to the corset, taking care not to make the cords too tight.
The sight of her lightly trussed on the bed sent a wave of overwhelming heat through him.
Breathing unsteadily, he kneaded and stroked her bottom.
He sensed her bewilderment and curiosity, and saw her wrists flex tentatively against the cord restraints.
She was half-naked and he was the one who was fully clothed, but he’d never felt more exposed.
He waited for her reaction, ready to free her instantly if she objected.
But she was silent, unmoving except for the quick rise and fall of her lungs.
Slowly his hand wandered down between her legs, coaxing them wider.
He grasped the aching stiffness of his erection and stroked the head across her melting flesh, back and forth.
The arch of her back deepened, and her fingers began to curl and straighten like delicate anemone fronds.
She made a low, vibrant sound, and pushed backward against him, signaling not only permission but pleasure.
Clearly she would allow this, and other intimacies in the future, as long as she trusted him.
Suffused with relief and excitement, he leaned over her and groaned out a few words, some of them tender, some crude, but he was beyond controlling anything.
The second he entered her, she cried out and began to spasm, her inner muscles tightening while his hips rolled in continuous nudges that almost lifted her feet from the floor.
Driving deep into the wet pulsations, he rode out her climax to the last helpless shudder, and when at last she lay still and gasping, he tugged at the laces to free her wrists.
He crawled onto the bed with her and unhooked her corset with savage tugs.
After spreading the garment open, he tore the thin layer of her chemise down the front.
He bent to lick upward from her navel to her breasts.
She wriggled as if to escape, and laughed breathlessly as he growled and pinned her hips to the mattress.
But he was too far gone for amusement, too maddened by need.
He mounted her, his shaft roughly probing until he found the right angle.
As he slid inside, her intimate muscles gripped him fluidly, pulling him in to the hilt.
Pandora’s face changed, and she turned docile in the way of a wild creature accepting her mate, her hips canting upward to cradle and welcome him.
He took her mouth with his, and thrust into the depths of her, building sensation until she began to gasp.
He circled his hips, grinding sinuously, sending her into another climax.
She nipped at his shoulder, dug in her nails, the little stings of pain inflaming him beyond sanity.
Plunging deep, he took his own pleasure, letting it explode and shatter and dissolve him until he was lost in her, surrendering completely, wanting no other woman, no other fate.