Chapter 15 #2
He’d been right, a truth he acknowledged with a humiliating and all-too pitiful whimper. Perfect breasts. Full and lush and rosy-tipped, the nipples hard, and God, he ached to taste them.
“Tell me what you want,” he repeated, the rasp transmuted into a wolfish growl.
She extended a hand toward him, palm up, a little heaven waiting in that small, soft space. “You.”
He loved her. Was in love with her. As soon as he’d said it, she’d been able to step away from the painting, from that detail made foreign by her closeness. She could see the full picture now, see what she wanted. Not just to be free, to choose right, but to be loved and to love freely.
What to do with it? What to say? With her heart so very big in her chest, she almost couldn’t breathe. But he didn’t seem to need her to say anything. He’d given her love without expectation of receiving anything in return.
How terribly unfair. When he took her offered hand and kissed her palm, she tugged. When he climbed atop the bed and straddled her waiting body, she cupped the back of his neck. And when he dipped to kiss her, she stopped him with a word.
“First…”
He raised a brow.
“First, what do you like? When you are with an… actress. What do you like her to do?”
“That doesn’t matter, Tessa.”
“It does to me. I do not want to be a disappointment.”
“You never could be.”
“I could. Tell me. Please, Remmy.”
He twisted his head and kissed the inside of her elbow. “I just want you to touch me, Tessa. Anywhere, everywhere. Your curiosity is my pleasure. Your delight my delight.”
She placed her fingers at the hollow of his throat. “Here?”
“Yes.”
“And here?” She pressed a palm against the indentation between the slabs of muscle that made up his chest.
“Yes.”
She trailed her fingers down his rigid abdomen until her skin brushed against crisp hairs. “And here?” Her voice a whisper.
“Absolutely there.”
She studied the hard lines of his form as he was poised above her.
Muscles taut, limbs long and lean, dark hair ranging across his forearms and lower belly, lower, to where his…
manhood jutted up between them. There were only a few candles in sconces on the wall to light the room, and the air was too hot for a fire.
A dim bolt of new moonlight fell through the window, silvering his skin, glinting off his earring.
His face was hard and soft at the same time, a riot of light and shadow, chiaroscuro.
“Remmy…” She swallowed. “You’re beautiful.”
He kissed her, and this time she let him. Slow and gentle at first but growing steadily, no end in sight—only the pleasure of lips and tongue and teeth careening out of control.
“So fast,” she breathed when he released her mouth and set his own just beneath her jaw, sucking at sensitive skin. “It’s happening so fast.”
“Fast?” He tugged her earlobe between his teeth. “This has been happening forever. It’s the slowest bloody courtship anyone has ever participated in.”
He covered her nipple with his mouth, kissed it, teased it until it was hard and puckered.
“Perfect,” he muttered, cupping her breasts, squeezed them together, and licked the line of skin where they met.
The heat of his mouth was almost too much, but it didn’t last.
He slipped from the bed and studied her as if he were at a museum, considering a work of art, one hand cradling his elbow the other stroking along his jaw.
So very odd to be studied so openly and with such lust. “Return to me.”
“I want to see every inch of you first. In some ways, I know you as well as I know myself. In others, you are entirely new. I want to investigate all the new bits, discover your secrets. Like…” He grasped her hips and pulled her across the mattress until her backside was even with the edge.
When she gave a little yelp, his grin turned wicked.
“Like this little mole right here.” He pressed his thumb into the small brown circle right atop her hip bone.
The pressure made her lightheaded, but she remained firmly in the present, the better to discover his secrets.
Like the ridge of muscle down his torso and popping in his thighs.
The dusting of hair across his abdomen, and the thick growth of it between his legs.
The appendage rising there, long and thick.
The candlelight flirted with his narrow waist, and the shadows draped around his broad shoulders.
With him she could have both light and dark.
With him she could have everything. Because he gave it.
“Oh!” She sat upright and reached for him, finally touching the warm silken skin above his ribs, the pale white scar glittering there. “Is this where you were injured in the archery accident?” She brushed her fingers against the sliver.
“Where I was injured during your archery accident? Yes.” He sank his fingers into her hair.
She kissed the scar over his ribs. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I needed stitches.”
She lifted her chin to find him staring at her with eyes hot and hopeful. “I apologize.”
“I like knowing you scored my body. But you can make up for it if you like.”
“How?” She kissed the scar again.
He inhaled sharply, a hiss of breath. “Do exactly what you’re doing now. No. Hell. I’m not done with you yet.”
“Done? We’re just—ack!”
He’d wrapped his hands around her waist and picked her up, flipped her and put her back on the bed on her hands and knees. Her arms gave out under the unexpected weight, and she found herself face-first in the mattress, her backside stuck straight up in the air.
“God, yes,” he groaned. “That’s perfect, too.” Then his hands were on her, massaging her backside, thumbs dipping between the sides, a teasing touch before he ran his fingertips up her spine and brushed her hair away from her neck.
The heat of his skin as he bent over her, nestling his shaft just so against her backside as he settled his chest against her back to kiss her neck.
She bit her bottom lip, rolled her shoulder, moaned, and he kissed back down her spine, his hands caressing the flare of her ribs on each side, the dip of her waist, the curve of her rear once more before he flipped her back over.
He brushed her hair out of her eyes. “You’re a bold woman, aren’t you, Tess. I’m surprised.” He shrugged a single shoulder, muscle rippling beneath candle-loved skin. “And not.”
She propped herself up on her elbows behind her. “I’ve watched Lady Chattaway sleep her way across the Continent for the last six years. That’s plenty of time to imagine it for myself, even if I never acted on those fancies.”
His gaze traveled down her body, following the path of his hot hand, both of which seemed to waver constantly back to her breasts. “Did you want to?”
“Yes.”
A growl, low and feral. “I had no claim to you. I have—”
She kissed him, not wanting to admit the truth. Not right now. “There is another reason I feel bold.”
He nudged the side of her nose, put one knee on the bed. “Oh?”
His hips, his shaft were just above eye level. More intimidating there. She curled her fingers into her palm to keep from touching and said, surprised to find the words not entirely scattered, “It’s you. I’ve always been able to… to be comfortable around you. No matter what.”
The lines of his face—half shadow, half light—softened, and he said softly, “Good.” He kissed her forehead.
Then all gentleness gone, and she managed only a gasp as his mouth stole hers.
He kissed her hard and deep, and she opened for him everywhere.
Her legs falling open, her mouth giving him entrance.
Her chest seemed to creak open, too, ribs splaying, muscle curling back.
Nowhere for her heart to hide. It had never seen so much light before, had never known warmth like Remmy’s kiss, his touch, his knee between her leg, his hand on her breast, the other tangled so tightly in her hair her scalp tingled.
Open, open everywhere and pleasure pouring into her.
“I should take you slowly,” he mumbled against her ear. “But after wanting you so long, I do not think I can hold back much longer.”
“Do not. Please do not.” She dug her nails into the muscles of his back and rolled her hips against him.
Some guttural sound was trapped in his throat, and she kissed his Adam’s apple to dislodge it.
“I’ve never seen this part of you before,” she whispered, kissing it again. “I like seeing all of you.”
He moaned. A simple kiss had caused him to make that sound, a few words. She pressed a palm against his chest and urged him to the side, onto his back. He went so easily where she wanted.
When he was flat on his back, one knee bent, grinning up at her, she ran her fingers through his hair, traced the outline of his face, bent and kissed the skin over his heart. “You are beautiful.”
He wrapped a strand of her hair around his hand, gave a gentle tug that brought her close and said against her mouth, “You are the most sinful sight I’ve ever seen, and only a sin because it must be wrong to see so much of heaven when I am who I am.”
“Who you are? Dedicated?”
“Disdainful of the rules.”
“I thought you more… exuberant.”
He quirked his mouth to the side. “Eager to be a bit naughty.”
“You are passionate.”
“That you’ve got right, sweetheart.” He rubbed his thumb across her nipple, and she arched into the electric touch.
Their gazes caught and roared a wildfire to life between them, sending all conversation up in ash.
This kiss all hunger and seeking hands, wet tongue and wild pulses, as he rolled her onto her back and cupped her sex with his hand.
He searched the curls between her legs for that little nub that was pulsing, pulsing like a heartbeat.
When he found it, fireworks flared across her skin.
She usually watched life happen around her, but he was blooming life within her.
She waited for others to tell her what to do, but he was waiting for her.