Chapter 13 #3
Could he look any more devilish in that moment when she realized that her dress, her lovely cream silk dress, was sagging at her shoulders?
Cool air snaked in around her waist and set up fresh chills.
She wanted to wrap her arms around herself.
She wanted to close her eyes and pretend she was somewhere else.
Back in her room. Back at the castle, where this kind of thing was no more than fantasy.
But oh, her body would never forgive her.
He was still smiling. And she had never considered herself a coward.
“All right,” she said and reached for his shirt.
And yanked it up right over his head to find that every one of her wishes had come true.
His chest was magnificent—sleek, broad, decorated in that lovely curling hair that narrowed at his torso and arrowed right down like an invitation to explore.
To explore…oh, dear. She had brothers. She had a mother who had made sure her daughters would never be ignorant enough to put themselves in danger.
So she knew that the rather impressive bulge in Grey’s trousers meant that he was excited as well. Anticipating. Readying.
She quickly looked up to see his expression gentling. “Yes, my dear,” he said, once again running a soft finger along her throat. “That is what you do to me.”
“You won’t….”
His smile broadened. “I won’t.”
“But won’t that…hurt?”
He shrugged. “We’ll figure a way around it.”
“In fact,” she retorted with a sudden grin, “I insist on it.”
His answering grin matched hers exactly.
She couldn’t help it. She motioned to his chest, his broad, strong chest. “May I?”
“I wish you would.”
She did. Finally, she reached for him, tentatively laying her hands against those muscles, winnowing her fingers through those curls of hair, sating herself on the texture and strength and heat of him.
Tracing with reverence the two scars she uncovered, one up by his collarbone, another along the side of his torso, long scars that still looked angry.
“What about these?” she asked, compelled to lean forward and lay her lips against them.
He shuddered with her touch. “Mementos of a long fight with a tyrant.”
“I’m sorry.”
He kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”
She leaned back a bit and looked up. “I’m having all the fun. Shouldn’t we do something about that?”
And then before she could change her mind, she shrugged her gown off her shoulders. She saw him draw in a breath and suddenly felt stronger. Surer. She actually had power over this magnificent man, and it changed her forever.
For the briefest moment, he closed his eyes. And then he lifted his hands. “May I?”
“I think it only fair.” She was still winnowing her fingers through that silky hair and smiling.
“Maybe we’d better find a more comfortable place to do this,” he suggested, and before she could even answer, had her lifted in his arms and was on the way over to the bed, leaving her dress on the floor behind them.
He didn’t even bother to pull the covers down.
He just laid her out on the bed like an offering and followed, settling right alongside her so that he could reach her as easily as she could reach him.
So he could run his callused finger along her collarbone, down the very center of her chest, then around her breast that ached for him, her nipple a hard nub.
She was having a hard time keeping her eyes open.
They wanted to drift closed so she could better focus on the delicious sensations he was unleashing.
But if she did, she wouldn’t see the lambent light in his sea-blue eyes.
She wouldn’t see him dip his head so that he could follow his finger with his lips, kissing, nibbling, oh Lord, licking with slow, exquisitely delicious strokes of his tongue closer and closer to her breasts, her aching, hungry breasts.
Did that mean it was up to her to dispense with her chemise?
She was just about to ask when he simply closed his lips around her breast and kept licking.
She heard herself gasp as her body arched completely without her permission.
As she caught his head in her own hands and held him to her, urged him to continue, to increase the torture he was inflicting.
He pulled away from her breast and smiled down into her eyes, his expression the stuff of maidenly dreams. And then he kissed her again, nibbling at her lips now, using his tongue in unexpected ways.
“Open for me, Georgie,” he murmured.
She had no idea what he meant, but when she opened her lips to answer him, he slipped his tongue right past them.
He caressed her breasts with his fingers and her mouth with his tongue until she caught on and met him, tongue-to-tongue, dipping in and out of his mouth until she couldn’t seem to separate the almost frightening new sensations from her mouth and her breasts.
Until she opened her legs because she couldn’t bear them closed anymore, and she heard him growl low in his throat.
She felt his hand slide right down her belly to raise her chemise until the night air chilled her, there between her legs, chilled her where that low hum had first alerted her to his power over her.
He never broke the kiss, even as his fingers reached the curls at the juncture of her thighs. Even as Georgie flinched at the foreign sensation. Even as she instinctively tried to close her legs together.
“You’ll like this,” he murmured with a kiss to her ear. “I promise.”
She couldn’t help it. She opened again, flushing with the sensation that she had become wanton. Because she was afraid. But she was more afraid he would stop.
And oh, his fingers set off a firestorm there, flicking and stroking, dipping inside her where she was weeping with the want of him.
She came so close then to forfeiting her commitment, to yanking his breeches open and demanding he fill her to her core.
She couldn’t catch her breath. She couldn’t calm her body.
Somehow, though, she held onto her control enough to keep her mouth shut. At least figuratively.
“Do you trust me?” he asked, his eyes glowing.
She nodded.
His smile was the stuff of fantasies. “Then believe that you’ll love this.”
And without another word, he slid his whole body down, laid his hands along the inside of her thighs and opened them even more.
Georgie lurched up. “What….?”
He smiled again and she was lost. And then, dipping his head right there where his fingers had been, he treated her like a Gunter’s ice.
Except nothing was cold. She was so hot, her body was clenching, a wild keening feeling coursing through her.
His tongue, oh, his tongue, sliding up and down and then darting inside, just like his fingers had, only sweeter, slicker, even more thrilling until she was keening right along with her body, her hands clenched in his hair, her head thrown back, her body caught in a storm.
And then, he brought his finger up. He found a spot that shot lightning through her, and he stroked it with finger and tongue, and she swore she could feel the vibrations of him humming in this throat until he dipped in one more time, and her body seized and she cried out, the sensations too much to hold, the exquisite pleasure sweeping through her like a thundering surf.
She wasn’t sure if she pulled him up or he came on his own, but suddenly Grey was holding her, her head tucked against his shoulder and his hands stroking her back.
She was still shuddering when he stopped stroking and lifted her chin. “Are you crying?”
For a long moment she could do no more than nod. Finally with a rather watery smile, she stretched up and kissed him back. “Thank you. I would never have imagined….”
Again, she shook her head. This time he kissed her, and she tasted herself on him, which oddly excited her all over again. Which, even still replete with surprise chills still chasing through her, made her remember more of her grandmother’s advice.
She lifted her head back from his shoulder and faced him. “It seems to me we have not completed the evening’s festivities.”
His grin was brash. “You want another round?”
She shook her head with what she hoped was a salacious smile of her own. “No. I want you to have a round.”
He seemed to freeze a bit. “You don’t have to….”
“My grandmother said that I did. And since I am a proponent of fair play, I agree with her.”
He shook his head with a rueful grin. “I have to spend more time with your grandmother.”
Georgie chuckled. “She’d like that. She likes handsome men. And the bees welcomed you. There’s just one thing.” Now she battled a fresh blush. “I am not…er, conversant with…er, technique? I mean, I know the basic equipment, but I’m not exactly sure how to make the most of it. Will you guide me?”
For the longest moment Grey couldn’t seem to make a sound.
Georgie looked up to see that his eyes were all but black, his nostrils flared.
His scent had grown darker, somehow, and it called to her.
She knew she should have been petrified, awash in shame for being so forward.
But her grandmother was right. Now that she was able to focus on something besides her own cataclysmic bodily responses, she realized he was stiff, holding himself exquisitely still. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
He couldn’t be afraid.
Georgie figured she had better make the first move. Running her hand down his chest, his torso, which was damp with sweat, she laid her hand over the placket of his trousers. “If you can untie my dress, doesn’t that mean I should unbutton you?”
He briefly closed his eyes. “I only have so much restraint, Georgie.”
She shouldn’t allow his admission to delight her, but it did.
She had never been irresistible before. She decided it would be a waste of time to be polite.
She opened a button and then another, intrigued by the fact that as she slipped her fingers inside the placket, the muscles of his abdomen rippled.
She wanted to lick them. Next time, she decided, when they both knew the rhythms of the dance.
Another button.
Another.
His breathing was growing harsh, and her fingers had reached a nest of curling hair. And…oh, my. Oh, she hadn’t expected that. Well, she had noticed how big the bulge had been, but she suspected it hadn’t been completely…involved.
She couldn’t stand it anymore. She bent and laid a kiss on his belly and was rewarded by another low growl and a ripple of muscle, even as she gained enough access to curl her fingers around his…
what was it the boys called it? Shaft? Man spear?
Cock? Somehow that didn’t seem to…er, encompass the physical presence of it.
“You know what…” she murmured, pulling the placket fully away. “If you could dine on me, why couldn’t I…”
That got a real groan out of him. “Please,” he begged. “Not now.”
She looked up to see actual pain on his face. “Am I hurting you?”
He managed a rather grim smile. “Only in the best of ways. Help me get these things off so we can enjoy this interlude a bit better.”
Her own smile was delighted. She helped him shuck the rest of his clothing and spent a moment taking in the sight of his…man spear? That was much larger and rounder than she’d imagined, all cushioned in that nest of curly hair, a shade darker than that on his head.
This time she didn’t ask permission. The idea of ‘supping’ on his shaft intrigued her, but she thought this probably wasn’t the time, if he was this uncomfortable.
So she satisfied herself by using her fingers, her hands, and one kiss right on the tip where a pearl of liquid had formed.
She delighted herself testing the texture of him, like silk stretched over steel.
She cupped his sacs and inhaled the earthy male scent of him.
She heard him groan again and decided this wasn’t the time to waste on education.
“Tell me if I’m doing this wrong,” she said, wrapping her hand around him and sliding it up and down, delighted when he seemed to jump in her hand. “Grandmama was not explicit.”
“You’re doing just fine. Only one thing…
” And before she could object, he pulled her back up to him and met her mouth to mouth, so that she lay along his body, relishing the hard strength of him, delighting in the heat, relieved that she could still reach his shaft so she could focus on it along with the kiss, and his hands roving her body, his groans, his smiles.
“Are you sure I can’t…”
He kissed her again. “I’m sure.” His voice was so strained, that she gentled her hold on him.
But he protested, wrapped his own hand around hers to show her what he liked.
She kissed him this time as she began to stroke, feeling him growing even larger in her hand, throbbing, stiffening, until it seemed it would burst. It excited her so much, this mastery over him.
He was setting her body alight again, but she was all but shattering his control.
And then, with a cry, he pulsed in her hand and spent on his belly, and she met his mouth again, lips and tongue and teeth, furious to meet him, to succumb to him, to triumph over him.
He hadn’t even finished when he reached down and began to stroke her just as he’d done before, faster, lighter, tormenting her with the silk of his touch, his fingers just callused enough to rasp against her most sensitive flesh, bringing it back to shuddering, seething life.
Bringing her back to her own ecstasy as she moaned into the kiss, as she writhed, as she wept with the perfect moment they shared.