16. Chapter 16 #2
He caressed her bare thighs, slow enough to make refusal possible, certain enough to make refusal difficult. She watched him settle between her knees, too large for the narrow bed. He kissed the inside of her thigh, then another place higher, softer, where she had no clever answer prepared.
Marguerite reached for discipline and found only the sheet.
Tristan settled one hand at the joint of her thigh and traced, very lightly, the curls at the apex of her sex. “I love these little curls. They look like eddies in a wave.”
She stared at the ceiling. “I didn’t know you had a talent for poetry.”
She felt him smile against her inner thigh.
“I’m a man of many talents, Maggie. Wait until you see what I can do with my tongue.”
He put it to use. His mouth found her, and she arched off the mattress and her hand flew to his hair.
“Tristan—”
He grunted without lifting his head. Her thighs trembled against his shoulders.
He slid one arm across her hips and held her down, anchoring her beneath his mouth. Marguerite ought to have objected to the command. Instead, heat rushed through her at the terrible luxury of being kept exactly where pleasure found her.
He sucked her clit. While his lips were doing wicked things, he tugged her breast out of the corset, took the nipple between his fingers, and pressed. Oh, how would she survive this?
Outside, water lapped against the hull, and inside he followed the same rhythm, patient and relentless and calibrated to take her apart.
Marguerite sifted her fingers through his hair and tugged, needing something to hold on to.
She felt him groan, a vibration at her core that moved through her, and she broke.
The climax arrived from somewhere she had not known to defend.
Her back bowed off the mattress, his name leaving her mouth, her whole body seized and shaking in his hands.
He held her through it. His forearm still across her hips, his mouth gone gentle now, coaxing the last tremors from her.
When she sagged back against the bedding, shaking and furious with gratitude, he kissed the inside of her thigh, then rose over her.
She expected him to climb over her. Instead, he reached for the laces of her corset.
Marguerite caught his wrist. “Is that really necessary?”
She hated how steady he looked. Mouth wet, hair loose over his brow. His chest moved hard, but he watched her with a steadiness that made her feel catastrophically disordered.
“I have a dislike for unnecessary rigging,” he said.
“I have a dislike for naval metaphors,” she said, “but you do not see me unlacing your vocabulary.”
He rubbed his thumb over one loosened lace. “I know armor when I see it, Marguerite.”
Her throat tightened. “Armor is useful. It protects one’s person from injuries. From accidents. From poorly aimed weapons—”
“Whalebone and silk will not protect you from what I mean to give you.” He grinned, and his grin, she was coming to realize, was a thief of thoughts, of words, of every prudent measure a diplomat tried to employ.
“And what is that?” She meant to sound amused. She meant to sound worldly. Instead, the question came out soft, almost wary, already searching for the price.
He bent and kissed the place where the corset ended and her skin began. “Pleasure.”
“In exchange for what?”
Tristan unlaced the next knot. “The price is that you will be here, Moon.” His voice was low against her skin. “And won’t hide under a cloud.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. She felt her eyes grow dangerously full and blinked once, hard. Do not, she told herself. Do not be suddenly eloquent.
He worked the laces slowly, one after another, and each release seemed to travel through her body before the corset itself gave way. Silk slackened. Boning loosened. The rigid shape that had held her all evening began to fail under his hands.
“I want to see you take what I give you.”
The last lace slipped free. The corset opened.
Marguerite inhaled before she could stop herself.
Air rushed into her, deep and humiliatingly sweet.
She lay beneath him with her ribs expanding, her breasts bare, her skin marked faintly where the seams had pressed.
Tristan looked at those marks as if he wanted to punish the garment for leaving them.
Then he lowered himself over her and kissed each shallow line.
She could not bear it. “Tristan.”
He came up to her mouth. “I have you.”
That was the trouble. He did. He kicked away his breeches and settled between her thighs, heavy and hot against her.
Marguerite braced herself for a hard thrust. Instead, Tristan watched her face and entered her slowly.
He gave her one inch, then another, and forced her to feel every degree of him.
When her breath caught, he stopped. When she softened, he pressed deeper.
He did not conquer. He persuaded, coaxed, waited her open by degrees until she had no room left for calculation.
When he was fully inside her, he held still. Marguerite shook beneath him.
“There,” he said, voice rough at the edges. “No armor.”
She swallowed. “You are very pleased with yourself.”
“I will be.” He brushed his mouth over hers. “When you scream.”
He began to move. He dragged pleasure from her in long, deep strokes. The bed creaked softly beneath them. The lamp swung. The ship rolled, and Tristan used the motion, driving in when the sea lifted them, withdrawing when it dropped away, as if the ocean was conspiring with him.
Marguerite clung to him. She tried to keep her eyes open. He made that difficult. He made everything difficult: thought, breath, pride, the old belief that wanting could be managed if one gave it terms.