Twenty #4
He was hard, harder than he’d ever been. The brush of his linen was like a sword’s thrust. He feared for his control and prayed his oblations would not leave him undone before he began.
Quick, hungry noises rose in her throat, and he paled.
He must serve her as she deserved to be served.
His balls, as tight as stones, pounded between his thighs.
He needed to split her wide and plant his seed, perhaps in a single brute movement.
It was a battle between his consciousness and his cock, and his cock was winning.
She fretted and cried, tightening around his tongue. He could bear no more.
He stood, jerking her from the balustrade.
He pressed her against the balcony wall, heedless of the hiss she made when her flesh met the cool brick. He flailed with his buttons. In an instant his breeks and linen were around his ankles.
He opened her skirts and lifted her knee.
He knew the angle that would heighten her pleasure and pressed her to it.
Her bud throbbed under his thumb, and her eyes were like a wolf’s, alight with hunger.
He grasped her waist and entered her with a thrust so fevered he swore he felt the brick behind her.
He plowed her hard. Eight, ten, twelve times. By the twentieth he prayed for his soul. It was a shameful, inelegant performance, but in half a dozen more thrusts her cries began to lengthen.
He stepped back, kicked his breeks free, and jerked her into his arms.
He could wait no longer.
* * *
His chest was hard, and every bone in her body ached.
Her legs felt like putty, and she was glad she didn’t have to walk these last steps.
He carried her to the seducing couch and dropped her roughly.
He removed his shoes and stripped off his socks.
Then he put one knee on the cushion, took the high-backed frame in his hand, and entered her.
With exquisite, hammering blows he filled her.
Her mind left. Only her animal instinct remained, and she anchored her foot wantonly on the arm of the couch, jerking her hips to meet him and letting the fire stoke her already scorched loins.
Second peaks were rare, apocalyptical occurrences for Cam.
Only twice in her life—never with Jacket—and both times she’d shamed herself with her willingness to abandon propriety for her need.
Her gown, still knotted, revealed both breasts openly. When Peter’s eyes came to rest on them, she drew a finger slowly across a nipple, feeling the luscious jolt. His eyes widened, and the pounding quickened.
“More,” he whispered.
She grasped each peak and plucked, and wild desire blossomed on his face.
He reared back, satyr-like, and drew the snowy shirt from his body, still driving himself into her.
His chest was broad and taut, and a thick bronze pelt ran down to his thighs.
He was more muscular than Jacket and thicker inside her.
A Germanic god. And she had no greater wish than to have him bring her this second, otherworldly gift.
She felt the wave—enthralling and suffocating.
Her breath caught, waiting for the world to explode.
And just as the cataclysm began, he brought his stroking fingers to her.
She launched into nirvana, her limbs searching for purchase.
He caught her knees and gave one final, penetrating blow.
She could feel him lose himself inside her.
Again and again, he shuddered, each movement lengthening her ecstasy.
After a long moment, when the reverberations had slowed, he collapsed beside her, pulling her hips close and cupping her breasts. She was damp, and the cool November air from the open doors blew the faint perfume of their joining from the room.
Victories all around, yes?
She curled the toes still tingling from the action. Yes.
Yes?
Yes, dammit. Yes. From her tousled hair to the thump-thump of her heart to the mind-blowing serenity of her limbs, she had gotten everything she could have possibly wanted out of the exchange.
So why did she feel like crying?
The low table beside them held a drawer. He opened it without looking, pulled out a blanket, and with a flip of his arm, covered them both. The cashmere was crimson, like the couch, and the silk edge matched the pillow under her head.
Tools of the trade.
She’d offered herself shamelessly, and he’d used her just as she’d offered. There would be no more sittings, no portrait, no patient siege. The castle had been breached with nothing more than a well-used battering ram. And she herself had hurried to let down the drawbridge.
If she returned, it would not be to be painted or courted. If she came back, they would simply fall into bed, and in a few months the desire, satisfied, would fade. It would be just like the relationship she’d had with every other man in her life.
She was not one to wallow. She’d had her fun. She’d thought Peter would wait. He hadn’t, but neither had she. Now it was time to get the information that would help her with her book and get home.
The glow receded, replaced by a familiar emptiness.