Chapter Seven #4
“Perhaps you are right,” he said, his mouth so close she could feel every word against her lips. “Perhaps you didn’t do anything. Perhaps it is this place that is a curse.”
Curse sounded much more applicable than inconvenience. Curse sounded like…something beyond her control. Beyond their control.
“I have spent all this time determining what to do, and this is the only thing to be done.”
All this time? “It has only been three days.” Because this had never been an issue before.
At least not one that couldn’t be easily squashed by creating a daily schedule that kept themselves out of each other’s orbit.
It was all easily sidestepped by the fact she was the one who scheduled his dates, organized his affairs, planned his damn proposal to another woman.
And even now, trying to remind herself of these things, those other women, the countess, all she could think was they were not here. He was not touching them.
He was touching her. His hands were in her hair. His body caged hers to the wall behind her. His breath was on her skin. His mouth, just a whisper away. And she, knowing she shouldn’t, arched her body against his.
There was no squashing this. Not now. Whatever lines they could not cross were already too blurry not to stumble over, on purpose or accident, it did not matter.
She needed, and she did not know how to stem this tide of need so different than anything she’d ever experienced, so wild and all-encompassing it swept away her usual attention to detail and rules.
“I know you feel it too,” he said, his voice a low, fierce rumble. “This unquenchable need. And so we will quench it, and that will be that. Then we can go back to the way things are meant to be.”
She wasn’t foolish enough to believe that. Was he? If they wanted this much from just a moment, how much more would they want when they knew everything?
And still, when his lips touched hers, lightly at first, testing, she did not push him away.
She shuddered out a breath. Because in the briefest, lightest taste of him, touch of him, she did not care how much more she would want if only she could have this. Now.
And then it was as if whatever bomb they had been inching around, trying to defuse, exploded instead. Into a heat that scorched across her skin and deep into her chest.
His mouth was hard, unrelenting. He tasted, he devoured, and because his grip was in her hair she could only be moved just the way he wanted, angling her mouth so he could go deeper.
But her body was free to arch against his, desperately searching for some kind of pressure that would ease this ache.
His body was as hard as the wall behind her.
His hands were rough, hot as they released her hair and slid under her shirt instead.
His fingers spread encompassed her entire rib cage.
His back was a wide expanse of muscle under the palms of her hands.
And his mouth was a fierce, devouring force burning all rational thought to ash. His hands moved, cupping her breasts, thumbs trailing over the hardened peaks of her nipples. She moaned, she whimpered. She writhed against him.
Everything was too much and not enough. Too big and encompassing, but she needed more. So much more. His mouth trailed away from hers, down her neck, leaving a fire of sensation. One hand roamed from breast to belly to under the waistband of her flimsy pajama shorts.
Under her underwear, to the wet, desperate center of her. Playing terrible games, touching her too lightly, when all she wanted was more. Then his mouth was on her breast, the rough edge of his teeth against her nipple.
Her knees might have given out on a cry if he was not pressed against her somewhat, keeping her upright. Then his mouth trailed back up. Her chest, her neck, her mouth. To her ear.
“I want to hear you come for me,” he said.
She didn’t know what she could possibly want except that too. And when he slid his fingers inside of her, leaving all teasing behind, she shuddered against him so quick, so easy, she barely recognized herself.
Climax swept over her like a wave. She was blind and lost in nothing but the sensation of being swept away into the ebbs and flows of crashing pleasure. And before she’d fully absorbed all that had happened, his hands, his body were suddenly gone, replaced by a chill.
But whatever defense or refusal she might have uttered never emerged. He took her by the hand and pulled.
She was unsteady, lost, so she could only stumble after him. Through her bedroom, then the bathroom, leaving all the doors open.
When they made it to his bedroom, he simply lifted her off her feet and placed her on the edge of the bed. If she had use of her voice, she might have said something.
But then he kneeled before her and slid the pajama bottoms and underwear off her, before spreading her legs wide. Her impulse was to shut them, but he held her there, her most intimate parts spread out and on display.
For him, and somehow that made it all okay.
Especially when he leaned forward.
“Now, sweet Mara, I will taste you.”