Letting her have her way wasn’t easy; his instinct in this arena was always to control, for his partner’s pleasure as much as his own. But pleasure was not the only currency he—they—were dealing in; if he wanted that other coin in the mix, he had to give ground, yield as she wished, and accept the risk that whatever was revealed wasn’t too frightening. Either for her, or him.
She pressed close again, and he shuddered, then she drew back enough to start on his clothes. Coat, waistcoat, cravat all went while he schooled himself to do no more than return her kisses, to leave his hands riding at her waist. He wasn’t sure where her imagination might lead her; he was eager to learn.
Inevitably he responded, not just to her nearness or the touch of her hands, but even more to her intent. From the instant she’d turned into his arms, that had never been in doubt. She wanted to take him inside her, wanted him inside her; that knowledge alone was enough to make him ache.
He tried not to dwell on it, instead reminded himself that courtesy of her relative inexperience combined with her confidence, the moments before they reached any rapturous state were bound to be not just fraught, but full of potential potholes large enough for him to bury himself in. He was feeling his way with her just as much as he was with her relative, but succeeding with her was far more important.
She’d opened his shirt; now she broke from the kiss, spread the halves wide, and visually devoured. “Stand still.” She leaned close and set her mouth to his skin.
He closed his eyes, felt his fingers tighten about her, helpless to desist, and reminded himself how vitally important winning her had become. Her mouth felt like flames licking over his already heated skin. Her greedy fingers danced, tangling in the dark hair dusting the muscle bands, finding the flat disc of one nipple and teasing, lightly tweaking.
Her lips and tongue distracted him while her fingers slid down to his waistband. And stilled.
She trailed kisses up the midline of his chest, through the hollow at the base of his throat, then up to his chin. He opened his eyes as she drew back, studying his face. He raised a brow.
“I’m thinking.”
That struck him as even more dangerous than usual. “Would you like me to make a suggestion?”
She shook her head, her gaze perfectly steady. “I’m trying to decide which, not what.”
It was going to be torture whichever option she chose.
One brow arched; she looked at him consideringly. “I think…” She stepped back, out of his hold. “Stay there—don’t move.”
He watched as she took another step away, then, hands bunching the fabric at her sides, she drew up her nightgown.
He’d been right, much good did it do him; the battle to remain where he was, to not reach for her as she—smoothly, gracefully, and entirely unhurriedly—drew her nightgown up and off over her head, then tossed it to fall across her dressing stool was fraught, as difficult as any he’d faced. Totally naked, she considered his chest, then her gaze drifted down.
“Your boots—take them off.”
Leaning back against the edge of her bed, he complied, flicking open his breeches’ buckles and stripping off his hose as well, setting all to one side.
As he straightened, he fixed his gaze on her feet, then slowly traced upward, over the curves of her calves, the long, sculpted lines of her thighs, lighting on the thatch of pale blond curls at their apex before idly drifting up over her belly, her waist, her breasts, ultimately to meet her eyes.
Her skin was already faintly tinged; in the moonlight he couldn’t tell if his perusal had made it rosier still.
She held his gaze for a moment, then smiled, a cat sighting cream.
“Good,” she said, and closed the distance between them.
He’d forgotten his legs were against her bed; she stepped into him, not trapping him but limiting his ability to move—to create any distance between them—without moving her. Her breasts brushed his chest, wickedly evocative, then she lifted her head and set her lips to his—and set her hands and her body willfully to his. To work on his.
That was the option she’d chosen.
She plunged into his mouth, deliberately seized his senses with a scalding kiss, then broke away to take mouth, lips, and tongue on a ride of pleasuring delight over his burning skin, over his tensed muscles, flickering beneath the restraint he’d placed on them.
He hauled in a breath, held it as her fingers dallied once more at his waistband. As her mouth cruised across his chest, then commenced a leisurely descent. Slowly raising his hands, he spread them over her back, holding her lightly, tracing upward to rest on her shoulders as she wended her way down.
Until she flicked the buttons at his waistband free, in one easy stroke slid his breeches down, in the same movement sank to her knees, fitted her mouth over him, and smoothly took him in.
He nearly expired. For one finite instant, his heart stood still, then bolted. Raced as she experimented, hurdled when she bent to her self-appointed task of pleasuring him witless.
His hands had risen, without direction had fisted in her hair. His fingers tightened as she drew him deeper still; he realized he could no longer breathe. Eyes closed, he clung to the only thing she’d left him—sensation—and felt every last scintilla of her devotion as she licked, stroked, sucked, his existence reduced to the hot wetness of her mouth, to the scope of her will as she caressed him.
He’d had no idea she would even think of it, of pandering to his senses, his passions in such an overtly immodest way. In such a blatantly wanton way. Battling to mute the groan she drew from him, he wondered if she’d guessed what her being wanton, so utterly abandoned, did to him.
It was more than torture to stand still and force himself simply to accept all she pressed on him, to look down at her pale head moving against him, her flaxen locks spreading and tangling, catching as she worked, and not respond, not grasp, seize, and demand more.
Simply to receive.
To not have to issue any demands at all, but to have many of the wanton thoughts he’d indulged over the years brought to life. To have caresses he’d dreamed of lavished upon him.
Because she wished to.
The thought very nearly brought him—and her—undone. He endured for ten heartbeats, then, gasping, sensually reeling for the first time in more years than he could count, he guided his hands to her face, slid his thumb into her mouth, and withdrew his erection from that gloriously wet haven. “No more.”
The words were so gravelly Penny could barely make them out, but through her hands on his thighs she sensed the tension in him—more than she recalled evoking in him before—and knew enough to heed it. But she’d learned enough for now; the maids she’d overheard whispering hadn’t been wrong.
Rocking back on her heels, she rose, trailing her hand up as she did, closing it around his jutting length. With her other hand, she prodded his chest. “Sit on the bed.”
His eyes met hers; she glimpsed the predator in him, but he complied. Obligingly, he sat back. She followed, clambering up, setting one knee on either side of his hips, straddling him. Then she locked her eyes with his. One hand on his shoulder for balance, the other wrapped about his erection, she slowly, deliberately, entirely at her own discretion, impaled herself on him.
And he let her.
She felt the effort it cost him, saw how clenched his jaw was, saw his lids drift down in surrender as she sank fully down, her softness sheathing his hardness, her body sliding down his to finally come to rest breasts to chest. Draping her arms over his shoulders, she set her lips to his, slid into his mouth, danced her tongue over his, then started to move upon him.
A dance of a different sort.
It wasn’t the same as when he’d lain flat; although she experimented, she couldn’t find quite the right angle…
Desire had already burgeoned within her; she needed more, soon.
Drawing back from the kiss, dragging in a gasping breath, she clung and pressed closer; her head bes
ide his brought their bodies even tighter against each other, but no…
“This”—she had to haul in another breath—“isn’t quite right.” She whispered the words beside his ear. Dragged in another breath. “Is it?”
She felt rather than heard a chuckle that came out more like a groan.
“You saw this in some book, didn’t you?”
She bit his earlobe—hard. “How else?”
“You’re too tall—there’s a better way for us.”
She licked the spot she’d bitten. Purred, “How?”
His hands, until then loose across her back, slid down to grip her bottom. He held her to him as he shifted, swinging his legs up, holding her against him as he came to his knees, then sank back to sit on his ankles.
Resettling her over him, straddling his hips, he resettled himself within her. Brushed back the veil of her hair and met her eyes. “How’s that?”
Her hands on his shoulders, she rose up, then slowly sank down. Her knees and thighs now at a different angle, she had much better purchase on the bed. Their bodies entire seemed much better aligned, at least for their present purpose. Sliding her hands up, she framed his face, smiled her answer—and kissed him.
Let go all restraint and gave herself over to the now driving need to love him, to meet him on the physical plane, match him and experience all that together they might know. That together they could share.
And he went with her, but still at her command, following not leading, letting her set the pace and the direction, letting her ride them both hard, furious, and unswerving toward the sun.
She reached it, and burned.
Charles let the conflagration take her, let it consume her. Watched it claim her. He found a strength he didn’t know he possessed and held back from the beckoning blaze.
And waited. Until release had swept through her and away.
My turn. He didn’t say the words; she wouldn’t have heard them if he had. Holding her to him, he fought to free enough of his mind from the heat of her slick sheath to direct his hands and rearrange her limbs.
Her limp arms he draped over his shoulders, her legs he straightened one at a time and wrapped them about his waist, then he took her bottom in both hands, supporting her weight, tipping her hips to him.
And smoothly drove into her. Embedded himself to the hilt, then gripped her bottom and moved her on him. Worked her hips over his. In this position, he only had to thrust a little to fill her, to penetrate her forcefully as deeply as he could. She was fully open to him, totally his, totally helpless to resist. Totally and completely in his power.
Penny awoke to that jolting reality on a rush of intense sensation. Surely he was deeper, farther inside her than he’d ever been?
She gasped, eyes closed, clung tight as she assimilated their new position—assimilated the devastating impact it was having on her already heightened senses. And at some deeper level, on her very being.
The rhythm he set was neither fast nor slow, but perfectly gauged and relentless. Her senses spun. She tried to squirm, to press ahead still faster, to gain even more delicious pressure for her suddenly clamorous nerves, but instead his fingers tightened; he held her immobile, suspended half-off him for a heartbeat, until she sobbed and clutched in desperation, then he filled her, deep and hard and shockingly thoroughly, again.
Oh, yes, her senses sobbed.
Her breasts, riding against his hair-dusted chest, had swollen until they ached, the nipples so tightly ruched and sensitive she longed to feel his mouth soothing them. In desperation, she clutched his shoulders, extended her arms, and leaned back so her breasts were no longer so excruciatingly abraded.
He bent his head and set his lips to one breast, found her nipple, took it into his hot mouth, and suckled.
Lightning streaked through her; she screamed, gasped, and arched in his arms. He held her easily, continued to work her hips, continued to thrust into her body, continued to feast on her breasts…until she shattered.
More completely than she ever had.
For long moments, she was floating, out of touch with any world but the sensate, aware only of him, his touch, his…worship.
There seemed no other word for it. Even now, he didn’t seek his own release, but sought to lengthen and heighten hers. She didn’t know the ways, but felt the results, felt the golden pleasure well and swell and buoy her on.
It seemed eons, but could only have been minutes before she drifted back to earth, and found herself wrapped in his arms, secure and safe against his chest, her head on his shoulder. He was still hard and rigid within her.
She shifted her head, found his ear, caressed it with her lips. Murmured, “Lay me down. Take me now.”
He drew back to look into her eyes. For a moment, their gazes locked, and she wondered what he saw, what he looked for when he searched her eyes…what he wanted from her.
She could sense his heartbeat, feel his tension, yet it wasn’t desire that stared at her from his eyes.
But then he shifted, lifted her from him, laid her on the pillows. His touch was assured as he settled her, flicked her hair out, laid it about her, then drew the covers from beneath her and let them fall where they would. She was suddenly aware of the flaring emptiness within her, the emptiness he’d filled, that when he was within her she was whole, in some way complete. His eyes, his hands, never left her; as he spread her thighs and loomed over her, that emptiness swelled to an ache.
Then he filled her.
Relief fell from her in a soft sob. Braced above her, he looked down at her as he moved, and started a slow ride of his own.
Long, slow—how a compulsion so fraught, so driven, could feel so languid in execution was something she couldn’t comprehend. He made it seem so, yet it wasn’t. He seemed almost relaxed as he rhythmically drove into her, yet he was very far from that.
Reaching up, she ran her hands over his chest, over the locked muscles in his upper arms, over the broad sweep of his shoulders, then she tugged, arched as he drove deeper, harder, then he groaned and obliged.
He lowered his body to hers, and she stopped thinking.
Her existence shrank to just him and her in the soft shadows of her bed, to shared breaths, gasps, to the wonder of swift shared glances in the dark, to their bodies flexing, merging to the dance they performed it seemed instinctively. She didn’t need to think to know what to do, but could simply let instinct guide her.
Could be with him in this way without thought or concern, or restraint, could simply give herself up to him. As he gave himself to her.
In the end, wholly, completely, without reserve. The wave reared, then crashed, and swept them both away.
They clung, held tight to the moment, to sensation, to each other.
The wave receded and left them, for a moment adrift on a sea of their own making, then they sank back to earth, to the earthly comfort of her bed.
Wrapped in each other’s arms, they slept.
She woke in the deep watches of the night with no idea what had roused her.
She lay still, and listened…realized as she registered her breathing and his that she hadn’t, not even in that fleeting moment of first awareness, felt surprised to find Charles beside her, to feel his arm lying over her waist.
The moon was now high; silvery light streamed through the open curtains, the bright shaft striking the floor beside the bed, throwing enough light for her night-adjusted eyes to see clearly.
No ripple of the unexpected disturbed the stillness about them.
All seemed peaceful. Comforting. Right.
As it should be.
She shifted just enough to look at him. He was slumped facedown in the bed beside her, deeply asleep. Even so, one arm lay flung over her, long fingers relaxed against her side; she wouldn’t give much for her chances of sliding from the bed. Of leaving him.
That odd look she’d seen and even more sensed in his eyes returned to haunt her. Frowning, she tried to fathom what it meant. In that mo
ment, she was perfectly sure neither he nor she could have pretended anything. He’d sworn he was no longer capable of pretense, not in that sphere; she now understood enough of his past to believe him.
Sinking into the soft mattress, she thought back over the night…smiled at the success of her strategy.
That strange look floated once again across her mind.
She shook it aside. She knew what they were doing this time; it was a physical engagement, an affair with no emotional strings on either side. That was the mistake she’d made last time, imagining something that hadn’t been, not understanding how he saw it. He hadn’t felt for her as she’d thought—not as she’d felt for him—and that’s how he’d always see her. They were close friends indisputably, lovers in the physical sense, but nothing more.