She almost cursed him.
With his other hand, he inched up the hem of her shirt. "If I cover you, I'll take you," he explained. "I need to see you first."
"Yes," she said, wondering who this passionate creature was. Not Shaye, surely. She wasn't concerned with either of their pasts, or what would happen once the loving was finished; she lifted her hips to give him easier access. His erection rubbed against her belly, and she hissed. He hissed. The absolute pleasure...the wild sensations.
"Mmm, yes," she said. "I like. No, hate. I hate. Stroke it against me."
"Like this." He pressed his erection between her legs and stroked uuuup.
Her stomach tightened, quivered. "Yes." She arched her hips for another go.
"That one was free. You want another one, you're going to have to pay for it." Valerian pushed the collar of her shirt beneath her breasts, baring them to his gaze.
Cool air around her-and yet the heat in his fingertips burned her.
"Like this," he rasped, licking his lips. "So beautiful. So perfect."
"Payment through stripping. Got it." She plumped both breasts. "I think I like my job. Or hate it. Yes, I meant I hate it."
His pupils basically exploded. "I have to taste them. Have to have those sweet little beads in my mouth."
She had an unquenchable desire to feel him knead her breasts and slide and pump and grind inside her. To know and understand how people became slaves to their emotions over this one act.
So much better to be informed, just like Valerian had said.
He closed his fingers over her wrist. "What are you thinking about?"
"Passion," she admitted. "Sex."
"Look at me. Show me your passion."
Her gaze jerked to him, and she stilled, amazed by what she saw. He was drinking in the sight of her as if she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever beheld. As if her too-pale skin and her average-size breasts topped his Christmas list.
"I'm thinking that I've never seen a more wondrous sight. Your loveliness captivates me," he said, his tone reverent.
Her mind struggled to believe. "You've been with a thousand women," she reminded him softly. "A thousand times more beautiful than me." He might want those women again after he'd had her-she was going to be a disappointment, wasn't she?
"None are more beautiful than you, love. Now or ever."
"I'm nothing," she insisted. "I'm-"
"Everything." One of his hands cupped her jaw, and his thumb caressed the side of her face. He forced her to look at him, to see him. "You are everything to me."
"You don't know..." But he did. He was learning all about her. Her argument that they were strangers no longer held any sway.
It was just...people didn't say beautiful things like that to her.
Tears stung her eyes, and she scrubbed them away. She'd always prided herself on her independence, on her lack of need for another's approval. And she still didn't need someone else's approval; her worth wasn't based on his opinion. But truth was power and the things Valerian said to her...they were truth to him. They mattered. They empowered.
He wiped those tears with his thumbs, his touch gentle.
He was poised above her, his big, hard body illuminated by a golden glow of light. Muscles bunched, strength and arousal exuded from him in mouthwatering waves. His stomach was ripped and hard. His penis stretched toward her center, so thick and hard, reaching for her. A sprinkling of golden hair surrounded the heavy weight of his testicles.
The sight of him, this god of beauty and sex, made her breathless. "You-" she cleared her throat "-aren't bad-looking, either," she said. She'd never given a man a compliment before; she always shoved the opposite sex out of her life as quickly as one entered. And Valerian already had an ego.
His lips twitched. "I'm glad you don't find me ugly."
"Yes. Be very glad."
Inch by agonizing inch, he lowered his head, giving her time to protest, but a gasp of anticipation caught in her windpipe. She could say nothing...finally, blessedly his mouth closed over her nipple, surrounding it with moist heat. When his tongue flicked back and forth against the aching bud, her hand tangled in his hair, holding his head in place. He kneaded her other breast, and the double sensation had her hips writhing.
"Did I not promise you it would feel terrible?"
"Awful, just awful. Don't stop."
"Stop? Oh, no. You make me feel feverish, as if my very life depends on you." He sucked hard, and she groaned at the pleasure-pain of it, then he licked away the sting and she moaned at the heady bliss. "When a nymph makes love with his mate, he becomes completely absorbed in the act, ferocious and bestial. Nothing else matters except the woman in his arms."