He tried unsuccessfully to nip at her fingers. “You would not have me shave it?”
“No,” she said with a firm shake of her head. “I like how it feels when you kiss me.”
“When I kiss you ... where?”
Her eyes met his, smoldering. “Anywhere,” said softly. “Everywhere.”
The spear of pleasure went through him again, hot and sharp. Never had he encountered a woman who could blush with innocence, yet enjoy her own sensuality so fully, speak of it so openly. She was a maze of contrasts, his Celine. A jewel with a thousand precious facets. If he spent a lifetime with her, he would not discover every one.
But they did not have a lifetime.
He forced the thought away, remembering their promise to each other.
Her hands kept moving on their tantalizing path. “I believe I have found a lamb spot,” she said triumphantly, tickling the sensitive skin behind his ear.
He grinned, giving in to a small shudder of pleasure. “One,” to conceded. “No more.”
“No, two.” She lowered her head and kissed his other earlobe, nibbling.
He found it an incredibly arousing sensation, her small teeth sampling him. Without conscious thought, he touched her, unable to resist the urge to slide his arm around her back, pull her close.
“Aha, another lamb spot,” she declared, wiggling free of his hold. “Two, in fact ... here.” She ran her fingers down his arm until she touched the softer skin on the inside of his elbow, where the veins pulsed closest to the surface. She watched his lifeblood throbbing, then slanted him a sidelong glance, her eyes large and melting.
Taking his hand in both of hers, she kissed his callused palm. “And here. Here you are both lion and lamb. It’s here that you hold a sword or a lance ... yet it’s here that you’re so tender when you touch me. Fierce ... and gentle.”
Her words were like a warm rain that flooded his soul. Fierce and gentle. Warrior and loving husband. Two in one. He never would have believed it possible, that his softer side could exist at peace with his battle-skill. That he could give in to one without risking the other. But she had made it true.
When she released his hand and lowered her head to his, he met her lips in a ravenous, demanding kiss, but she barely allowed him a taste of her before she lifted her mouth.
And began to taste him.
“There is one part of you,” she whispered, leaving a path of wet, openmouthed kisses down his neck, his chest, “that is undeniably lion.”
His breath came in sharply. He grasped fistfuls of the wolf pelt beneath him, the only way he could prevent himself from pulling her astride him. He was rampantly hard by the time she followed the narrowed path of hair over his belly, teasing him with her lips and tongue. Her words and kisses left no doubt as to what she intended, and the thought alone almost brought a spasm of release.
His body went taut with strain beneath her. “Celine ...” he rasped on a dry throat. Control threatened to slip from him.
She skipped over the bandage at his waist and followed the dark hair to the throbbing part of him that so ached for her sweet attentions. She lifted her mouth from him, not touching him, silent.
The waiting stretched out, racking him with fire-tipped needles of pleasure, on the very edge of pain.
Her hand found him first, gliding along the hard length of him, gently, tentatively.
A groan rent from deep in his chest. She stroked him with the lightest, petal-soft touch, and his hips thrust upward.
“Here,” she said reverently, wonderingly, “here you are very much lion.”
He could not reply. He had no voice, no mind, no breath. There was naught but the drumming of his heart and the explosive ecstasy of her touch as she rubbed the velvety tip, making a small, intrigued sound at the drop of moisture there. She explored him, tracing the veins, circling him with her fingers, so curious, so sensual and yet innocent. When her hand tightened, sliding slowly up and down, he knew he could bear no more.
But then she shifted beside him, turning.
And he knew there was more to bear. Too much more. He could feel her breath fanning over him, the heat more arousing than aught he had ever imagined in his life. He went rigid beneath her, dangerously close to release. “Celine!”
“Shh, my lion,” she urged. “I wish to know all of you. All of you.”
And then she kissed him.
A tentative kiss at first, a cautious brush of her lips, sampling the tip. A strangled oath tore from his throat.
Then she took him into her mouth. Drew him in to that hot, wet satin. Took him deep, sighing.
Gaston gasped for life, for air, unable to breathe in that intense, mindless, reckless moment. The sensations of her lips and tongue giving him such carnal pleasure ... so shamelessly, so fully, a giving that was simple and joyous ...