If You Dare(70)

She did. When she sat up on her knees before him and her lips were close to his, she whispered, “I’m asking you to make love to me.”

He’d been shot. Undoubtedly, they’d gotten him.

Yet he wasted no time rolling her shift up her body and working it off her, fearing she’d change her mind. She followed his rapt gaze, then quickly glanced up. At first she was bold, but as he was unable to stop gaping at her wholly naked body, she brushed her hair forward to spill over her breasts and tugged the cover before her.

He simply shook his head at her, slowly, in warning.

“B-But you’re staring.”

He pulled the material from her, then drew her down flat on the bed, running his fingers through her hair to skim the soft curls to the side. “I’m starin’ because you’re more beautiful than I could ever imagine and it gives me pleasure tae look at you, all of you. I’m starin’ because I never thought I would.” His voice was unrecognizable. He sounded like a beast. With her golden skin and plump breasts and tiny waist, she looked like an offering.

“I’ve never been unclothed this long outside of a bath.”

“You canna be shy with me.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s me.” He swept another greedy glance down the length of her body and hissed a curse. “Woman, I doona even know where to begin.”

She bit her bottom lip. “It’d be easier for me to be unclothed if you were as well.”

He didn’t say a word, just drew off his boots, then snagged his shirt over his head without unbuttoning it. He stood at the foot of the bed and unfastened his trousers, easing them over his erection before they could drop.

“Oh, my…” she murmured, her eyes bright. She sat up, as she might at a picnic, her legs bent and tucked to her bottom. Still the lady.

He put his knee on the bed, preparing to go to her, nervous that he was about to take this woman.

“Wait.”

Of course, wait. He closed his eyes in frustration. What was he doing imagining that he was about to make love to her? He should have known she’d come to her senses. Had to have known his luck had never run this high—

“Will you stay there?”

He opened his eyes to see her coming to him.

“You are completely unclothed, and I want to…” When she was on her knees in front of him, her face still close to his because of the high bed, she leaned in to whisper, “May I just learn you first?”

He tried to keep the disbelief from his face and pulled his knee back to stand fully. “You can do whatever you want tae.”

Biting her lip, she put her hands to his face, brushing her thumbs over it, gently tracing the scar at his temple. She ran her soft palms down to his neck and shoulders, then along his arms. She tilted her head at his hands as if she didn’t quite know what to do with them, then placed them on her shoulders as if she were putting them away. “Let’s keep them there for now.”

She was very serious about this. With his arms up, she explored his torso, sometimes lightly scratching, making the muscles contract painfully, though he didn’t let her know, and she’d never guess it by the way his cock was responding to her touches.

“Anna,” he grated when he saw she’d begun panting her breaths, her breasts rising in time, her nipples hardening to tempt his mouth. With great satisfaction, he realized she’d become aroused by touching him.

Then with one hand, fingers pointing down, she rubbed along his belly. “Every inch of you is hard as rock.”

As she was slowly following the trail of hair down from his navel, he could only grunt in answer. Every lingering, teasing inch closer was increased agony. Then a shock of pleasure hammered through him when she grasped his shaft with one hand. Astonishment when she cupped him with the other. He clutched her shoulders and hissed a curse.

“Except here.” Her nails lightly scratched the base of his sack, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

He dropped his knee back to the bed, drawing her in by her shoulders. When he kissed her, she gasped and said, “I wasn’t finished.”

“I was just about tae be.”

When she frowned, he took her mouth in a fierce, wet kiss, thrusting his tongue into her, delving it against hers, a kiss more aggressive than the one in the coach. His hands found her backside, squeezing her, kneading her, and he could feel that she rolled her hips toward him even as she grasped his face and met his tongue.

He brushed the curls over her sex, reverently, and rasped against her lips, “Spread your knees for me.” When she did, he dipped a finger into her wetness, groaning, “Anna, you feel so damn good.”