“Eliot. I will.” She leaned forward and kissed him, pulling him into her arms. Giving up any pretense of resistance, he pressed his body to hers. The soft curves under the robe moved against his palms, sending him into such an aroused state that for a moment he forgot to breathe.
She broke the kiss and his heart began to beat again. He ran his fingers under the edge of her robe at the collar by her neck. Lips pursed, Brynn watched him intently as he moved his hand down along the curve of her breast, his fingertips just grazing the silhouette of her figure. Down, down to the navel, where he hit the line of her panties. He edged alongside the elastic, trailing his fingertips over her skin, and pushed back the heavy velour robe at her hip, exposing her breast and the line of her body.
“Such wonderful curves…”
“Eliot,” Brynn said, and he paused, looking back up at her face. There was a kind of curiosity in her face that he could tell was fighting with some doubt. In a blink of her eyelashes, though, she brushed it away.
“I want you,” Brynn said. Eliot’s heart swelled in his chest and he raised her hand to his lips, kissing her fingers.
I didn’t know what I was doing, inviting Eliot into bed with me, but once he held me in his arms every misgiving that I had disappeared. His touch possessed me completely, but he went slowly, carefully, so that I was soon vibrating with anticipation. When the robe slipped off of my body, I held my breath. I was not perfect, far from it, but I wanted Eliot to see me entirely, to see every imperfect part of me. The fear of rejection, the doubt that I carried inside of me, made me tense with uncertainty, but I ached for him to take me.
He touched me tenderly, his fingertips marking their way slowly among my curves.
“So many beauty marks,” he said, smiling, his fingers pausing at my hip.
“Moles,” I said, looking down at the place he had paused. “Those there form a constellation.”
His mouth curved as he recognized the pattern from the night sky.
“Orion?” he ventured. I nodded.
“Are there more?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
“We’ll have to find them all, then,” he said. He kissed me again, and I forgot all of my doubts, all of my fears. I only wanted him to stay with me forever.
He kissed me on the neck, his warm breath melting me into nothingness. His lips felt soft and hot against my skin as he moved down to my shoulder, following the line of my collarbone. When he began to move farther down I placed a hand on his arm. He stopped.
“Wait,” I said. “It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair?”
“I’m completely naked,” I said, blushing as the words came out. It was the first time I had been naked in front of a man, but with Eliot I felt that it was completely right.
“And?”
“And you have entirely too many clothes on.”
“Is that so?” I saw a flash of hesitation in his eyes. “Well. If the lady insists.”
“I do.”
He unbuttoned his shirt slowly and pulled it off. My breath caught in a soft gasp. The scar on his face was not the only one he had. His muscled arms and chest were covered in long, jagged white seams that puckered his skin. The longest one reached from his shoulder to his waist in a diagonal bolt over his chest. I reached out to touch it. His eyes tracked mine as they lingered on his skin.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I did not know what else I could say. He shook his head.
“All reminders,” he said. I remembered what he had told me in the piano room, back in California.
“A reminder to be careful,” I whispered.
He leaned over me and kissed me on the lips.
“I’ve been careful for long enough, I think.”
His mouth moved down to my neck, his teeth grazing my shoulder and sending shocks of pleasure running through my nerves. I ached for him as he bent his head down to my breasts. As his tongue slipped over my nipple, I could feel myself growing slick between my legs, wanting him. I had never felt such a rush of desire as when he circled my breast slowly with his tongue and grazed the sensitive tip with his teeth. A scream tore up my throat and stopped there, strangled before it could leave my mouth.
Eliot felt hard against my leg, and I did not realize what it was until I slid my leg slightly underneath him and he gasped. A newfound sense of power swept through my body as I realized that he was in some small way under my control.
In retaliation, he sucked on my nipple hard and I gasped as pain and pleasure entwined together. I froze as his fingers slid over my thigh, nearing my virginity, and he sensed my hesitation. His body hung above me and his fingers curled back on themselves quickly as though he’d touched a hot iron.