He reluctantly drew his hand up to her stomach, kissing her when she protested.
‘What about conversation?’ he murmured, sprinkling little kisses on her mouth and stroking the swell of her breasts.
‘Were we talking? I can’t remember…’ She hooked her hands behind his neck. If she had thought that she could get away with being more agile, she would have, but the dull ache in her foot was just waiting for an opportunity to become a jabbing pain. Right now, being as still as she could manage was pretty much the best idea, but, Lord, what she wouldn’t have done to have been able to curl up into him.
‘I was telling you that I don’t mix business with pleasure either.’
‘Despite the exotic flora you’ve had decorating your office before I came along?’
‘What makes you think that you’re not as exotic as the rest of them?’ Curtis asked, while through his head the disturbing thought took root that she went beyond exotic. She was positively dangerous.
‘The mirror?’ Tessa touched his lips with the tip of her tongue and he moaned and closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds.
‘Then you need to buy yourself a new one,’ he muttered inaudibly. Something, somewhere, was telling him that this was getting way out of control, and that that was definitely not good for a man who had always had everything very much under control. He laughed off the uneasy sensation and tilted her head so that he could kiss her neck.
‘Are you going to get undressed?’ Tessa asked huskily. Their eyes met for a second.
‘Making love can be vigorous,’ Curtis said, and simply hearing himself say that threw so many graphic pictures into his head that his now painful erection ached even more. ‘Vigorous isn’t what the doctor ordered for you.’
‘Stop worrying about my foot,’ Tessa pleaded. ‘The tablets have taken care of most of the pain…’
‘Which means that you probably wouldn’t feel it too much if I hurt you, at least right now, but as soon as those painkillers wear off, you’ll be in agony.’
He flipped onto his back, breathing thickly and not knowing quite what was going on with him. He had to remind himself that reining himself in was not a choice, it was a necessity.
Tessa carefully rolled towards him, slowly drawing one leg to cover his, and he looked at her with dark, frustrated hunger.
He had to go. Something deep inside him, some place that had never existed before, was telling him that he had to leave before…before what? Before he could no longer put the brakes on his rampaging desires.
He blindly kissed her upturned face, his tongue probing her mouth while one hand sought what it needed to find, the soft, wet bud pulsing for his touch. He felt her shiver. It sent the last of his coherent thoughts scattering to the four winds. With a stifled groan, he urgently began to explore her body, pinning her arms back and straddling her so that he could devote equal attention to her breasts. He flicked each one with his tongue and, when she twisted beneath him, took first one then the other into his mouth, sucking hard and watching her arched, flushed face with a deep, thrusting satisfaction.
He began to move lower, trailing his tongue along her flat belly, enjoying her rapid breathing. When he looked up, their eyes tangled, hers dark with hunger, his slumberous with the need to satisfy that hunger.
Before he could lower his head to continue his ministrations of her body, she coiled her fingers into his dark hair, tugging him so that he was looking at her once more.
‘Curtis…you can’t…’
‘Can’t what, my darling?’
‘I’ve never…’
‘Never…what?’ Comprehension dawned and with it came another of those destabilising thrusts of pure satisfaction. ‘Never been touched down there before…? In the way I mean to touch you…?’
Tessa nodded. He saw the apprehension in her eyes and his heart did something funny inside him, then he broke eye contact so that he could kiss his way down past her belly button, pausing only for a fraction of a second to breathe in the sweet femininity of her. He blew gently on the soft pubic hair, but the need to taste her was just too overpowering. The musky scent had filled his nostrils and he wanted more, much more.
And tasting her was every bit as good as he had imagined it would be. He could feel her bucking against him, writhing, and he stilled her growing need by flattening his hands on either side of her thighs.
Her groans had increased by several octaves, sweet music to his ears, and as his tongue slid remorselessly over that tightened bud, the essence of her naked hunger, he felt her reach her inexorable climax, arching back, shuddering and finally coming down in restless waves from the peak.