The Lady By His Side(71)

That tension sank deep, seeming to pool in molten waves in a cavern low in her body.

She’d barely adjusted to the latest sensations, to the sparking pleasure as he touched her just there, when he kissed her more deeply, temporarily deflecting her attention, and with his thumb riding against that nub of sensitive flesh, he slid one long, heavy finger deep into her sheath.

Her nerves leapt. Her senses constricted, locking on the intrusion. She lost all awareness of the world beyond the bed—beyond them, him and her, in the heated darkness.

That he knew what he was doing, she had not a single doubt. In climbing into his bed, she’d already made the decision that she would trust him with her body; she already trusted him with nearly everything else. So she drew breath through the kiss and let him show her—let him open her eyes to the extraordinary pleasures of lovemaking, of such intimate sharing.

And that heated tension—born of need, of hunger and yearning—changed, coalescing into a spiral that constantly shrank, cinching tighter into an ever hotter knot of need that the rhythmic glide of his finger in her sheath only heightened. Tightened.

Then he shifted the hand between her thighs, pressed more firmly with his thumb as he reached deep into her body—and the spiral imploded.

Fractured and shattered.

Her spine bowed, and she cried out—the sound muffled between their lips.

Pleasure—sharp, exquisite, excruciatingly intense—flashed down every nerve, followed almost instantly by a sensation of suffusing heat and a feeling of blessed ease—of release.

She sighed into his mouth, and her spine eased back to the bed. Pleasure and that sudden loss of tension seemed to reach to her toes.

Yet inside, in that heated cavern, she still felt strangely empty.

He drew back from the kiss. She sensed him studying her face.

Her lids were too heavy to lift, but she let her lips curve. “Very nice,” she murmured. “For the first course.”

He huffed out a laugh that sounded ridiculously breathless.

“So…what’s next?”

He dropped his forehead to hers. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Le petit mort? I certainly hope so.”

He groaned. She realized he was…quivering, his muscles quaking as if they were under enormous strain…

“We don’t have to. Not yet. We could wait until later—”

“No. Now, Sebastian.” Of that, she was quite sure.

She opened her eyes as he shifted, easing to her side. His grip on her wrists loosened, and she slid her hands free and lowered her arms.

He looked into her eyes.

She wondered if he knew his were molten—the usually cool green was anything but. His irises glowed as if banked fires burned inside him.

Despite that, he met her gaze levelly and said, “You’re slender, and I’m not. The first time is going to hurt, no matter what. Are you truly sure?”

She didn’t bother answering—not with words.

She reached for his erection—and found it as hard as iron. He hissed in a breath and closed his eyes. She ran her fingers up the impressive length, then swiped her thumb wonderingly across the baby-fine skin stretched across the broad head. A pearl of liquid rubbed onto her thumb—and he wrapped his fingers in a brutally tight grip around her wrist.

She didn’t release him, but shifted instead, raising one leg and wrapping it about his hip, opening herself to him as she guided his erection to the cleft between her thighs.

He exhaled in a rush, then released her wrist, gripped her hip and her raised thigh, and anchored her as he obliged and eased, slowly, into her channel.

Just a little. Just past her entrance, not enough to breach her.

She caught her breath and let her lids fall as the sensation rolled through her.

His eyes still closed, Sebastian rocked shallowly, savoring the gentle clench of her inner muscles as the scalding slickness of paradise’s vestibule coated the head of his erection.

The position wouldn’t do to breach her, but it had been her choice, her doing, and he saw no reason not to honor that and allow her to grow more accustomed to the sensation of him entering her body.

But the moment couldn’t last long; he couldn’t hold back the raging tide of desperate need that crashed and churned inside him.

When he could withstand it no longer—when his body felt aflame—he rolled her fully onto her back, planted his hands palms down on the sheet on either side of her shoulders, braced his arms, and raised his chest.

The movement pushed him deeper into her scalding sheath.

He withdrew as far as her entrance. She didn’t tense, expecting him to rock in just a little way.

He locked his gaze on her face, shadowed now as the moonlight had faded—and with one sharp, powerful thrust, seated himself fully in her softness.