Wicked Becomes You(62)

Something melted in her heart. It had no relation to the desire. It felt more dangerous.

Don’t let me go.

The thought alarmed her. Some instinct of self-preservation struck out. She pushed against him and felt his lips curve into a smile. He took one short step toward her and used his entire body to press her against the wall.

Not gentle any longer. Yes. She twined her arms around his neck and opened her mouth wider, taking him in, wrapping her leg around his, every cell in her discovering the need to be touched, to be pressed against his skin. His fingers tightened in her hair and his arm slipped to her waist, pulling her by the small of her back away from the wall, more firmly into him. She could feel his hardness pushing into her belly; that would be the part of him that would make this night decisive. She rocked against it on some primitive impulse, and he made a low, guttural noise.

His mouth broke away to trace a hot, wet path to her throat. His thumb brushed across her nipple, causing her to gasp. “Yes?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she said.

He pulled down the neckline of her nightgown. For a moment, he went very still—so still that she looked down at him, starting to ask a question.

He smiled up at her through long lashes, and closed his mouth over her nipple.

The hot, soft sucking—the sight of his dark head bent over her naked breast—pulled something more out of her than want; her strength seemed to go with it. Her knees folded; she caught herself, barely.

He turned her and laid her down on the bed. His fingertips trailed up her calves, lingering in the tender space behind her knee, smoothing into a flat palm along her inner thigh. She felt the muscles there quiver. He was urging her legs apart. She looked into his face and found him watching her; the moment seemed unbearably intimate, but she refused to let herself close her eyes. It would be cowardly, and she had already invited these acts in words, which was sin enough in the eyes of the world; now she was only bearing out her promise, and this was the easy part, the most pleasurable part, God above, his hand moved upward through the curls between her legs and he stroked and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

His hand lingered there between her legs as he leaned up over her, the muscles in his upper arm springing into prominence as he rested his weight on it for balance. He looked startlingly grave in the half-light, his fingers moving so gently up and down that wet and wetter part of her. She reached out and laid her palm atop his biceps, then pulled herself up to plant her lips onto his shoulder, which was as smooth and hard and hot as she had imagined. She licked him, for the taste, and maybe to shock him, but she forgot whom she was dealing with; the low, broken thread of his laugh announced only approval. “Bite,” he whispered, and she almost wasted time by giving him a look of surprise, but what was the point? Biting was a brilliant idea. She put her teeth gently against his flesh, and below, he pushed one long finger into her, so she inhaled in startlement against his skin, and then broke away to arch up as his thumb hit some sweet nerve that made her light up like the windmill at the Moulin Rouge.

He stroked again, and again, leaning down now to kiss her earnestly, his lips never breaking from hers as she twisted and pushed beneath his touch. There was more to this, she knew there was more to the marriage bed, or the un-marriage bed, the fornication bed they could call it, she did not care, only she knew that the part of him that had grown hard, his erection, was meant to be involved, too, and he was driving her toward some point, his hand setting a purposeful rhythm that tormented her and made pleasure pop through her like champagne bubbles, but his erection remained uninvolved. She groped blindly, finding it, and he hissed into her mouth when she closed her hand over his length. His hips jerked into hers, and she pushed harder back; this was what she wanted, she felt achingly empty, incomplete in a novel and wholly delicious and utterly abandoned way. This couldn’t go on, she couldn’t go on like this—she felt a lick of anger move through her, and bit his lip to express this. He settled the full weight of his torso against hers while his hand continued to drive her mad and his kisses grew harder and deeper, and she lifted her hips, once, twice, a third time, and, oh.

“Oh, oh, oh,” she gasped, as her body, her hips, the aching places deep inside her, sprang apart and snapped back together; she felt like one of those wind-up alarm clocks with bells, which rattled and jumped and clanged, oh. She felt his lips turn into a smile against her mouth and well he might smile as her head fell back; her mind went blank as the pleasure uncoiled again sharply through her, fading slowly, in deep, pulsing throbs, until the gentle reminder of his hand called them forth once more, briefly now.