She wet her lips, and watched his gaze flick to her mouth; his hips snugged in ever tighter against her backside. “No.”
With the same slow deliberation, he released her wrists. One at a time, he guided her hands down, until she gripped the edge of the dresser.
She could see the flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat; could watch the way her pupils expanded, until her irises were naught but a thin, gaslight circle of blue around them.
He reached around to her front and untied the belt of her robe, movements slow, so she had time to refuse, to smack him away, she thought. He reached up, after, and pushed it clear of both shoulders, silk whispering and slithering, gleaming like the sleek hide of some aquatic mammal as it fell to hang from her wrists. The gown beneath was thin, shimmering, already clinging to her skin in the places where she’d begun to perspire, nipples standing as two stark points in the triangular bodice cups.
She already looked debauched and he’d barely touched her.
“You want this,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Still, she murmured, “Yes,” and felt the last, thin scraps of her resolve shatter like sugar glass. Whatever he wanted to take, she was more than willing to give right now.
In the mirror, she watched his hands find her hips and then slide forward, smoothing across her silk-covered stomach. She’d expected him to grab and paw, to be harsh with her, as he’d been when he snatched her wrists. But his touch was quiet, now, not gentle, exactly, but sure, unhurried. She felt the pressure and heat of his hands, and watching it, knowing it was him touching her, his sleek hair tickling the side of her face, gave the moment a surreal sort of dreaminess. She felt drunk, though she hadn’t had a drop all night.
Slowly, he mapped her torso over her gown, stroking her hips and waist, tracing her ribs and the grooves between. A slow torture, and when he finally cupped her breasts, she couldn’t hold back a low gasp, sensation flooding her chest in a hot rush. His thumbs teased her nipples to even harder points, calluses rasping faintly against the fine silk, a quiet sound that filled the room, accompanied only by the rush of her breathing, which grew less steady by the second.
“Sensitive?” he murmured.
“Yes.”
His hands left her – a loss bordering on tragedy – so he could grasp her hands, lightly, and pull them off the dresser’s edge. When he did, the robe fell free, a whisper as it puddled on the floor. She knew what he intended, then; bit at her lip as he reached and pushed the straps of her gown off her shoulders and down her arms. The gray silk dropped like a stage curtain, and caught on her hips, clung there, meant to go off over her head instead. It made it more illicit, somehow, the image of crumpled gray silk gathered below her navel, the rest of her exposed to the cool air of the room.
Raven knew what she looked like. She knew that she was not only beautiful, but beautiful in a way that had raked in millions for designers, clothiers, perfumiers, and jewelers. Blessed by genetics, maintained by discipline, hers was a body made for elegant clothes; she had a throat that showcased diamonds to the best effect, arms that turned bracelets flashy. Enough curves to entice, but slender enough to turn dresses to works of art. Men and women both had studied her body her entire life; had taken thousands of photos, and dabbed on cosmetics, had pinched at extra padding after Christmas and clucked over her clavicles. Had exclaimed over the inward flare of her waist, and gone starry-eyed over the modest plumpness of her breasts.
Raven knew she was beautiful. Her looks were her livelihood. She knew she was gorgeous, and that wasn’t boasting, wasn’t anything of which she was necessarily proud.
But she’d never known she could look likethis. That she could ache with an urgent, feverish want, and that she could see it in herself. She lookedalive. Not like a model, nor a CEO, not like an object, nor an ad, but like a vital, flesh and blood woman – one very much wanted in return, if the dark heat in the eyes of man looming over her shoulder were anything to go by.
Toly caught and held her gaze, and then reached, once more slowly enough that she could have pulled away if she’d wanted to, to cup her chin. He spread his hand downward, across her throat, and tipped her head back against his shoulder, so that her spine bowed, chest outthrust, completely vulnerable.
“Watch,” he said,commanded, his voice a growl, his accent thick.
She watched.
The middle finger of his free hand pressed lightly at the hollow of her throat, touched the hummingbird pulse there, and then traveled down the length of her sternum. Down, down, down, over the flat of her stomach, sucked in sharply with each breath, anticipation crackling through her. It dipped into her navel, briefly, only long enough to draw another gasp, and then he flattened his hand and slipped it beneath the bunched gown, down over the mound of her sex.
The sudden, direct touch shocked a new sound from her, a bitten-off whimper that left her blushing like mad, arousal and embarrassment sending a pink flush down her throat, across her chest.
“Watch,” he repeated.
She watched his hand disappear further beneath the gray silk, callused fingertips probing along the seam of her sex, teasing at her folds. Watched his other hand glide down from her throat to cup her breasts, one and then the next, thumbs teasing her nipples, long fingers massaging her, lifting and squeezing.
God, she thought.God, god, god. She looked wanton. She looked good, and he looked delicious behind her. His hood had fallen back, hair swept forward along one razor-sharp cheekbone, gaze shifting between one hand and the other as he played her like an expensive instrument.
A bubble of something like shame swelled, a self-conscious thought that she shouldn’t want this, should fight this – but it was a bubble that dissolved before it could reach the surface, so there was room for nothing but the need that bloomed beneath his sure, expert touch.
She widened her stance, and stood up on her toes, angled her hips to give him better access. He growled something Russian that sounded approving, and his fingers found where she was slick and ready. One pressed in, steady and quick.
He opened his mouth against the side of her throat – not a kiss, nothing so tender as that. A press of his tongue, pressure of lips, skim of teeth, sharp points of canines. His finger worked her, in and out, in and out, until the way was easy, and he added a second.
She couldn’t remember the last time something so basic had felt so good. Pleasure surged a moment, a tease of what she really wanted, and she swayed forward, his hand spanning the valley between her breasts to keep her from toppling forward.
His fingers slipped out of her.
“No,” she panted. “No, damn it, don’t–”
He tweaked her nipple hard, until her words cut off with a squeal.
