And oh God. The sweet shock of skin to skin. My pulse swollen with heat and sudden energy beneath his palm. Needles of awareness running all the way up my arm. My heart pierced by the sharp longing to be controlled, to be taken, to be his. Even if only for a little while.
For a moment I was transfixed—perhaps we both were—by that narrow strait of me claimed by him. And then I looked up, and so did he, and his eyes were intent in the darkness, the blue of them bleached by the shadow and the reflection of the moon bright in his pupils. It made him a little wolfish. Hungry and distant. But I wasn’t frightened of him. I wanted him. To be close to him. Remembering not his savagery but his hurt.
“Don’t,” he said again.
Though he didn’t let go. Didn’t step away. If anything, his fingers tightened.
His breath came harshly through the silence.
It was only when I felt cold stone beneath me that I realized I’d gone to my knees, my hand slipping from his grip. I barely knew how I got there, let alone understood why I’d done it, but it seemed…right somehow. That it would be good for him to have me there. Something I could give that he could accept. Easier, for him, than comfort.
A different sort of understanding.
I gazed up at him. He looked sharp and stern, harshly etched by the moonlight, brows pulled tight in anger or confusion or something he was trying to conceal.
“What are you doing?” Whatever he might have wanted me think, his voice betrayed him. It wasn’t quite steady.
And gave me the courage to tell him, “You know what I’m doing, Mr. Hart.”
“No, I mean yes—” It was the first time—no, the second time—I’d ever heard him flustered. Maybe there was a bit of the other side of the coin in me because I liked it. I liked it a lot. Not flustering him precisely. But affecting him. “Stand up. This isn’t right.”
Maybe it wasn’t. But it sure as hell felt awesome. Peaceful in some strange way and powerful in another. “Fuck right.” I drew in a deep breath. Held his eyes. “I want to…” Which was, of course, when I ran out of bravado. How was I supposed to finish that sentence? Help you? Save you? Take care of you? I couldn’t say any of those things. They’d sound weird and embarrassing and way too much. But I had to finish somehow. I was already at his feet. Already committed to doing something stupid. “Suck your cock,” I finished.
And oh fuck. How had I ever thought that might be better?
Chapter 6
I cringed, anticipating bemused rejection, but instead his fingers brushed my cheek—the touch as hesitant and as fleeting as his confidences had been. I turned my face into his palm and kissed it, embarrassment drowned in a rush of pleasure.
“We shouldn’t,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re doing—”
“Oi.” I nipped his thumb. “I think you’ll find I do.”
He made a shaky sound, a sigh or a laugh or a little bit of both. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me.”
“Then let me. Please.”
“Arden, I—”
“Please.”
Silence. And I was trembling with urgency. Whatever I’d apparently done to him, I’d managed to wind myself up into a right state. I couldn’t remember ever being so aroused on so little.
Except it wasn’t little, not really.
It was him, and kneeling for him, and begging him, and knowing he wanted me too. And it was better than any everyday fucking or sucking I’d ever done.
I couldn’t tell which of us he shocked more when he gave this—God—this groan, this deep, lovely, slightly helpless groan. And his hands moved to undo the button of his trousers. The scrape of the zip sounded so ridiculously loud that I half expected the balcony doors to fly open and the guests to come pouring out in fear of the machine gun.
But, no, it was just him and me and…and this.
Waiting with the cold seeping into my already-aching knees. Watching the faint trembling in his fingers as he pushed down…oh my…I was glad for the semidarkness because otherwise I’d probably have been completely overwhelmed by the sheer classiness of his silk modal boxer briefs. I only got a glimpse, but the way they clung to him—sleek and gorgeous and far too explicit—I would have given anything to be the one peeling them off him. Revealing him. Worshipping him. His flanks beneath my hands, tight with anticipation and flush with heat, the skin ivory smooth.
Although in all honesty, and greedy fantasies aside, what was happening now was almost on the brink of being too much. It was like some weird semi-pornographic fairy tale. A spell I was going to break at any moment when he saw my finery was nothing but ashes and my carriage a pumpkin. Not that this was the sort of thing that happened in the Brothers Grimm. Even taking into account all the Oh no, real fairy tales are dark, man, dark bullshit.
And then I saw his cock and the nervous babbling in my brain snapped off as if he’d hit a switch.
Just.
