A chuckle. “I’ve noticed.” Had he? Fascinating thought, that he had noticed such a tiny thing about her. “You always smell like sugar,” he grumbled into her skin. “Not that I’m close enough to you to benefit from it most of the time.”
“And you always smell like horse.” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh dear. I am sorry. That sounded like an insult when I did not mean it as such.”
He collapsed on top of her, his body shaking with the rumble of his laughter. Then he wrapped his arms around her and rolled, taking her with him until she lay over him, spread and naked. They were all skin and arms and legs and other much more interesting bits becoming more aroused by the moment.
He cocked a nimble eyebrow up his forehead. “Do I smell like horse right now?”
“No. You smell like soap. And a bit like fire.”
“Good?”
She put her nose to that spot behind his ear and dragged an inhale down his throat, clutching at his hard biceps and shoulders.
“Excellent,” she confirmed.
“Straddle my hips,” he instructed, “as you did in my dressing room.”
She did as he asked.
“Now sit up.” He stroked a finger down her spine, cutting a curved line over the top of her rear then cupping it, squeezing.
She sat up with a start, empowered by his hand on her backside and arching her back to push her flesh more closely into his palm. He must have understood, because his other hand joined the activity, kneading until she stopped the motion. Embarrassed by her wantonness? No. But shyness crept across her skin like a blush.
One of his hands stroked up the curve of her hip and waist and higher, flirting with a caress too quick and too intense of the side of her breast.
She reached forward, splaying her hands over the expanse of his chest, playing her fingers in the crisp hairs that covered it. She trailed her fingers down, down his abdomen, learning the routes of his body. So strong, so lean and nimble. A man who could hop from horseback to horseback and dismount with a flip. She kissed his chest and lingered long enough to feel the bump of his heart—racing—and the pause brushed her breast, her sensory-tightened nipples, just over his bare skin.
He took full advantage, his hand finding her breast, and his thumb flicking. He surged up and took her nipple within his mouth. She clenched her teeth together, moaning and sitting up to rock her core against his shaft, spearing her fingers through her own hair and pushing it away from her face, down her back.
“Damn me, Freddy,” he said, “you’re a siren.”
She rocked against him again and again, needing the pressure of his hardness. “Can’t sing a bit,” she managed to say, though her throat felt tight, thick with lust.
The flame of the nearby fire cast her shadow across him, and she could not see him as well as she wished. A reason for keeping the curtains closed, she now realized. No shadows to obscure his light. In the dark he would be her light.
Should she ask to move, to change position? But the way he arched his hips up, the way he ran his hands up and down her thighs, the way his eyes seemed to contain more desires than she’d ever imagined and all of them centered on her, she knew he liked this.
And she did not dislike it. Far from it. So she could do with a few shadows to please them both.
“Now.” A plea to accompany the prick of his blunt fingernails into her skin.
“Now what?”
“Now.” He levered at the waist, sitting all the way up until their chests melded together skin-to-skin, sinew to sinew. His arms wrapped around her like a corset, and he kissed her deep and hard, stealing her breath and the beat of her heart, stealing the pounding of blood through her veins. Stealing her.
“Now pleasure,” he whispered in her ear.
“Haven’t we already? Begun the pleasure bit?”
“Barely.”
Perhaps she knew nothing. Lord. Perhaps she knew nothing.
He fell back down on the mattress as his hand crept between their bodies and found that place he’d circled so delectably before. He began his work anew, but this time it did not take as long. This time, she’d had nights and mornings of practicing around that spot herself, thinking of him, imagining her fingers as his own. Now, his clever fingers knit pleasure like a scarf to wrap around her tight.
Every bit of her tight and warm and aching.
She threw her head back with a moan, and he clutched her hair, kissing her throat, her collarbone, that sensitive space between her breasts. As he played with rolling her desire to a peak, she scratched her fingernails up and down the strength of his forearms. My, but she adored hairy forearms. It somehow spoke of masculinity and strength so very different from herself. Yes, she enjoyed this bit of him, reveled in it, but she wanted more of him.