His body hardened. Impossible but true. Warm stone became molten marble, and his hand fisted in her hair, pulled her head back and away from kisses. “You only call me Andrew when you intend on getting your way.”
“Then give it to me.”
He kissed her hard and demanding, which spoke of all the control he relinquished. To her.
His fingers entered her first, stroking, building that ache inside her once more when she’d thought it had melted, floated away on the wave of her previous release. But no. There it was, cresting once more beneath his touch as he peppered kisses along her jaw, down her neck, as he sucked a nipple into his mouth and gently tugged it between his teeth.
She cried out, and he bent her knees, shaping her as he liked before nudging the head of his shaft between her legs. On a wave of pure impulse, she wrapped her hands around it, flicked the pad of her thumb over the head, squeezed and stroked until he moaned, until the hand in her hair tightened, sparking along her scalp and down her spine and straight to where all the pleasure had pooled between her legs.
She released him and wrapped both arms around his neck. “Now, Andrew.”
“Now,” he agreed, his voice a growl at her ear. But he surprised her. He did not take advantage of his position to slide into her, to bring their bodies fully together. Instead, his hands, strong and demanding, flipped her. She gasped as her bed-warmed back met cool air and then moaned as his fingers trailed tingling touches down her spine, curved over her backside. She arched against him, feeling the hard ridge of his manhood as he caressed her thigh, her hip, her waist, as his fingertips brushed the side of her breast before he smoothed his hand back down her body, his lips landing at the base of her neck, trailing across to each shoulder, then down.
Her arms pinned beneath her, she had little control, surrendered it all to him.
She shivered. “Please.”
He spoke with his lips pressed to the skin just above her backside. “Not yet, Amelia. I’m not done exploring. Patience, Melia-mine.”
She groaned, bit her lip, but not with any sort of dissatisfaction. She’d fallen in love with him when she knew him to be a high-handed, domineering, cold sort of man, and now he warmed entirely through, but… she could not regret that the domineering bit remained.
Because she trusted him, wanted more than anything she’d ever desired before to be told how to take pleasure from him, to know her body gave him delight.
“I’m baffled.” She spoke without quite knowing she intended to, and it was rather a feat as his mouth feasted on every available inch of her. “You’ve never been like this before. I’d have thought… I… assumed you would be a thorough lover, but… distant. As you always are. Even in the bedroom.”
“You thought about me in this way, then?” He slipped his hand between her hip and the mattress, teased the curls hidden there before curving around the backside of her thigh to dip his fingers between her legs.
She hissed instead of answering his question. “But you’re not like that at all. You’re like a beast that’s been too long tame, running and running to make up for lost time. I…” Difficultto speak through panting breaths and racing hearts. “You are always so controlled. It’s astonishing to experience you this way.”
“Do you know why I am always so controlled?” He whispered the words next to her ear, the heat of his breath a caress on the sensitive nape of her neck. She shook her head, barely capable of movement, too attuned to howhemoved across her body. “It is because I feel too deeply.” He flipped her once more, stealing her breath and pinning her body to the mattress with the weight of his own. His eyes gleamed down at her, burning sapphires. “The things I feel destroy me. Destroy my peace, make my mind a hell. Better to feel nothing than too much.” He trailed a single finger down her neck, his gaze following the curve of it with hunger.
“Then”—she licked her lips—“you feel nothing right now?”
His finger trailed lower, lower, lower, dipped into her navel briefly then flirted with the curls between her legs. “Right now I feel every damn thing.”
“And it’s a hell?” She wanted to touch him, but she clenched the blankets in her hands instead, arched her head back, the control it took to not touch him rocked desire through her. She needed to touch him. But she needed his answer first.
“A blessed heaven.” His hand slipped between her legs, slipped inside her, and she knew the meaning of that word.
“Heaven,” she breathed, releasing all control to wind her arms around his neck, let her fingers cling to the silken tendrils of hair at his nape as she arched her back and rolled her hips against his shaft.
He kissed her, hard, his thumb finding that spot they’d found together the first time he’d stripped her bare. She’d stripped him bare, too, if he could call the closeness of two bodies, two souls, a heaven instead of a hell. She broke from the kiss and rested her forehead on his chest, letting the strength of his embrace steady her, the beat of his heart set a pace for her own.
She kissed his skin above his heart, promised to care for it well, and whispered. “Please, Drew. Now.”
With his fingertips, he tipped her chin up so she looked into his eyes. They were softer now. Only a little. And then the slide of his lips into a sly smile changed them once again—calculating, incinerating.
Before she could move or speak, he had her wrists in his large hands, pinned them above her head. The hard grip spiraled pleasure through her, and she arched against him. He held her firm, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him closer so he was poised just where she wanted him.
Almost.
She surged up and bit his bottom lip, slipped her tongue into his mouth, and kissed him, claimed him, released a flood that destroyed his control.
He thrust into her, burying his face in her neck. She’d thought to feel pain. Despite her vague accumulation of knowledge about what happened in darkened bedchambers between men and women,thatshe knew—it would hurt. Yet… she would not describe it that way. A fullness yes, the sensation of being stretched more than she had when he’d slipped his fingers inside her. But that had done much to prepare her, and now she merely felt… right.
“Amelia.” His voice as gruff as his body was still—entirely. “Are you?—”
“Perfection,” she breathed, rolling her hips against him, urging him on. “I am utter perfection.”
