“Yes,” she whispered. “I—I did not have time to put on another shift…”
Her voice trailed off as he reached out and took the edge of her dressing gown in between his fingers. He rubbed it between thumb and forefinger, and the back of his knuckles brushed the swell of her breast. She made a little whimper, and desire was a drumbeat in his head, in his cock.
He wanted more of her sounds. He wanted all of them.
“Is that right?” he asked. He slid his fingers up the edge of the dressing gown and then back down. The back of his hand passed over her tight, hardened nipple. She made another sound, lower, longer. “I think you did it on purpose. Didn’t you, Matilda? You put this dressing gown on, with nothing underneath, hoping to drive me mad?”
She was almost panting now, her nipple rubbing against the back of his hand, and it took everything he had not to turn his hand over and take the stiff peak in between his fingers. “Yes,” she said breathlessly. “I did.”
He lifted his hand then and caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “That was very wicked of you.”
He had never seen anything like her. She was so responsive, so expressive. He could see the flush of heat on her cheeks, her neck, her bosom. He looked down to where the dressing gown gaped open, and saw her squeeze her thighs together. Her hand was pressed to her lower belly.
He caught her behind her back with his other hand and dragged her up against him, his knee coming between her legs. She gasped and then, as if she could not help herself, ground her sex down against the muscle of his thigh. Her hands came around his back.
OhJesus,he thought wildly as her soft body pressed up against him, every acre of her warm and rounded and squirming with need.
He wanted to press her down into the bed and thrust inside her. He wanted to make her come around his cock. He wanted to take her so hard she couldn’t see straight, he wanted to make herhis—
He couldn’t. He couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t.
But he could please her. The idea pierced the lust-fogged confusion of his mind, nearly blinding him with how very good and wise and brilliant it seemed.
He could pleaseher.
Yes, he could do that. He could soothe the ache that had her gasping out her need, squeezing her thighs around him, dragging her nipples against his body. She needed something—she neededhim.
Christ, he needed her too. But he could not think of that now.
He bent his head down to hers, almost a kiss, her chin still caught in his grasp. “Matilda,” he said fiercely, “say stop.”
She looked up at him, dazed with want. “Don’t stop.”
He gave her chin a little rough jerk, and she whimpered, and pressed herself harder into his body. She liked that, too, it seemed.
“If I do something you do not like,” he said, “say stop. If I am too forceful. If something does not please you. If you have a whisper of uncertainty, or something does not seem right, you say stop. Do you understand?”
Her eyes cleared a fraction, midday blue. “I understand.”
He kissed her. His fingers slipped free of her chin, sliding around to cup the back of her head.
He had not meant to kiss her. He had not meant any of this, but he could no more stop himself from putting his mouth to hers than he could stop his own heart.
She tasted like wine. She smelled like roses. Her lips were so goddamned soft, and she licked at his mouth, and he wanted to die from pleasure, drown in it, crush her body against his and never let her go.
But he had to be sure she understood. He broke away from the kiss—from the wonder of Matilda’s mouth—and put his lips to her ear. She shuddered, her fingers tightening on his back.
“Say stop,” he said. “So I know you’re listening.”
“Stop,” she whispered.
He froze. He eased back from her a little, putting distance between their bodies and sliding his hand from her back to the dip of her waist “Good girl. That’s very good.”
Her head tilted back. Her chin came up. Her lips were swollen from his mouth. “Stoptalking,” she said. And then she twitched her shoulders, and the dressing gown slid off her body and puddled on the floor.
Matilda stood in front of Christian, her body a hairsbreadth from his, stark naked and trembling with desire.
She did not know what had convinced him. She did not know why he seemed suddenly drawn in sharper lines, dark and intense and commanding, and why all that energy was focused directly on herself.
