His arms flexed, quick and powerful, and he split the lace-edged neckline of her night rail down the front.
She gasped. Her breasts were bared to the cool night air, and Arthur’s hands were on her hips, and everything was spiky and uncertain until he cupped her breasts in his palms.
He groaned as he touched her. She made a sound too, a half-wild sound, and pressed her hands hard against the door.
He swore, soft and filthy, in her ear. His fingers found her nipples and rolled them, tugging slightly, and she felt an answeringthrob between her legs. The sensation was powerful, consuming, a wave that burst through her body and dragged her under.
He did it again, and again, and she felt her wits recede, the demands of her body taking over. She whimpered—desperate, almost feral—and squeezed her thighs together. She needed to soothe the ache there, but the ache fought back, rising with her frantic movements.
“Shh,” he murmured. “Ah God, Lydia, I don’t want you to stop making those sounds, but you have to be a little quieter.”
She didn’t know what he meant. His fingers did not stop their quick, sharp tugs and she felt herself being pulled higher, tighter, and tauter by the moment. Her hands flexed against the door, her hips bucking, seeking pressure, seekingsomething.
One of his hands was gone, suddenly, from her breast, and she felt dizzy with disappointment. Then it was back, large and hot on her hip, sliding up and down her silk-covered buttocks. The pressure felt lovely—so lovely, relief and pleasure in one—but it was not enough. Instinctively, she spread her legs, and then moaned as his tongue made a hot swipe down the side of her neck.
“Hush,” he said. She felt his fingers bunched in her night rail, the silk pulling tight across her hips, and then one hand was beneath, sliding up her inner thigh. “Lydia, my love, you cannot be so loud—ah God you feel—ahfuck—”
His fingers had found her, and she was slippery with her arousal. He circled her entrance with one thick finger, then drew her wetness slowly up to the sensitive place at the top of her sex. He stroked her there, quick light movements that matched the rhythm of his other hand at her breast. Pleasure—all she could think was pleasure, the pleasure of his hands, the pleasure eddying through her body.
Oh God, she thought wildly,oh yes, oh please—
And then his hand was gone, and he was spinning her about and pushing her back to the door.
“For quiet,” he said, and then kissed her.
It was a messy, frantic kiss, more raw and hectic than the first time. His tongue came hard into her mouth, and she found that she wanted it. She wanted everything he would give her. She wanted totake.
She could touch him now, and so she did. She licked and bit and sucked at his mouth, and her hands swept over all the parts of him she could reach. She wanted it all—his beautiful cheekbones, the back of his neck, his taut, powerful shoulders.
He caught her buttocks and pulled her up against him, pushing her body into the door and lifting her off the ground. Her legs went around him as though she’d done it a thousand times.
She could feel his erection through his trousers, shockingly large and hard, and he ground himself against her bare sex. He groaned helplessly into her mouth, and she tugged at his shoulders, trying to pull him against her even harder, even more.
She wanted him inside her body. She realized that with sudden clarity. She wanted to have all of him.
But the thought was swept away as he rocked against her. His cock thrust rhythmically against her clitoris, and in moments she was close to her peak again. She shuddered against him, digging her heels into his body. She did not ask—shedemanded.
“What do you need?” he managed to say. His voice was fractured, and the rest of him was perfect, perfect—
“Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
Then his mouth was on hers again. He kissed her as he moved against her, urging her on with his tongue and teeth, with therhythmic stroke of his cock. He held her as her body convulsed, as her legs tensed and trembled, as the dawn light in the room burst into shards and she went blind with pleasure.
“Aye,” he was saying, kissing her mouth and her cheek and her neck, “aye, Lydia, my love, that’s so good. You’re so good. You feel—ah—”
He moved against her as she came, and as her climax began to recede, he did not stop. He rocked and thrust, his voice breaking, and she realized he too could find his release this way.
Yes—yes—God, she wanted that. She was desperate to see him undone with pleasure.
“Don’t stop,” she said again.
He swore and groaned and ground himself against her, and then she felt him shuddering. His fingers dug into her buttocks; his forehead pressed into her neck. He said her name, and jerked against her, once, twice, again.
And when he finally lifted his head, the room was bright enough to see his eyes. Gold and green and blue, circles in circles like the rings of a tree.
The sun was fully up. It was morning.
She waited. He held her still, his arms around her, her body pressed against the door. They did not move. She thought perhaps neither of them wanted to break the spell of this moment. His body fitted with hers, so close their edges blurred. His multihued eyes, serious and careful, on her face.
