His fingers teased at her nipples, rolling the tips, pinching lightly. She felt her belly tighten, an ache redoubling between her thighs. She pressed helplessly into him, arching her back.
His mouth was on hers again. His tongue traced the outline of her lips, and she gasped and shuddered at the sensation. Everything in her felt constricted, pulling down and contracting—she felt the tightness in her abdomen, in her back, a hot and urgent need driven on and on by the firm torture of his fingers.
“God,” he murmured. “How many times have I spent myself, imagining the noises you make when you come?”
She rocked into him, pressing her sex shamelessly to his arousal. She was a pinpoint, a clenched fist, a star. She needed—she needed—
He unwrapped her legs from his waist and set her down, a careful slide against his body.
“No,” she said, and she did not care how she sounded, did not care if she had to beg. “Arthur, please—”
“Want this off you,” he rasped, and shoved her dress and undergarments down to the ground. He spared an instant for his shirt, his shoes, hers. Then he picked her up and moved to the bed, bringing her to straddle his lap as he sat.
She might have been self-conscious—she was naked, after all, except for her stockings—had he not been so manifestly aroused. The skin of his neck was flushed pink. His hands searched her body, clinging to the places where she curved, the softest places,the most heated. He skimmed her thighs, her hips, the heavy weight of her breasts.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” he said softly. “You bare before me, your eyes all dark and blurred with wanting.”
He made one lazy revolution around her nipple, and she trembled.
“But to have you here,” he went on, “to be able to touch you. To watch your face in the light. Christ, Lydia. No dream of mine could have come close to this.”
The trembling in her went on and on, drawn up into her heart.
She loved him. She would never regret that.
He passed the flat plane of his palm across her stiffened nipple. Her breath caught. He murmured soft and carnal words against her neck, his breath tickling her ear. She tangled her fingers in his curls, grown dusky in the twilight.
“Come here to me,” he murmured, and pulled her atop him as he lay back in the bed.
Nothing felt impossible now. Putting her mouth to his was as easy as breathing. His lips parted beneath hers, and his hands moved along her waist, her hips, the back of her thighs. He groaned softly into her mouth, and it felt like a question against her lips.
“Yes,” she answered.Yes.
He urged her body farther up, setting his mouth to her nipple, a firm suction that had her hips grinding down. He must have felt the wetness between her thighs as she straddled him, must have heard the sounds in the back of her throat—a whimper, almost a whine—but she felt no shame. Only pleasure, sweet and driving, pushing her down and bearing her away.
He released her nipple and pressed his head back against the mattress. His hands dug into her hips and brought her uphis body. The muscles of his arms flexed as he lifted her, a quick weightless slide.
He pushed her past his shoulders and Lydia had a moment of confused hesitation.What did he—
He brought her knees to either side of his face.
“God, you’re lovely,” he said hoarsely. “Lean forward. Kneel over me. Hold the headboard.”
She understood then, as she leaned forward, as he angled her hips so that her slick flesh was positioned above him. Her hands went to the back of her bed, the carved whorls pressing into her palms.
She could feel his breath between her legs. It was hot, unsteady. His hands were full of her thighs, and then he spread them wider and pulled her down into the wet heat of his mouth.
She cried out, an incoherent plea at the sensation. His tongue parted her, teased and toyed with her, and she felt herself jerk, writhing under his hands, above his mouth. Again—again—her hips made sharp pulses against him.
She gripped the carved headboard with all her strength. Tomorrow the curving pattern would be imprinted into her skin.
He made a soft, appreciative murmur. His fingers were inside her—first one and then another—and she felt the walls of her sex tighten around him, clutching as if to draw him in. His movements were steady and rhythmic: his fingers, the unrelenting friction of his tongue.
She squeezed her eyes shut and cried out as her climax took her. The force of it rocked her, a low shuddering that began at her sex and rippled through her body, throbbing through her abdomen, her limbs, the tips of her fingers.
She pressed her face down into her fisted hands and sobbed out her release.
When her thighs loosened, Arthur pulled her back against him, urging her body down toward his chest. Her hands were reluctant to part from the headboard; he reached up and slipped her fingers free.
