He felt it, and the certainty of what he and she were about to do, here in his bed, slide through his consciousness and invade his body, until every muscle seemed to thrum with heat.
Letting his lips slowly curve, his gaze locked in the darkness of hers, he raised a hand to her face and lifted her spectacles from her nose, easing the earpieces free of her hair. Knowing the gesture was a surrender. Sensing it in his bones. “How much can you see without them?”
She blinked, smiled, and scanned his face. “I can see things within five feet quite reasonably, although the detail isn’t always as fine as I’d like. Farther away becomes progressively fuzzy.”
“In that case…” Extending his arm, he set the spectacles on the bedside table. “You won’t need these.”
She frowned. “Are you sure?”
Looking back at her, he cocked a brow. “Who’s teaching whom here?”
She laughed. Bracing her hands on his chest, she tensed to push up and move off him.
His hands on her back, he held her to him, rolled, trapping her beneath him, bent his head and kissed her startled “Oh!” from her lips, then sank into the welcoming warmth of her mouth.
Sank into her.
The immediate response of every muscle he possessed to the sensation of having her beneath him was intense, revealing—and ravenous enough to have him mentally holding his breath while he wrestled his instincts back under his control.
She might have invited him to make love to her—she hadn’t invited him to ravish her. A distinction his civilized brain understood, but which his more primitive side—the one she called forth—wasn’t so interested in.
Inwardly grim, he reined that less civilized self in; only once he felt confident he had it contained did he allow his hands to move. To slide from beneath her, to grasp her waist, tensing…letting his possessiveness taste that much, savor the fact that she was there, committed, his to take.
It was a heady moment; in response, he pressed her lips wide and deepened the kiss, plundering in a languid, leisurely fashion that was a promise of intimacies to come.
Having accepted her script—having once more, entirely unexpectedly, found himself following rather than leading—he had no lingering reservations; he would do as she asked, take the lead and show her more, and introduce her to passion.
To the heat that swelled beneath his hand as he slid it in one slow heavy stroke from her waist, up her silk-clad side, to the swell of her breast.
Penelope gasped through the kiss; he’d caressed her in similar fashion before, yet this time, with the certainty that he wouldn’t stop with just the caress blazoned in her mind, his touch seemed more potent, infinitely more powerful.
Every touch was a promise, every sweep of his palm and fingers both an exploration and a claiming.
A delight. Warmth welled, and spilled through her. More definite heat—flames filled with pleasure—flared, grew, and raced through her. Her breasts were soon aching, too tight for the ungiving confinement of silk, her tightly ruched nipples points of sharp delight.
She would have spoken, mentioned her discomfort, but with his mouth locked over hers, with his tongue evocatively tangling with hers, she had neither the chance, the ability, nor the wits to form words.
Words—reasons, rationality, and logic—no longer seemed relevant, not in this world he’d waltzed her into, a world where desire had so swiftly risen she thought she could taste it—sharp, addictive. Compelling.
Trapped under his weight, she pressed her aching flesh into his palm, softly moaned.
He responded, but with an unhurried calm, a lack of urgency that had her own spiraling. Pressing one hand between them, he deftly slipped the buttons closing her bodice free, starting from her throat and slowly progressing down…until her bodice gaped and the pressure on her breasts eased.
The loss of discomfiting pressure perversely left her hungry for more, for something more—then he pressed aside the loose halves of her bodice, and through the delicate translucency of her silk chemise, cupped her breast.
She gasped, clung—to the kiss, to him. Her hands had, as usual, locked at his nape. As he weighed, then stroked, then gently kneaded, her hands drifted to his shoulders and gripped. When he brushed his thumb across her engorged nipple, she caught her breath, fingertips sinking deep.
He played, tested, tortured her senses—explored and learned of her, of her responses. Taught her, showed her, what she liked, how much delight could flow from just a simple touch, albeit an illicit one.
His other hand had remained at her waist. Anchoring her, holding her. Now, once more pressing beneath her, it slid down, over her hip, until his large palm cradled her bottom, then slowly cruised over it, assessing, not yet possessing but with the promise that would come. His weight above her, on her, held her down, bore her down, pressing her bottom into that questing hand. Even through the layers of her skirts and petticoats, his touch sent heat, damp and somehow urgent, flushing beneath her skin.
A strange restlessness grew and spread within her. Like the opening of a well, a void, a hunger.
She could taste desire in his kiss, feel it in his touch. Was this passion, rising in response?
Raising his head, breaking their kiss, he looked down at her. His eyes were heavy-lidded, the cerulean blue intense. Then his lips curved in a dangerous smile, and he rolled, taking her with him.
She gasped, grabbed his shoulders, went to push up when he settled on his back, propped high on the pillows, but the weight of his arm across her spine held her to him. Drew her to him so his lips could capture hers again, so he could lure her senses once more into the kiss.
