Then, even more slowly, back up.
Courtesy of her position, he could fondle as he wished. He continued to minister to her breasts, pressing unrelenting, distracting delight upon her, keeping her teetering on her knees so she had to grip his shoulders to remain steady.
Although her eyes were closed, as his caresses grew more explicit beneath her skirts, as his long, elegant, too-knowing fingers slipped between her thighs and stroked—and she quivered—she felt the touch of his gaze, burning and hot, searing over her face, then falling to her heaving breasts.
Then he took the peak of one breast into his mouth again, and suckled—more fiercely. She cried out, a short, sharp gasp of pleasure; head back, spine tight, she tried desperately to fill her lungs—failed as she felt his fingers slide through the slickness between her thighs, and slowly, inexorably, penetrate her body.
He eased one finger deep inside her, then stroked. Withdrew to caress again, to touch again, to cup again, then penetrate and stroke once more.
She gasped as sensation blossomed anew, on a wholly different plane. One where the heat expanded, yearning growing within it, tangled and twined, desire and passion seamlessly melding, the flames of one and the heat of the other building to a conflagration.
One he orchestrated.
He gave her just so much, stoking the fires high, only to ease her back from combustion. From the point beyond which she knew she would simply be consumed and die.
Again and again, he took her to the edge; each time the surge of heat increased and battered at her senses. At her mind.
At her will.
Forcing open her eyes, from beneath her heavy lids she glanced down—at him as he suckled at her breast. What she saw in his face was so stark, it shook her mind free for one brief moment of lucidity—to wonder if she knew what she was doing, if she truly understood what she’d invited.
That he wanted her, desired her, she had absolutely no doubt, but that he wanted her to desire him, to want him with the same raw urgency that she sensed building within him, was a revelation.
She suddenly understood the purpose behind his repetitive stimulation, each time taking her senses to new heights, opening her desires to new depths of need.
On the thought, his hand shifted between her thighs and he pressed, worked a second finger in alongside the first, stretching her—blatantly readying her.
She gasped, clung, eyes again shut tight as the world as she knew it grew brighter, tighter, edged by light—but then he drew his fingers from her.
Leaving her with the strangest sensation of hanging in midair.
Before she could return to reality and protest, his hands and mouth left her entirely, then she felt him bunching up her gown.
“Time to get this off.”
His voice was so gravelly it took a moment for her to make out the words. She wasn’t much help; it was all she could do to follow directions and let him draw the gown off over her head.
He swiftly undid the ties of her petticoats, then they followed her gown—disappearing somewhere off the bed, flung into darkness.
Leaving her on her knees, straddling his waist, clad only in the insubstantial film of her chemise.
The golden light of the candles washed over her; looking, ravenously drinking in every curve, every quintessentially feminine line, Barnaby set his jaw against the urge to rip the delicate material from her.
He wanted—burnedwith a want beyond anything he’d ever known. If he didn’t have her soon…but she was a virgin; he had to go slowly. Gently. Even if slow and gentle were no longer in his repertoire, not, apparently, when it came to her.
Greedy, rapacious, primitive need clawed his gut, filled his veins.
It was all he could do to, with one hand, reach out and grasp the silken tie he’d earlier fingered, and tug—not rip—just enough to unravel the bow.
“This goes, too.”
He could barely recognize his voice, it seemed to come from so deep within him. From the self he kept buried, that she drew forth.
Why she called so unerringly to that more primitive side of him he didn’t know; he only knew that she did, that he had to somehow cope with that more primal, raw-emotioned male presence that, ever since he’d got his hands on her, had slowly infused his body and brain.
Unexpectedly, her eyes locked with his. Dark, unfathomable, rich, her eyes promised and lured…then she shifted upon him, arms crossing, hands reaching for the hem of the chemise…
In one fluid movement, she drew it up, over her head, then, her eyes once more locking with his, she flung the garment away.
