When he next raised his head, it was reeling, filled with the scent, the taste, of her.
Lips parted, she was panting when he edged lower in the bed to sample her breasts again. More aggressively, more fiercely. More possessively.
She permitted it, glorying even while fighting to master the sensations he pressed on her—fighting, he knew, for a degree of control he knew better than to let her seize.
When a soft moan escaped her, when her clenched fingers slackened in his curls, he knew he was safe.
He moved lower still, trailing his lips down the center of her body.
His tongue delved into her navel; Penelope gasped and clutched his head again, too rocked by the novel sensation to even think. Forming thoughts—coherent ones—was far beyond her. Her wits were overrun. He’d used sensation to completely overwhelm them.
All she had left to her was feeling. The most glorious panoply of cresting sensations that built and crashed over her, then washed through her in waves.
Delicious, illicit, dangerous perhaps, yet without thought or reservation she gave herself over to all he offered, all he wished; she’d wanted to know and he was teaching her—more than she’d ever dreamed.
He moved lower still, his hard body sliding down between her legs, forcing her knees apart so he could lie comfortably; she accommodated him without thought. Hot, openmouthed kisses punctuated with gentle nips peppered her stomach; she squirmed, the hot ache inside flickering and flaring.
The sensation of his skin sliding against hers was a curious, surprising, distracting delight. Tougher and rougher, dusted with crinkly abrading hair, stretched over flesh and muscle much harder than her own, his skin played against hers, in comparison so soft and delicate, a primal physical manifestation of his maleness and her femaleness—and the elemental contrasts between.
His lips slid to the crease between thigh and torso, refocusing her attention. With the tip of his tongue, he traced inward, a hot line like an arrow leading to…
She inwardly frowned. What…?
His “what next” had her swallowing a shriek.
At the second, more intrusive brush of his lips over her curls, she struggled, then tried to grab his shoulders, but his arm across her waist held her back, down—while his other hand grasped one thigh just above the knee and moved it aside…
Opening her so he could look at her there.
Sheer shock held her immobile, her gaze locked on his face—on what she could read in the hard, angular planes. What she could see…heaven help her.
Then he bent his head, and set his lips to her flesh.
On a breathless gasp, she shrieked his name, tried desperately to twist away, failed, grabbed his head, fingers locking in his hair, felt her entire body jolt as the sensation of him kissing, then licking—and then, oh God,sucking—raced like wildfire through her, a roaring conflagration that melted her nerves and left her a molten puddle of need.
Of hunger burning. Under her skin, through her veins, deep in her body.
She lay back on a moan. Eyes closed, she had no choice but to lie there and let him show her what she’d wished to know—to let the sensations ride her, let them fill her mind and overload her senses.
Let him, and them, sweep her away.
To where desire ruled and passion held sway, to where nothing mattered beyond their heat, and the rapacious, ravenous need that flowed in its wake.
His tongue lapped, stroked, his lips caressed, and the heat within her coalesced. With every touch, the fire burned brighter. Tighter. More intense.
Until it became her all, the one thing that in that instant mattered.
A true consuming. A real surrender.
But the fiery tension only grew more intense. Until she couldn’t breathe. Until the strands of desire, all fire and heat, wrapped about her so tightly she felt she’d implode.
Then with his tongue he mimicked what he’d earlier done with his finger, a slow, languid penetration and retreat.
And she shattered.
Fractured into a million shards of heat and light and glory.
She gasped, rode the moment—greedily absorbing all she could. But the brightness faded, leaving her dazed, yet strangely empty. Oddly expectant, as if there should be more.
