Smothering a groan, he closed his eyes; he understood what she wanted, what she wished…he didn’t know if he was strong enough to give it to her.
He tried. Tried to lock his body into submission, to stop himself from taking control, so she could ride him as she wished, and experiment.
She rose up and, once again slowly, slid down, exploring as she did, contracting the muscles of her sheath about his hard length, feeling him.
The sensation was more potent than if she’d used her hands.
Eyes shut, he concentrated on not reacting, tried to blot out the barrage of tactile sensations she pressed on him—largely failed. His fingers sank deep, gripping almost desperately, locking about her hips; he’d leave bruises, but he knew without thinking that she would prefer bruises to him taking control. To him denying her the freedom to explore and learn.
But he could only go so far.
Could only endure so much of the delicious torture.
Releasing one of her hips, he cupped her nape and hauled her forward—into a bruising kiss.
She didn’t recoil, but met him—every bit as hungry as he.
Not good.
Control—his or hers—became a moot point. A thing of the past, past and forgotten.
Not in all his years, in his countless engagements, had he ever found himself immersed in such heat. Engulfed in such an elemental conflagration. It seared through them both, like a wave reared and crashed, broke through them and swept them away.
Into a raging tide of need, of hungry, desperate yearning. More powerful, so much more needy, greedy, so much more passion-racked that he was lost—as lost as she—equally at its mercy.
Entirely beyond control.
Lost in the realm of a deeper need, a more fundamental, more primitive hunger.
They both gasped, clung, kissed as if their lives hung in the balance. Joined, their bodies slick beneath her skirts, as if reaching the promised paradise was an absolute requirement for continued existence.
And then they were there.
She shattered with a cry, muted by their kiss; in reply, release swept him, fracturing and scattering his wits, cracking his awareness, leaving it open. Receptive.
To the powerful surge of feeling that came in release’s wake.
That filled him, gilding satiation in a way he’d never before felt.
Burgeoning to fill his chest as, replete, a small delighted smile curving her lips, she collapsed against him, into his arms, and he closed them about her.
Untold minutes later, he sat cradling her in his arms, one hand stroking her nape and back, soothing not just her, but himself.
The warm weight of her slumped around him, her sheath a hot glove about his semiturgid erection, he wanted nothing more in that moment but to hold her, and feel complete.
Feel, for the first time in his life, what completeness could be.
It wasn’t simply a physical sensation. Admittedly his palate had grown jaded with the years, making her innocent delight an intoxicating elixir, yet the joy and untainted pleasure they shared seemed somehow finer, more refined, a culminating experience he’d been unknowingly searching for all his life.
Shewas what he’d been searching for all his adult life.
His arms tightened about her; having found her, he had no intention of ever letting her go. On that, both his sophisticated self and his more primitive nature were in complete accord.
Leaning his jaw against the sleek silk of her hair, he breathed in—the musk of their lovemaking was overlaid by a scent that was purely her, a fragrance of lilacs and rose, of soft female and indomitable will. How willpower could have a scent he didn’t know, but to him it definitely had a place in the bouquet that was her.
She stirred, still loose-limbed, relaxed to her toes. He dropped a gentle kiss on her hair. “We have time. No rush.”
She humphed, and slumped again. “Good.”
