But the grip of his hands around hers, holding them against the wall, was a thrill all its own: the rough friction of his callused palms against the soft skin of hers; the way he slid his fingers between hers, intertwining; the sway of his body, moving to therhythm of his kiss, her legs instinctively parting for him to allow him closer still.
Indeed, she almost clenched her thighs against the sides of his hips, for that was the only way she could touch him. What her hands could not do to help satisfy her titillating frustrations, her legs had no choice but to improvise, to savor some of that sweet friction.
“Would you rather touch me or see me as I tease you, until you cannot bear it?” he purred, breathless as he pulled back for a moment.
Flushed with heat and eager for more, Valerie shook her head, breathing hard. “I want both.”
“You cannot have both,” he replied, smirking.
“I must,” she pleaded, straining forward to kiss him again.
He permitted the light graze of his lips on hers before pulling back once more and releasing his hold upon her hands. With a look in his eyes that made her heart pound, he reached back and picked up his cravat.
“I could deny you both,” he said silkily, “but I would hate for you to think, after all this, that Iamas cruel as they say. Now, stay still.”
She could not help but obey him as the silk cravat brushed her skin, Adrian drawing the fabric over the swell of her bosom, caressing it across her chest and up the column of her throat, her head tilting back as a delicious shiver ran through her.
He leaned in to trace a kiss where the cravat had touched, his lips grazing the curve of her neck until he reached her mouth… where he stopped, half an inch from her lips, tormenting her with the promise of his mouth on hers.
Kiss me. Oh, kiss me.
A dark laugh rumbled from his chest until she became almost certain that he was a mind reader.
But he did not kiss her. Instead, he brought the cravat over her eyes, his thumbs stroking her cheeks as he curved the ends of the fabric around her head.
She gasped as he tied a firm knot, and she was left without one of her five senses. Shapes and shadows filtered through the dark green silk, nothing more.
“Now, be a good girl,” Adrian growled, close to her ear, his warm breath tickling her skin, “and let me see how many times, how many ways, I can make you call my name before we reach home.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Take it slowly, for your own sake.
Adrian bit his lip, hard enough to cause a pinch of pain, as he observed Valerie on the squabs: her bosom rose and fell in shaky breaths, her fingernails digging into the velvet upholstery, her entire body trembling slightly in anticipation.
It was the most intoxicating thing he had ever beheld.Shewas the most intoxicating thing he had ever beheld, which was part of the problem. How was he supposed to restrain himself when her whole being sang to him like a Siren call that he could not resist? Even now, his manhood yearned for the molten heat of her depths, his loins ablaze.
If I cannot relieve this, I will go mad.
He shook off the thought and focused on her, remembering the singular bliss of her writhing and bucking on the library’s chaise-longue. Indeed, since then, he had not had another nightmare.In their place, he had luxuriated in dreams of her, where he hadnotstopped at her pleasure but had indulged in his own, too.
“What are you doing?” Valerie asked, a nervous note in her voice. “This is not some game, is it? Are you toying with me?”
He rested his fingertips beneath her chin. “Not toying,” he replied, as he grazed his teeth across her lower lip. “Teasing, perhaps. Just enough so that you beg for more.”
Her lips parted in surprise, and he did not hesitate. Resting one hand on her thigh, lightly digging into that supple flesh, he kissed her with every measure of that relentless desire. He kissed her as if they had been dancing around one another all day, and had finally stolen a moment alone. He kissed her as if they had never left the library that night, picking up where he had left off.
Blindfolded as she was, it took her a second to catch up to what was happening, though when she did, her kiss was just as ferocious. She held his face in her hands and shuffled forward on the squabs, her skirts ruching up to reveal the slender curve of her ankles.
He could not hold back, his hand grasping those skirts, pushing them up to her hips as he kissed her harder. She responded willingly, urgently, her hips tilting, her thighs squeezing against him as if to bring him closer. Driving him toward a point where he would need every shred of willpower he possessed not to cross a line that could not be undone.
“Yes, Adrian…” she murmured against his mouth, her fingertips running through his hair. “Let me feel you.”
His loins ignited, from smoldering embers to a raging inferno at those words. Words she could not possibly understand the true meaning of, or what they could do to a man, unraveling him.
“Patience,” he whispered, as much to himself as to her.
“But I?—”
