When he saw where her fascinated gaze was fixed, he arched his back slowly, like a big sleek cat stretching, flaunting his manhood even more. “Are you afraid to touch me?”
“No, I am not afraid,” she lied. “Only vexed by your insufferable arrogance.”
Kell gazed at her steadily, the promise of sexual pleasure gleaming in his dark eyes. “Then touch me,” he demanded, his voice seductive.
Steeling herself, she reached down to brush his loins with her hand. His phallus surged eagerly against her fingertips, almost burning her.
“If you need instruction…” he said when she hesitated.
“I don’t.”
Defiantly, she rose to kneel over Kell and placed both palms on his hard-muscled chest, determined to make him swallow his taunts.
His skin was heated velvet when she caressed him, his muscles smooth and firm beneath her fingers. She ran her hands down his body, exploring his tapering chest, his lean waist, his flat belly…his towering erection.
He tensed when she stroked him there, but she didn’t stop. Deliberately she fondled him, applying the erotic methods she’d learned from the journal, the same exquisitely sensual methods Kell had used on her last night.
She suspected, however, that her assault was proving just as arousing to her as to him. She loved the feel of him under her hands, the way he pulsed and hardened to her touch, the way he seemed to relish the pleasure she was giving him. But she knew from the journal how she could increase the pleasure.
She left off stimulating him and reached for the brandy bottle he had left on the bedside table. One dark eyebrow shot up in question when she wet her fingers with the liquor, but when she touched him, Kell shuddered and gave a low groan of sensual pain. His response delighted Raven and sent her pulse thrumming in her veins.
“Does it please you when I do this?” she asked, her own tone provocative.
“You know it does.”
Bracing her hands on either side of his hips then, she bent to him, first trailing her lips along the huge, swollen length of him, then touching his flesh with her tongue, tasting the brandy, along with his own musky masculine flavor. When he drew a sharp breath, she closed her lips around the hot blunt tip.
In only moments his hips were flexing restlessly beneath the soft suckling of her mouth.
“Witch,” he muttered in a voice rough with need. “You had best stop before I spend myself.”
“Not yet…”
For several long heartbeats more, she pleasured and aroused him, until he was nearly writhing. Her sense of power swelled to bursting as he fought for control.
“Do you intend to make me beg you?” he rasped.
Raising her head from his straining shaft, Raven sent him a challenging look. “Would you really beg?”
“Yes…sweet mercy, yes. Please, my lovely Raven…”
“Well…” To give like this was ecstasy, but she wanted to take as well. She gave Kell a taunting smile. “Since you insist…”
Straddling his waist with her thighs, she leaned forward, deliberately letting her breasts lightly caress his chest. “I don’t believe you are hot enough yet.”
Her teasing made him clench his teeth. “Damn you, vixen… Any hotter and I will burst into flame.”
Indeed his eyes smoldered as she eased downward over his rigid sex, slowly impaling herself.
Kell shuddered as if it were almost more than he could bear, and her sense of power intensified. She loved having him fill her this way-and yet it wasn’t enough. She wanted him to participate in his own ravishment.
Bending, she grasped his wrists and drew his hands to her breasts, her hard nipples stabbing his palms. Immediately he understood her need and complied, rubbing the aching peaks. Raven gave a sigh of rapture at the exquisite sensations and arched her back.
She nearly moaned when his magical hands left her, but he only pulled her thighs wider, lifting his hips to thrust more deeply inside her.
Raven quivered at the scalding hot feel of him urgently filling her, at the clawing need that began to build within her. It was terrifying and thrilling at the same time, how her tenuous control vanished while his only seemed to grow.
He took command then, tangling his hand in her hair, forcing her head down until her mouth met his in a feverish kiss. Raven clutched his shoulders while her hips helplessly rocked against his, trying desperately to assuage the hungry primitive ache.
His kiss burned her to near oblivion, while the vibrant fiery pleasure mounted to a sudden, startling explosion that made them both shatter. Her cry of ecstasy mingled with Kell’s groans as the powerful climax swept them both away.
Gasping for breath, Raven collapsed bonelessly on top of him, her hair falling around his face, a curtain of silk. Weakly his arms came up to encircle her, and he lay unmoving.
When finally she regained her senses it was to find Kell stroking her naked back, nuzzling her temple with his lips.
“Did you find that adequate?” she murmured when she could summon the energy to speak.
She felt him smile against her hair. “Unequivocally.”
Easing her off him, Kell drew the sheets up to cover their nakedness, then lay back and gathered Raven closer. Languidly she curled against him and shut her eyes.
It was a long moment before he broke the silence. “What do you call him, your fantasy lover?”
Raven stiffened at the question. “I don’t have a name for him.”
“What does he look like then?”
She hesitated. “Like a pirate. He has black hair and dark eyes.”
“As I do?” He rolled on his side, his gaze finding hers. “Should I be flattered?”
“I don’t think so. I imagined him long before I met you.”
Kell reached up to brush a tendril of hair from her forehead, but he seemed thoughtful when he spoke. “If I had a fantasy lover, I think she would be very much like you… Flashing blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, a beautiful, slender body with lush breasts…”
Raven stirred self-consciously as his voice washed over her, but Kell wasn’t done.
“She would know not only how to pleasure me, she would know how to make my body sing, to wring me dry and make me ache with need…” A smile flickered across his mouth. “Does your lover do all that?”
Moving away from him, she drew the covers to her breasts.
“Does he?” Kell repeated, his tone curious.
“Yes,” Raven replied defensively. “He does all that and more. He not only gives me pleasure, he makes me feel cherished, desired. As if I am the only woman in the world.”
Kell raised an eyebrow but his measuring gaze was entirely serious. “Is that every woman’s secret fantasy? To be cherished?”
“I wouldn’t know about other women’s fantasies,” Raven replied, deploring the turn their conversation had taken. “But I am perfectly content with mine.”
“Still, I should think the real thing would be more satisfying. An image can’t fill you like a flesh and blood man can. He can’t stroke your nipples like this…”
When Kell caressed her breast, Raven jerked back, away from his sensual touch. “Perhaps not, but neither does he incite a desire in me to commit mayhem, as you do.”
Kell’s lips pursed in a frown. “I confess, I don’t like the thought of you seeking pleasure from your fantasy lover.”
She gave him a sharp look of disbelief. “You cannot possibly be jealous of a fantasy.”
“No? How do you think a man feels when his lover…his wife…constantly dreams about another man? It arouses a primitive male instinct to do battle.”
Raven gave a sigh of exasperation. “It is not a contest, Kell.”
“What if I were to make it one?”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. Never mind. Why don’t you go to sleep?”
He shut his eyes as if prepared to do just that, but Raven made a sound of protest in her throat. “Kell…I think you should sleep in your own bedchamber tonight.”