Possessed. His to savor as he pleased.
He lifted his head, joined her in her rapt contemplation. His hands moved, pandering to her senses, to his desire. The lamplight touched his face, hard and unyielding; it washed over the flushed curves of her body, painting them soft, giving-vulnerable in their nakedness.
One tanned hand left her breast, splayed across her midriff, then moved down, stroking heavily as if savoring the texture of her skin, then angling over her taut stomach and tensing, pressing in.
Pressing her hips, her bottom, against his hard thighs, tilting them so his rigid erection rode against her, an insistent pressure in the small of her back.
Her senses swelled, her breaths were short, shallow; her head was whirling. The promise of pleasure was so potent she could taste it. Briefly she studied his face, wondered again why he wanted her like this. She could sense the control he was exerting, the grim determination that held him back from simply having her, that allowed him to take her along this road, into an illicit paradise.
It was a type of bondage, one with no physical chains, yet the chains were there-Gerrard knew it. He sensed her gaze on his face, sensed the question forming in her mind. He lowered his gaze, lowered his hand, felt her attention shift, leaving his face to lock on his questing fingers.
He speared them through the tawny curls, caught a few between his fingertips and rubbed, as if gauging their texture. Then he fluffed the curls, and noted she’d stopped breathing. He paused, fingertips poised over the shadowed hollow at the apex of her thighs, to knead her breast, to again squeeze her nipple, tight, then tighter, until her concentration fractured. Until she gasped. Writhed.
All but begged. Her hips angled forward, lifted, her curls brushing his fingers in open entreaty.
He accepted the invitation. Slid two fingers into the heated hollow, stroked, found the sensitive pearl throbbing beneath its hood and swirled, then pressed deeper and probed.
She started to shift, to part her thighs to give him better access.
“No. Don’t move. Remain exactly as you are.”
Panting lightly, eyes wide, pupils distended, she obeyed. With her thighs together, he couldn’t penetrate more than an inch past the slick, swollen lips of her sheath.
Far enough for his purpose, far enough to reduce her to desperation. Ruthlessly he wound her tight, gave her just so much and no more…
Abruptly, she dragged in a breath and caught his eyes. “What do you want from me?”
“More.”
“More how?”
Suddenly, he knew. It was as if her question had opened a door in his mind; he’d intended to show her her own sensual nature-it seemed that in doing so, she would teach him of his own. The vision that formed in his mind stole his breath; her lips were parted, her skin already flushed, yet she waited…for his answer.
To learn what he truly wished of her.
“I want to watch you reach ecstasy. Here, with the lamplight pouring over you. I want you to let me view you as I push you over the peak.”
Three heartbeats passed; her eyes locked on his, she knew exactly what he asked. Even, perhaps, why he asked.
She nodded. “All right.”
Again she shifted to part her thighs.
“No. Not like that.”
She looked up at him, her question in her eyes.
He released her breast, spread that hand over her stomach and drew her hips back; still gripping the table’s edge, she had to lean further forward. Releasing her, he gripped her hip, anchoring her before him, then withdrew his fingers from the hot haven beneath her curls, shifted back, reached beneath the sweet swell of her bottom, into the dark hollow between the backs of her thighs, and slid his fingers deep into her sheath.
She gasped, spine tensing, head arching back; his hand clamped about her hip, he held her in place as he worked his fingers deep. Her slickness scorched; the musky scent of her rose to tease him.
He ignored it. Gave all his attention to pleasuring her, to watching her while he did. He found the right rhythm, the perfect angle, the correct length of penetration; stroking in and back, blatantly intent, he set about driving her on.
She responded, skin suffused, muscles fluidly shifting as she rode his fingers. She’d understood what he desired, and was unstinting in yielding all he’d wished for, bringing his wild, illicit vision to life.
He couldn’t tear his gaze from her, had to fight to dissociate his mind from the firm and giving softness of her body, from the hot slickness of her sheath, from the scent of passion that wreathed about them and tried to draw him in. He found desire fracturing as like a man parched he drank in the beauty of her shifting form, of the naked desire she so freely let show.
Despite giving herself up so completely to passion, despite the physical absorption, she still watched him; he caught the glint of her bright eyes under her lowered lids, and realized she wasn’t the only one exposed.
She seemed steady on her feet. He released her hip, then stepped back and to the side-so she lost any contact with him beyond his hand buried between her thighs, so he could with greater detachment better view her body as she responded.
Without reserve.
She raised her head and shook back her hair. Her eyes met his, her breasts thrust forward, nipples proudly erect. With his free hand he reached out, slid his fingers around one pert peak, and played.
Pushed her further.
For long moments he pandered to her need, and watched her scale the peak. Her eyes closed, her knuckles tightened on the table; inexorably he drove her on.
Until she was almost there. She gasped, opened eyes dark and wild and found his. “Come with me. Now.”
An unbelievably evocative plea-half sob, half command. He hadn’t intended it, yet the lure of the visual, of all she’d allowed him to see, the allure of her body, so female and flushed with desire, the evocative lines and even more evocative scent of passion, coalesced like a net and dragged him in. Detachment was beyond him.
His fingers were flicking open the buttons at his waist as he moved to stand directly behind her. Awareness of all he’d blocked out rushed back. He was rigid, aching; it was an inexpressible relief to withdraw his fingers from her body, and replace them with that part of his anatomy he’d been ignoring for the last hour.
Untold relief to sink his throbbing staff into the heated heaven between her thighs.
He groaned, the sound revealing more than he’d expected. He cracked open lids that had fallen closed, and in the mirror found her eyes. Still watching him.
A small, slight smile curved her lips.
He tightened his hands about her hips, lifted her up, onto her toes, drew back, and plunged in.
She asked for no quarter, neither with words, sobs or moans; if anything, she pressed back against him, meeting his thrusts and urging him on.
He rode her deep, hard, unrestrained, freed from the shackles of the conventional-by her. By her willingness to give him all he wished, by her openness, her unlimited honesty in this, in the enjoyment she took, the pleasure she found, in engaging in sex with him, in taking him into her body, and lavishing pleasure on him.
Her face showed it all, eyes now closed, a witchy little smile curving her parted lips, a small, luscious indent between her brows as she concentrated, her senses wholly focused on where they joined.
On the hot pleasure of his filling her.
The peak beckoned, loomed ever nearer, then she was there. He thrust harder, deeper, prolonging the moment, with her through every panting gasp-then the rippling contractions of her surrender caught him; she tightened about him, and took him with her.
Over the edge and into sheer delight.
He had no idea how he managed to keep them upright, but eventually he withdrew from her, swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. He went back to douse the lamps, then stripped and joined her beneath the covers.