She leaned forward and touched his skin. It was warm and a pale golden colour, like lightly toasted bread. Gently, she traced the contoured lines of his obliques, and then, with fingers that shook slightly, she stroked the fine hairs that ran down the middle of his stomach to where they disappeared beneath the waistband of his trunks.
He jerked backwards, his eyes narrowing, and then his hand caught hers. Glancing down, she felt her mouth dry. He was hard already, his erection tenting against the soft cotton…
Gazing down at Nia, Farlan felt his body turn to stone. He’d had no idea that her near nakedness could bring such a ferment of desire.
He had touched her in the car, but he hadn’t been looking at her—really looking at her. Now that he was, he just wanted to gaze and gaze, to drink in the soft curve of her breasts and their taut, ruched tips.
But he couldn’t not touch her.
Leaning forward, he kissed her shoulder, her collarbone, chasing the pulse in the insanely smooth skin of her throat to the hollow behind her ear.
His groin was aching, the pain almost at that peak where it was pleasurable. Lifting his head, he found her mouth again, maddened by its shape, and its softness, and by the flutter of her breath against his lips. Slowly, he teased the bow of her mouth, top and then bottom, his head starting to spin as she moaned softly.
Heat flared inside him.
He was so hard already, but he could wait. He had waited, he realised a moment later. Always he had been waiting—for this moment, with this woman.
His hand slid over her face and he pulled her closer, cupping her cheek. He kissed her again, parting her lips, tasting her, breathing her in.
Reaching out, he touched her breast, covering it with the palm of his hand, feeling the tiny shivers of anticipation dance over her skin as the nipple hardened.
‘Nia,’ he whispered. ‘My beautiful Nia.’
Her brown eyes were drowsy with desire. She stroked his face, running her finger over his jaw, scraping the stubble, teasing his mouth with her thumb.
He dragged in a breath as her other hand began to caress the thick length of his erection. It would be all over quickly if he let her carry on doing that.
Capturing her hands, he raised them above her head and licked slowly down her body, his groin throbbing as she squirmed and arched beneath him.
When he reached the triangle of soft curls he parted her with his tongue, flattening it against her swollen clitoris, feeling her unfold, tamping down the decadent ache spreading out inside him.
He let go of her hands and her fingers found his head, pressing him closer, and then closer still, and then she was moving more urgently. ‘I want you inside me.’
She was pulling him up and over her body, her hands skimming his ribs. Now he let her take him in her hand, her thumb smoothing over the hard, straining head as she fed him inside the slick heat between her thighs.
His body was starting to shake.
Sliding his hand under her bottom, he raised her hips, wanting more depth, and then she was reaching up, clasping his face in her hands, kissing him as he began to move rhythmically with her, their bodies blurring as she arched upwards and he surged inside her.
Inching backwards, Farlan gently lifted Nia’s arm from his chest and waited, holding his breath as she murmured in her sleep.
But she didn’t wake, and after a couple more seconds he felt around on the floor for his trunks, pulled them on and then made his way silently across the room, using the red glow of the fire to find his way in the darkness.
In the kitchen, he found a glass and filled it from the tap, gulping the ice-cold water greedily, thinking that the hollowed-out feeling in his chest must be thirst.
Only the pang didn’t fade. Not even when he’d drunk another glass.
Breathing out slowly, he put the glass in the sink.
His body felt great—replete and drained in a way that only happened after sex, as if all the tension had been ironed out of it.
His head, on the other hand was a knotted tangle of confusing and conflicting thoughts.
He felt his hands twitch and he pressed them against the counter, trying to steady himself.
He’d thought he had it all worked out, that he had Nia all worked out. He’d been so sure that she was in the wrong, that she had allowed herself to be persuaded into choosing her aristocratic lifestyle over him.
And she had.