He showed no mercy, suckling voraciously first at one breast, then the other.
Her fingers spasmed, holding him to her. He slid his hands down from her waist, back and over her hips, and captured her bottom; spreading his thighs, he drew her hips to him. Wedged her close so her stomach rode against him, both easing and teasing the fiery ache.
Closing his hands, he kneaded, and felt more than heard her gasp. He didn’t stop but explored more intimately, holding her at his mercy, his lips taunting and teasing her swollen breasts while he evocatively shifted her lower body, molding hips, stomach, and thighs to him as he wished.
Then she dragged in a breath and bent her head. He released her breasts, looked up, and she captured his mouth. Slid in, caressed and heated him, stole his breath, gave it back.
He felt her fingers at his throat, then she flicked his cravat loose. Their mouths melded; they took and gave while her fingers slid down his chest.
Opening his shirt.
Tugging it free of his waistband. Trailing her fingertips over his chest, taunting, feather-light. Maddening.
“Take off your coat.”
The words whispered through his brain. His skin was burning; it seemed a good idea.
He released her for a second, stood, shrugged.
Cravat, coat, and shirt fell back across the chair.
Bad move.
The instant her naked breasts touched his bare chest, he knew that was so.
Didn’t care.
The sensation was so erotic, so blissfully attuned to some deeper need that he shrugged aside the warning as easily as he had the shirt. He gathered her to him, sank into her welcoming mouth, aware to his bones of the light touch of her hands on his skin, innocent, tentatively exploring.
Aware of the rush of pleasure her touch evoked, of the answering heat flaring within her.
He didn’t press but let her feel and learn as she wished, his ego pleased beyond belief by her eager desire. He held her close; hands splayed over her naked back, he traced the fine muscles bracketing her spine.
Delicate, supple yet with their own feminine strength, an echo of all she was.
He’d never been with a woman he wanted more, one who promised so completely to sate him. Not just sexually, but at some deeper level, one he didn’t, in his present state, recognize or understand. Whatever it was, the compulsive need she evoked was strong.
Stronger than any lust, any mere desire.
His control had never had to cope with such a feeling.
It cracked, shattered, and he didn’t even know.
Didn’t even have the sense to pull back when her questing fingers wandered lower. When she traced, tantalizingly, in open wonderment, he only groaned.
Startled, she drew her hand away; he grabbed it. His hand locked around hers he guided it back, urged her to learn him as he intended to learn her. Drew back from the kiss and watched her face as she did.
Gloried in her innocence, and even more in her awakening.
His lungs constricted until he was giddy. He continued to watch her, kept his senses focused on her, away from the conflagration she was causing, from the urgent need pulsing through him.
Only when she glanced up beneath her lashes, lips parted, rosy from his kisses, did he move to draw her to him again, to again take her mouth and sweep her deeper into the magic.
Deeper under his spell.
When he finally released her lips, Leonora could barely think. Her skin was on fire; so was his. Everywhere they touched, flames leapt, singed. Her breasts ached, brushed to excruciating sensitivity by the coarse dark hair across his chest.
That chest was a sculpted wonder of hard muscle over heavy bone. Her spread fingers found scars, nicks here and there; the light tan of his face and neck extended over his chest, as if he occasionally worked outside without a shirt. Inside without a shirt he was a wonder, appearing to her senses like a god come to life. She’d only seen male bodies like his in books of ancient sculptures, yet his was alive, real, utterly male. The feel of his skin, the resilience of his muscles, the sheer strength he possessed overwhelmed her.