With his free hand he trapped her jaw, angled her face so he could continue the kiss—draw it out until she was breathless. Then he shifted his lips to her temple, cruised over her ear and down to press a hot caress in the sensitive hollow beneath.
She murmured, and tried to shift into him. He held her back, kept at least an inch between their bodies. “Not yet,” he murmured, and ducked
his head, tipping her jaw so he could trace the long, arching line of her throat with his lips. She shuddered beneath the caress, and grew less rigid. More pliant. Willing to cede him the moment, to see what he wished to give her.
He pressed his lips to the pulse point at the base of her throat, felt more of her impatience fall away. Breathing in, he drew the scent of jasmine into his lungs, held it there, close to his heart.
Lifting his head, he found her lips again, kissed her again. Still slow, still hungry. Lowered his hand to her breast, let the warm mound fill his palm.
She reacted instantly—immediately wanted him to release her hands so she could sink them in his hair and set the pace. He knew, but still he held her, kept her hands trapped while he kneaded, while his fingers searched and, through the black silk crepe, found and circled her nipple.
Her kiss grew hungrier, more demanding, yet still he held her back. Forced her to feel his unhurried assessment of her bounty. He traced, stroked, ran his thumb over the furled peaks, until her breasts were swollen and firm, straining beneath the confining silk.
Only then did he consent to move on. It was the work of a minute to slip the black buttons closing her bodice free, releasing the pressure. Holding her to their kiss, he found the lacings at her back and swiftly undid them.
She sighed when he released her hands and slid her gown from her shoulders, down her arms, let it slide slowly down her slender body until it slithered over her hips and down her legs to puddle on the floor.
Leaving her clad only in her fine silk chemise and even finer silk stockings. And they were black, too—dark veils too insubstantial to fully screen her white skin. The filmy chemise shifting over her curves distracted him.
Letitia saw, and felt a spark of amazement lance through her desire. He’d seen her naked often enough; to see him transfixed now was a curious delight. She shifted, stretched, watched his eyes track her breasts, her hips, trace her waist through the screening chemise.
Setting one hand to his shoulder, she slipped off her slippers, stepped out of her discarded gown and into him.
To her surprise, he caught her, his hands locking about her waist. Holding her as she was, the tight peaks of her breasts just brushing his coat.
An excruciatingly tantalizing caress; she needed to get closer, to ease the ache in her heavy breasts, but he held her trapped.
He looked into her face, searched her eyes, her expression, in the dim light. She had no idea what he saw, but then he bent his head, still moving far too slowly for her liking. But at least his lips closed on hers, and this time his tongue surged deep into her mouth. Not in any fury of desire, not as it usually was between them, all fire and unleashed passion, but with a slow intent, a measured, unhurried, almost languid claiming that somehow, to her reeling senses, was strangely erotic.
With her lips and tongue, she tried to urge him on, to make him go faster, to ignite the flames that between them usually roared and drove him.
To return to the familiar.
But he wouldn’t, not this time. He held to his slow beat, and refused to let her push him. Even though the heat between them was palpable, he kept it at simmering, steadily burgeoning, escalating, but totally under his control.
A shiver went through her as she realized what was so different—so sensually exciting it was setting her nerves flickering, skittering, with expectation.
Control. His.
Whenever they’d come together in the past, neither had exercised any real measure of control—for herself, she’d never sought it, and she’d always, in the past, been able to cinder his.
Not this time. As the kiss went on, spun out, and left her slowly whirling along the outer edges of a vortex of pleasured delight, she felt all resistance fade.
He wished her to know this, and so she would. The conqueror within him, a being she’d always known existed beneath his debonair charm, wasn’t going to give her any choice.
A primitive shudder of anticipation ran down her spine.
He sensed it; he paused in his slow, devastatingly thorough claiming of her mouth, then the kiss changed. Deepened. As one hand drifted from her waist.
She felt the brush of his fingers as they slid beneath the hem of her chemise. With his fingertips he traced—slowly—upward from her hip along her side to the underside of her breast.
Moving slowly, smoothly, he palmed it. At last skin-to-skin, he closed his hand about her flesh and the flames leapt.
Just so far. They flared and fell as he touched her—everywhere. As he claimed every inch of her skin—unhurriedly, explicitly, as if he had all night and intended to use it.
His desire, his absolute intent to make her his, to claim her, brand her, reached her through his touch. Through every caress of his hard hands, through every sweep of his palms as he sculpted her body. Through every slow, languid, thorough exploration.
It almost felt as if he were learning her anew, as if those long-ago times had been in some other life and they were both different people now.