“The coat, but nothing else.” He suited action to the words, shrugging off his evening coat and flinging it to join her gown. “You have guests, remember?”
She blinked. “But I’m the one naked.”
His lips curved; one large hand caressed her bottom, then he gripped and drew her back to him, molding her to him, bending his head to murmur against her lips, “Not naked. You’re still wearing your stockings.”
“But—”
He kissed her—lingeringly. “Not tonight, sweet Caro.”
She was confused. “But—”
“Think of tonight as the second course in our sensual banquet.”
A sensual banquet…the thought appealed. Her hands found his shoulders, felt the heavy, shifting muscles beneath the layers of waistcoat and shirt. Felt his hands spread over her bare back, stroking, caressing, then exploring. Roving anew.
His lips returned to tempt hers. His hands shifted.
“You’re my hostess, remember? I told you I expected you to sate my appetite—you told me to help myself.”
His thumbs were cruising her breasts, teasing her nipples to painful crests; his body was hard against hers.
“So just be quiet, lie back, and enjoy it while I do.”
She had no choice—whatever his chosen road was tonight, it was outside her experience, yet she was eager to follow, to see where it led. There was no doubt in her mind, and none to color her responses; she met him freely, erected no more hurdles, nor felt compelled to create any restrictions.
Michael read her agreement in the way she allowed him to lower her to the daybed, in the way she relaxed, naked though she was, on the cushions alongside him and let him sculpt her body as he wished.
She flowed with him, with his caresses; he received her eager participation not just with inward triumph, but with a feeling very like thankfulness. He had himself, his raging lust and escalating desire, well in hand, yet if she pushed…he was increasingly certain he wouldn’t be strong enough to resist her if she sought to tempt him.
Safety, therefore, lay in reducing her to helplessness; he set about doing so, conscious of a devotion to the exercise that exceeded any such situation in the past. She captured his senses, held them enthralled in some way no other woman ever had. When, one hand splayed over her waist, he eased back from their kiss and bent his head to her breasts, he couldn’t remember a time when his whole being had been so focused, so acutely aware of taste, of texture, of tactile sensation.
When he’d reduced her to gasping moans, to arching wantonly beneath him, he replaced his lips and mouth with his fingers, and bent lower to trail kisses down to her navel. He dallied there, until her gasps came short and sharp, then nudged her thighs wide, shifted lower and settled between.
Felt the shock that gripped her. Set his lips to her soft flesh and felt the convulsive start that rocked her, that made her lungs seize, her fingers clench in his hair. Inwardly smiling, he settled to feast, to, as he’d warned her, sate his appetite—with her.
With her scent, with the apple-tart sweetness of her swollen flesh.
Caro shut her eyes tight, but that only made the sensations more intense. She couldn’t believe—hadn’t imagined…her mental protests, her very wits melted away as he pressed heat and yet more heat on her, into her, impressed intimacy upon her through yet more shockingly intimate and flagrant acts.
Yet every touch was deliberate, expertly gauged, designed and executed with one primary goal—to give her pleasure. Mind-numbing, glorious, soul-drenching pleasure. His aim became clearer with every passing minute; delight welled, swelled—until she simply let herself flow with the tide.
Let herself whirl, then rise, spinning higher and higher as he delicately sucked, lapped, probed, as he orchestrated a dizzying splendor of sensation and sent it raging through her.
Heat built until within her a furnace roared. Her nerves were tight, and only grew tighter. Her lungs were starved, her breasts swollen and aching, her body a restless knot of need. And still he pushed her on. Gave her more and more…
Until she shattered.
The bliss was deeper, longer, more intense than before. The pulsing of joy in its wake lengthened and stretched, the moment infinitely more truly intimate, infinitely more a sharing.
When she finally opened her eyes, he still lay propped between her widespread thighs, watching her face. He smiled knowingly; bending his head, he placed a kiss on her damp curls, then started kissing his way up her taut belly.
With weak hands, she reached for him, caught his shoulders and tried to tug. “Now you.”
He glanced up at her face, met her eyes, tried to smile but it turned into a grimace. “Not tonight, sweet Caro.”
She stared at him. “Not? But—”
“We’ve been absent long enough.” He eased away from her, swung his legs to the floor, then stood and looked down at her.