Absolute Pleasure (16 page)

She pressed herself to him, the merger of their bodies flattening her breasts so that the merest shifting rubbed him against her, easing some of the building, unalleviated tension.

'Touch me," he ordered harshly. "With your hands, your mouth. Touch me all over."

With his strained command, she perceived that she'd been standing like a statue, accepting his sumptuous attentions but extending none of her own. As if his dictate had given her permission, she jumped to the task of investigating his heavenly anatomy.

Her zealous fingers roamed, avidly inspecting every inch of exposed torso. Not a speck of skin eluded her thorough investigation. She traced across ridge and bone, muscle and sinew, his brawn and superior size enchanting her.

More brave with each passing minute, she sifted through the pile of springy hair on his chest. She'd never seen a man's chest before, had never supposed that it might be so tempting. The furred pile tickled her hands, and she reveled in the novel sensation by resting them over his breasts, the tiny pebble of his brown nipples poking at her palms.

The gesture had an immediate effect on him. Tensed, he gritted his teeth, and forced her back against the door.

"Stroke me. Like this." He set her fingers to his nipples, teaching her how to pinch with just the right measure of pressure, and a moan of pleasure rumbled through him.

How exotic! How satisfying! She had the knave completely at her mercy, and she couldn't help but ponder how proficient she'd become after she'd had a few lessons. With some extensive tutoring, she'd be a veritable master at the sexual arts. How thrilling!

"Lick me," he decreed. "There. Where you're touching me." He bent nearer, his nipple at her lips. "Put your tongue on me."

Jolted, she recalled the woman he'd suckled in that shadowed theater box. Did a man delight in the same wicked maneuver?

Apparently, yes.

Her tongue flicked out, wetting the nub, and his sharp intake of breath told her she was doing it correctly. She repeated the procedure over and over, growing more audacious, more indelicate.

"Now, suck me into your mouth," he urged, "as a babe would at its mother's breast."

Fervently, she acceded, her lips closing around the delectable morsel.

"Harder," he counseled.

She enhanced the pressure as he clasped her neck, spurring her on. His fingers spread through her hair, the combs flying, and the heavy mass swished down.

With another lusty groan, he wrenched his breast away, his respiration labored, his heart thundering behind his ribs. He gripped her bottom and picked her up, shoving her against the wall. Ablaze, he clutched her thighs and rucked up her skirts, opening her so that she could circle his waist with her legs, a scheme with which she ardently complied. Then he flexed into her, his groin pushing into hers, and the move ignited an indescribable frenzy in her loins.

"I'm so hard for you." He stole a fervid kiss. "Do you have any idea what that means?”

"No. No."

"I want to fuck you so bad."

She'd never heard the term before, didn't know its definition, but it lewdly reverberated through her feminine passages. "Do what you will."

"Don't say such a thing to me," he growled, "or I just might. It would serve you right for coming here."

"I couldn't stay away."

"No," he said, resigned, "I don't suppose you could."

Spinning about, holding her to him, he carried her across the room as if she weighed nothing at all. He glided down onto the decadent sofa, slouching so that she was sprawled across him.

She was positioned over his lap, kneeling, her skirts bunched up, and he spread her, widening her further, so that her private parts were in direct contact with his lower torso. They were connected in a fashion she'd never conceived, yet her body welcomed me conjunction, what it heralded, what the subsequent act was to be. He thrust his hips, and she adopted his tempo.

After a protracted indulgence, he murmured an unintelligible phrase then, sounding and looking pained, he halted his efforts.

"Am I hurting you?" she inquired, worried.

"Only in a good way."

Not comprehending his answer, she endeavored to move off, to give him more space, but he held her in place, impeding retreat by sliding his hands under her skirts and resting them on her thighs.

"Is your bottom bare under your dress?" he queried irreverently. "You're not wearing any of those newfangled drawers?"

"No, I never do."

"Buono.
I hate them."

She confidently met his stare, and she was pleased that
she seemed so self-possessed, precisely the type of urbane woman who could discuss her lack of undergarments with a lover.

He smoothed his hands higher, until he clasped her rear, then he used the leverage to tip her toward him. She tottered forward, balancing her weight on an arm.

"You have such a great ass," he mentioned. "I'm going to draw you without your clothes someday. You'll allow me to, won't you?"

The notion was scandalous, but she didn't automatically discount it The abstraction of being naked for him was no longer shocking. In all actuality, she couldn't wait for the chance and, if she'd had the slightest inkling of how to brazen it out, she'd advance to nudity forthwith. Her constricting garments—especially her corset—were a confinement from which she was more than willing to escape.

"I suppose I will."

"I won't let you refuse me anything."

"I'm beginning to realize that fact."

At her tractable capitulation, he smiled arrogantly, silently telling her that he'd never had any doubts. He would get his way, and she would gladly revel in her fall from grace.

Deftly, he unhooked the back of her dress, yanking at her bodice, then loosening the strings on her corset. With several clever moves, which gave her no opportunity to prepare or panic, she was exposed to the waist, her breasts dangling before him.

"Gabriel!"

She snatched at her attire, her initial instinct to hide what he shouldn't see, what no one had ever seen. Even at her bath, she wasn't naked! She washed in her chemise! He prohibited concealment by bracketing her hands behind her, so that he had an unimpeded view of the two breasts that she had always thought too large and unwieldy.

With an artist's attention to detail, he analyzed her, his regard potent as his hands might have been. Then, he caressed her, with finger and thumb squeezing, shifting, testing weight and mass.

"Ravishing. As magnificent as I'd suspected they'd be." The compliment prickled down to her toes. "You were made for a man like me to appreciate."

With a gentle nudge, she was tipping, once again, her breasts over his mouth, and he sucked her inside, his teeth and tongue voraciously sampling her nipple. He nipped and played, teased and bit, until she was squirming in unrelieved agony, yet he didn't ease up.

He went to the other, bestowing the same fierce application. An extra torture, while his mouth suckled on one, his fingers toyed and manipulated the other, so that both nipples were overwhelmed.

This was simply too much sensation for a mortal woman to bear!

"I can't stand any more," she protested. "Desist!"

"No," the rogue insolently declared.

He rotated them, until she was on the bottom, and he was stretched out on top of her, then he continued to nurse, her nipples raw and inflamed, and still he didn't cease. He insinuated and centered himself between her thighs, the fabric of her skirts a cushioning pillow for his loins and, slowly, languidly, he thrust against her. Of their own accord, her hips matched his pace.

An alarm blared in her head, and she intuitively recognized that she'd traveled past an acceptable limit, that he was about to go precisely where she shouldn't permit him.

"Gabriel..."

Before they'd commenced, she'd presumed that she was capable of carrying on to whatever conclusion he desired, but the reality was much more complicated than she'd surmised, and he was progressing so quickly, his hunger for her inciting them both to recklessness.

"Gabriel," she tried again, more forcefully. "Please."

Being so involved in his task, he made no response; he just persisted with his meticulous flexing, a ridge of flesh pressuring into her through his trousers, pushing into her just where she needed it most. Only when she began to struggle in earnest did he quit.

Grappling for control, he lowered his weight so that his groin was in unlimited union with hers. His burning expression seared her, so powerful and magical that she was glad she was lying down when it fell upon her.

"This is happening too fast," she said apprehensively. "You're scaring me."

"Buono,"
he remarked again. "You should be very afraid."

He rolled to the side, but he kept a thigh thrown over hers. With a last look of acute longing, he tugged at her corset and bodice, so that her breasts were shielded, then outrageously, he fumbled beyond her petticoats, lowered his hand and cupped her betwixt her legs. His hand was ... there! She writhed uncomfortably.

"You're so wet."

"Aye."
  
'

She flushed as she admitted the humiliating detail. Ever since she'd met him, her private parts had been moist and stimulated. Just now, she was slippery, her bodily juices thick and coating the entire area.

He left the couch to traipse across the room. When he returned, with a towel, he reached under her skirt and wiped between her legs, blotting up the peculiar moisture. Her damp core was swollen and tender, and the nap from the towel's fabric had an arousing effect.

"You're so ready for me." He chuckled crudely as he pitched the towel on the floor. "I'm going to love fucking you."

"You keep saying that word, but I don't know what it means."

"It
means
that I'm going to fondle you here; kiss you here, and much more."

He rubbed his thumb across the saturated area, both fascinating and disturbing her. "No!"

"Si,"
he insisted.

"Why would you?"

"Because it will please me. And you. That's why you shouldn't have come here today." He kissed her forehead, lingering as if it was an atonement. "I'm sure you don't believe me, but by sending you that note, I was trying to protect you."

"From what?"

"From me."

He hauled her to a sitting position, and knelt behind her, relacing her corset and securing her dress. His actions told her they were done—for now—and she waited as he finished with her clothes and pinned up her hair, his competence reminding her yet again of his extensive amorous experience.

Once he had her presentable, he rose, then assisted her to her feet and, his eyes inscrutable, his thoughts unreadable, he asked, "Will you be my lover,
bella?”

"Yes, I will."

He nodded somberly. "We have an appointment on Monday. Think carefully about attending, because if you show up, there'll be no retreat. You'll be ruined, totally compromised."

"I'm twenty-seven. I'd say it's about time."

"After I'm through with you, you'll never be able to marry."

"I don't care."

"You may. Someday."

“I sincerely doubt it.”

He scoffed. "You can't know what you're assenting to until it's too late to repair any damage."

"I'll take my chances."

"I let you call a halt today, but I won't again. If you walk in my door on Monday, I won't allow any restraint." He stroked over her breast, vividly prompting her to recollect what they'd just achieved, what they would accomplish if she dared another visit. "I won't be denied merely because I might offend your virginal sensibilities."

"I understand."

"No, you don't. But you will." He retrieved her cloak, settled it over her shoulders, and fastened the clasp. "I'm an adult man, with a healthy sexual drive. If you're rash enough to offer yourself, I'll take and take until there's nothing left, and I'll suffer no stabs of conscience over my behavior."

"I don't believe you'd ever do anything nefarious to me."

"Then you're a fool." He shrugged and rested his hands on her waist. "Our affair will conclude one day, in the not too distant future. You realize that, don't you?"

"Of course I do." Her heart sank at his blunt assertion, but she declined to dwell on the negative. He was bent on disparaging himself and discouraging her, while she proposed to concentrate on the possibilities.

"When I grow bored with you, I'll move on, and I won't look back."

"Perhaps I won't, either," she lied, hoping to appear worldly and sophisticated.

"Not bloody likely," he mocked, and he shook his head, rankled by her obstinance. "Just remember this: I'll never apologize for what transpires from here on out, and I won't be sorry when it's over. Despite how badly you're hurt. That's the kind of man I am."

"You'll never convince me that you have such a base character."

"Well, you can't say I didn't warn you."