His mouth was scalding as he tasted her sensitized skin. Her nipples ached with a deep-seated pain that was intensely sweet. Then he placed his hand, large and heavy, over her waist; through the silk, she felt its heat and hardness, felt her muscles leap.
He raised his head. Looked down at her breasts. Even in the dimness, she could see the possessiveness limning his features.
His gaze rose. Black, hot, it searched her face, read her features, then his eyes returned to hers. He held her gaze, held her awareness.
His hand drifted lower.
The silk softly shushed, the last barrier between his hand and her flesh. Flesh that now pulsed hotly, nerves that slowly, slowly tightened with expectation.
Almost negligently, he caressed her stomach, then his hand drifted to the curve of her hip, then followed the line of one thigh.
Tony watched her, watched her senses follow his hand, his fingers. He did nothing to break the spell, held aside his own clamorous instincts and forced himself to keep to the same slow steady pace that had, from the moment they’d entered the room, contributed to the magic.
Orchestrated it, built it.
He needed that magic. He didn’t just want to introduce her to passion, to take her and make her his. He wanted— needed—to expand her horizons, to bring her to know, to experience, and ultimately to want to explore the outer reaches of desire with him. To achieve that he needed to show her, to make her see and appreciate that there was a great deal more beyond the simple act.
So he held back his frustration, without compunction sacrified it to their greater good, closed his mind against the drumming insistence of even deeper instincts, those that had reacted to the thought of other men—other rakes—coveting her as he did, those instincts that still, beneath all else, prowled, prodded to possessive life by the nebulous threat of her involvement with Ruskin.
He pushed them all aside, and concentrated on her. On the tale told by her rapid breathing, the way her nerves leapt as he stroked down her thigh. The armchair was commodious; her legs were a heated weight across his lap. Against one firm thigh, he was hard as rock, rigid and aching, but relief was not in the cards, not tonight. He’d survive, but he was determined in recompense to advance their one small step.
Still holding her gaze, he closed his fingers about one knee and lifted it, shifted it, parting her thighs. She permitted it, but tensed; her breathing tightened. Intent, he kept her with him and stroked his fingers, his palm, up the sensitive inner face of her thigh.
All the way to where her tight curls brushed his fingertips. He smoothed them aside, in the same movement boldly cupped her. Set his hand to her softness and covered it. Claimed it.
She caught her breath, stopped breathing entirely. His gaze locked with hers, he held still, then, adhering to that same slow steady beat, he eased his palm back, and with his thumb and one finger began to explore her.
Alicia quivered, and followed his every move. She couldn’t do otherwise; he had her locked to him in some heightened state where she was shockingly aware of their flagrantly sexual play, where they were in some way connected so she both felt the sensations of his touch and simultaneously experienced something of his reaction.
Of what he felt as he learned her, caressed and boldly explored the soft, swollen folds between her thighs. She’d never known that part of her body to feel so hot, so wet, so achingly wanting. Pulsing, almost throbbing; her hips stirred, of their own volition lifted to his caress as if seeking more.
A glimmer of satisfaction flashed across his hard face. That he understood her body better than she did she didn’t doubt; his caresses changed, became subtly more deliberate, more potent.
More satisfying to both of them.
He was showing her, teaching her. She remembered his words as his thumb swirled knowingly about the tight pearl of sensation he’d found, that exquisitively sensitive spot that seemed pleasurably connected to every nerve she possessed. He swirled again and her whole body reacted; she arched lightly, heard herself gasp, let her lids fall.
“Stay with me.”
The deep words were an outright command. She forced her lids up, met his gaze. Tried to read it and failed. “Why?”
To her surprise, the single word was all sultry temptation. Not like her at all, or so she had thought, yet it was. Emboldened, she shifted her hands, until then slack on his shoulders, let her fingers stroke his nape.
In response, his fingers stroked, but more slowly, as if savoring the wetness they’d drawn forth.
“Because I want you to know this, and I want to know you—all of you. All that you feel, all that you enjoy.”
On the words, as if to demonstrate, his wicked fingers shifted, parting her folds, this time gently probing.
The action captured her attention. Completely. She moistened her lips; her gaze once again locked with his, she felt him ease one blunt fingertip between the slick folds.
Her body reacted, flushed, heated. She dragged in a tight breath. “One step.”
He held her gaze, his eyes black, intent. “Just one step.”
Slowly, he slid his finger into her.
Into the heated softness of her body, into the scalding furnace of her desire. Mentally gritting his teeth, Tony held tight to his reins and watched her outward attention splinter. Watched her focus inward, on the steady penetration of his finger into her tight sheath.
Her breathing was labored; she struggled to do as he’d asked and cling to the contact, to keep her eyes open, locked albeit unseeing on his.
Still keeping to their slow, steady rhythm, he reached as far as he could, gently pressed, then equally slowly reversed, until his fingertip reached the tight constriction that guarded her entrance. Then he reversed direction, deliberately pressing in, stroking the soft tissues, teasing the nerves and muscles beneath.
She lay in his arms, not passive but accepting, following, letting him learn her body even more intimately. Aware, as her widening eyes testified, of the building beat in her own body, of the heat, the burgeoning need.
Relentlessly, he built the rhythm until, with a small cry, she lifted against his hand. He pressed deeper, faster, clung to their visual contact as she climbed the peak, as her nails sank into his shoulders, her body bowing as the tension tightened. Heightened.
Then broke.
She came apart in his arms. The shocked awareness on her face, the stunned expression that was washed away as rapture took her, was a revelation—she’d never known the pleasure before.
As her lids drifted down, fierce satisfaction broke over him. His innate possessiveness roared, pleased beyond measure that it had been he who had brought her her first taste of sexual bliss.
He kept his hand between her thighs, one finger buried deep within her, savoring her contractions, the telltale ripples as her muscles relaxed into satiation. All her tension melted; as it did, he slid another finger in alongside the first, gently worked both deep. Stroked as she floated; she was so tight… Alfred Carrington had clearly been inadequate in more ways than one. When their time finally came, she’d need help stretching to accommodate him. Perhaps it was as well their time was not yet. Would likely be some while yet.
Eventually withdrawing his fingers from her softness, smoothing her chemise down, he settled back in the chair. And tried to ignore the musky scent that teased his senses, compounded by the warm weight of well-pleasured woman in his arms. Not an easy task.
Only one topic held the power to distract him; he turned his mind to scripting their next step.
Alicia reached home in the small hours, her wits in disarray. Her body…felt glorious. The former was a direct consequence of the latter.