His cravat. Two yards of white linen. Instinctively he shifted his weight to his toes, about to step away from the bed.
She halted, caught his eye-waited.
He eased back, gripped the posts more firmly.
She uttered a small “humph,” and walked down the side of the bed. The covers rustled as she climbed up, then came silence. She was on the bed a little way behind him, doing something; her gaze wasn’t on him. “I forgot to mention-you aren’t allowed to speak. No words. This is my script, and there are no lines for you.”
He inwardly snorted. He rarely used words in this arena; actions spoke louder.
Then she moved closer behind him. He sensed her rising high on her knees; her breath brushed his ear when she murmured, “I think this might be easier if you.” He sensed her arms rising over his head. “Can’t.” His cravat, folded to a narrow band, appeared before his face. “See.”
She settled the band over his eyes, then wound the long strip multiple times around his head before tying it off at the back.
A cravat made a damned fine blindfold. The material sank across his eyes; he couldn’t lift his lids at all.
Effectively blind, his other senses instinctively expanded, heightened.
She spoke by his ear. “Remember-no speaking, and no releasing the posts.”
Her scent. The brush of her breath across his earlobe. Inwardly he smiled cynically. How was she going to remove his shirt?
She slid from the bed, and came to stand before him. The subtle beckoning heat of her. Her light perfume. The more primitive, more evocative, infinitely more arousing fragrance of her-the one scent he hungered for most strongly, that of his woman aroused and ready for him.
He’d had that taste on his tongue; it was imprinted on his brain.
Every muscle hardened. His erection grew even more rigid.
She was two feet away. With his hands locked on the posts, she was out of his reach.
“Hmm. Where to start?”
At his waistband, then head down.
“Perhaps with the most obvious.” She stepped into him, plastered her body against his, drew his head down, and kissed him.
She hadn’t told him he couldn’t kiss her back. He ravaged her mouth, seized a first taste of what he ached for.
For one heady moment, she clung, caught, helpless, in the passion he’d unleashed, her body instinctively sinking against his, yielding, promising to ease the ache in his groin, offering pleasure and earthly delight…
He sensed her find her feet, digging in so she could stand against him. On a gasp, she wrenched back. Broke the kiss.
Unable to see, he couldn’t follow and reinstate the exchange.
She was breathing rapidly. “You’re hungry.”
An indisputable fact.
He smothered a growl as her body left his, clenched his jaw to quell the impulse to seize her and haul her back.
From his shoulders, her hands trailed slowly down, over his chest, over his abdomen, provocatively assessing. One paused at his waist; the other continued on, to, through his trousers, outline his erection, fingers tracing across the broad head before her palm flattened, warm and supple, over the throbbing length.
“Impressive.” She gripped, then removed her hand.
He bit back a hiss. His fingers sank into the posts’ carving.
“Wait.”
She left him, got back on the bed behind him; her hands gripped the back of his shirt at his waist, yanked it free of his waistband. Without freeing the sides or front, she slid her hands under the fabric, pressed her palms to his back.
Ran them-slowly-over him.
Over his back, up and over his shoulders, around and across his chest. The peaks of her breasts rode against his shirt-clad back. Her knees bracketed his hips.
She was still fully covered. So was he, yet with his sight gone and his other senses alive, her blatantly possessive caresses seemed infinitely erotic.
He was a slave and she his mistress, intent on possess ing him for the first time. He sucked in a deep breath, chest swelling under her hands. Splayed, one on either side, she ran them slowly down from upper chest to waist.
They hovered for a long moment.
She drew back, warm palms and fingers trailing back over his sensitized skin, withdrawing from under the fall of his shirt, now hanging loose all around him.
Blind, he turned his head the better to sense her.
Noting the movement, Minerva smiled; sinking back on her ankles, she picked at the side seam of his shirt. “Did you know that the best tailors always use weak thread in their shirt seams, so if the shirt catches or tugs, the seam gives rather than the material?”
He stilled. She gave an experimental tug; the seam gave with a satisfying sound. Tugging, she opened the side and sleeve seams to the laces at his cuffs. The laces undone, with a wrench she had one side of the shirt hanging free.
She repeated the exercise on the other side, then swung off the bed and sauntered up before him. She flicked the hanging ends of the shirt. “I wonder what Trevor will think when he sees this.”
Decidedly pleased, she unknotted the loose laces at his throat. Excitement flashed through her as she lifted both hands, found the front center seam. “Now, let’s see…” She ripped.
The shirt parted all the way down the front.
“Oh, yes.” Eyes feasting on his bared chest, she let the ruined halves fall to frame the heavily muscled expanse. Bathed in silvery moonlight, every powerful ripple and curve sheened, every line of bone was gilt-edged.
He breathed in, muscles tensing. His hands gripped harder.
Slowly she circled and climbed up on the bed again. Close behind him on her knees, she caught the shirt at the shoulders, drew it back and off, tossed it on the floor.
Although his back was in shadow, there was light enough to see. The long muscles, the supple, powerful planes, the quintessentially male sculpture rendered in muscle and bone and hot taut skin. She traced each feature. His tension built. Pressing against his back, she touched her lips to his shoulder, trailed her fingers around and reached for his waistband.
His stomach pulled in, letting her fingers slide past the band as she slipped the buttons free.
Lips curving against his shoulder, she drew the halves of the front placket wide, releasing his erection; careful not to touch, she grasped his trousers, edged them over his hips, down his thighs until they fell to the floor.
Leaving his body displayed naked in the moonlight, arms wide, muscles bunched as he gripped the posts. The only thing he still wore was the blindfold.
Drawing breath through lungs suddenly tight, placing both palms on his shoulders, she stroked slowly down, following the long muscles bracketing his spine to the slope of his rear; pivoting her hands over the tight cheeks, she slid them still farther, pressing against the mattress to reach and caress as far as she could down his thighs.
His head tipped back; his breath shuddered.
Retrieving her hands, she gripped the sides of his waist, eased her thighs wide, fitted herself against his back. Her cheek to one shoulder blade, she sent her hands around, down; lids falling, she found his erection, closed her hand about the rigid length.
He breathed out, short, sharp, as she squeezed and released. With her other hand, she reached further, caressed his heavy testicles, cradled them, fondled.
Royce’s lungs locked tight, his body as rigid as his erection as she worked him with one hand, with the other weighed his balls, assessed, played. The sense of possession escalated. Head back, he gritted his teeth against a curse.
He’d felt nothing like this. Ever before. Sight cut off, he was functioning on touch, and imagination. Her lascivious acts conjured the image of a sultry, sirenlike seductress who owned him. Who could make free with his body as she wished, with total impunity.