"I'm trying to maintain my equilibrium, and don't say people always say that."
"I wouldn't think of it."
"Good." Kicking off his shoes, he began unbuttoning his coat because he was going to fuck her regardless of the modicum of contention she provoked, regardless of the fact that she evoked so extraordinary a lust, he should be wary, or that he found it necessary to tamp down the violence she inspired.
A small, heated silence ensued as they undressed, both struggling with the tumult of their emotions, both driven by ungovernable desires, both unfamiliar with such loss of control.
And then Alex swore softly, unable to untangle a knot in the ribbon threaded through her chemise neckline.
Sam dropped his shirt on the floor. "Let me do that."
"Are you sure you want to?" She had her own provocations to deal with.
"I'm sure," he insisted, crossing the short distance between them. "And I don't want to fight."
"At least not until after," she replied crisply.
He was standing very close. "We don't have to do this."
His powerfully muscled chest, nude, inches away, only added to her discomposure. "Speak for yourself. I wasn't out last night. Or the previous night for that matter." She grimaced. "Actually, it's been a fortnight now that I think about it, which accounts for-"
"Then it's not my chivalry." He smiled.
Her gaze dropped to the rampant bulge in his trousers. "Not unless that goes with chivalry."
"It does."
She found herself smiling back. "Definitely chivalry, then. And I'm feeling as though I might attack you soon, when I've been trying to restrain myself since-"
"Yesterday."
"Yes. Satisfied? Since the moment I saw you at Leighton's."
"I thought so."
"You needn't sound so smug."
"I'm not smug, just pleased."
"Then you may please me now as well."
"Now? Here?"
She shot him a stern look. "I'm not giving up my bed. Untie this knot."
"Is that an order?"
"It is."
He grunted softly, an almost inaudible sound.
"You don't take orders."
"No."
"You feel your authority is at risk?"
"Strangely, yes."
"We're just going to make love, not meet on the field of battle."
His mouth quirked faintly. "With you, I'm not sure."
She offered him a sportive look. "Should I be concerned?"
"You are all alone," he noted teasingly.
"And you are"-she reached out and ran her palm down his erection-"very large…"
He drew in a constrained breath. "You probably shouldn't do that if you want to get to your bed-"
"Do this?" She drew her fingertips up the length of his engorged penis, the soft wool of his trousers warm to her touch.
"Be careful, darling. At this point I can't guarantee politesse."
"If I were looking for politesse, I wouldn't have invited you in."
"That's it," he said, scooping her up into his arms.
"And if you feel the need to give any more orders," he added, striding toward the bed, "you're going to have to do it lying on your back."
"Hurry," she whispered, twining her arms around his broad shoulders.
He quickly looked down.
"That wasn't an order," she breathed, her eyes half closed. "Just-please…"
Her breathy plea jolted through his body, his own covetousness at fever pitch and moving swiftly, he deposited her on the bed, stripped off her drawers, and tossed them aside. Wrenching open the buttons on his trousers, he undressed in seconds, lowered himself between her open thighs, and plunged in without fore-play or preliminaries, without so much as a kiss, because she was clutching at his shoulders and rising to meet him and so damned wet, he was sliding into her yielding flesh without resistance. Whimpering, she arched up to meet him, impatient, needy, the supple strength of her thighs in counterpoint to his driving invasion. And when he was fully submerged, when he was buried to the hilt, she blissfully sighed. Gratified, he moved slightly upward so she would feel the pressure more intensely.
"Oh, God, oh, God…"
And it felt as though her breathy cry were vibrating through every pulsing nerve in his body. There was no accounting for the inexplicable feeling, for the tremulous, breath-held sensation, and he understood in those seconds that a fuck was no longer a fuck. That he wished to feel this again-that he would. And if the strength of Miss Ionides's grip-everywhere-was any indication, she was going to eat him alive.
Or he her, because this astonishing pleasure was unique in his much-explored sexual universe.
Wishing to experience the momentous rapture once again, he withdrew against her protest, and driving back in caught his breath against the awesome pleasure. "Christ," he whispered, and holding himself hard against her womb, he absorbed the shimmering ecstasy while she panted beneath him. Impaled, stretched taut, enchantment rolled over her in heated waves. And then he pressed forward that exquisite distance more, and she screamed.
Neither was capable of restraint after that, and in the grip of such fierce desire they moved in a greedy, fevered flux and flow, rocking the seraglio bed, exploring the extremity and dimension of their need, avaricious-famished-frenzied.
She discovered he was as good as rumor maintained-better, in fact, and beyond his practiced skills and expertise, he had all the natural gifts-breadth, width, length-to bring a woman extraordinary pleasure.
But her fleeting moment of appreciation was interrupted by his next powerful downstroke and any further reflection was swamped by glorious sensation, by the hovering imminency of orgasm. The explosive pleasure broke, shocking, violent, so intense it rocked her senses, burned through her body, inundated her soul with glowing rapture-was beyond anything she'd ever known. And blissful moments later, panting, flushed, her senses still reeling, she marginally lifted her lashes and met the viscount's faint smile.
"Tell me when it's my turn," he whispered.
She was about to speak, but he moved just then and she caught her breath, a delirious splendor riveting her attention. And when he glided a fraction deeper, she cried out, ravishing sensation jolting down every nerve and pulsing tissue.
"No," she breathed, overwrought, overwhelmed.
"Yes," he said almost as softly, and sliding his hands under her bottom, he lifted her into his next downstroke.
She screamed-the sound filling the canopied bed, the room, echoing through the high-ceilinged studio. And she came again in a wild, agonizing convulsion that brought tears to her eyes.
He kissed away her tears afterward, murmuring sweet love words along the dampness of her lashes, down her cheeks, across her parted lips, and her body warmed to his caresses as he knew it would. Whether it was chivalry or politesse or a novel degree of affection for the lady in his arms, he indulged her easily incited senses with both patience and gallantry three times more before he allowed himself his own indulgence and withdrew to come on her stomach.
The afternoon sun was low in the sky, a lemony light pervading the room, bathing their sweat-sheened bodies. Contentment was palpable in the air.
"This must be an enchanted bed," Sam whispered, brushing her cheek with a kiss.
She smiled up at him. "Now it is."
"The world has taken on a cloudless charm." His gaze was warm, close.
"All because-"
"I saw you in Leighton's painting at Grosvenor House."
"I was going to say… I invited you in."
"Definitely because of that," he agreed, lightly running his fingertip over the curve of her lush bottom lip. "And because I had to have you."
"And I you."
He smiled. "After I overcame your reservations."
She shook her head gently. "When I no longer could resist."
"That I understand," he simply said. "Because I'm not leaving anytime soon. Don't go away." Rolling off her, he leaned on his elbows and surveyed the room, looking for a towel.
"Over there." Half raising her hand, she pointed toward the door to her bathroom.