“Shh, sweetheart,” he murmured, moving one hand in a soothing glide down her spine.
“Why … why are you stopping?” she quavered, unable to still the tremors racing through her limbs.
He uttered a low laugh that sounded more like a feral growl. “I’m not. But I’ve got to slow down. I’m only seconds away from having you flat on your back with your legs spread wide and me deep inside you.”
She jerked back to look at him. His eyes blazed with lust, and his crude but exciting words made the soft flesh between her legs throb and grow moist.
“Oh, I …”
She trailed off, too entranced by the way his hands were now roaming over her body to speak. His long fingers briefly shaped her hips and waist, then moved up the bare flesh of her arms, leaving a velvety heat in their wake. Her eyelids half closed as he stroked across her collarbones and brushed his fingers up her neck, tilting her head back so he could kiss the shivery spot below her ear.
She sighed with voluptuous pleasure. How could those hands—so calloused and hard from years of soldiering—be that tender against her skin? So able to send shudders of pleasure along her nerves?
“What were you saying, my love?” Christian murmured against her neck. He pushed her hair back and carefully set his teeth to her skin, giving her a tiny, tingling bite.
She jerked in his arms, a hard throb pulsing deep in her womb.
“I—ah, I wouldn’t mind if you did that,” she managed.
He suckled her neck, his tongue soothing the place where he had just set his teeth. She went boneless in his arms, her head falling back. Sensation stormed through her. Never had she felt so much, even during her marriage. She and Jeremy had enjoyed relations, but nothing like this. Christian’s touch made her blood rush and her heart pound. Her limbs trembled, and she had to repress the urge to beg for more, like some helpless supplicant.
“Is that an invitation?” he asked, easing her down onto the trundle bed.
“Yes,” she whispered. The bed was so narrow he had to lie half on top of her, one leg between her thighs as he propped himself up on an elbow.
She gazed up at him through half-closed lids, enthralled by the passion that carved his features into a wild, rough beauty. His lips pulled back in a sensual smile as his fingers busied themselves in the lacings of her bodice. Carefully, he tugged down the delicate fabric, exposing the flesh that plumped up over her stays. Clarissa’s mouth went dry as she watched him draw one finger over the tops of her breasts, skimming the dusky flesh that ringed her nipples. She shivered, sparks of heat dancing along her skin.
“Are you sure?” he whispered.
He looked up, their eyes locking on each other’s. Need flowed between them, linking them with a single, overwhelming hunger. She nodded, too overwhelmed by desire and trepidation to utter a word.
His gaze flared with a possessive heat, his unleashed passion rolling over her like a wave. With a swift movement, he yanked at her stays and her breasts spilled free. Christian hissed out a breath, a harsh, triumphant sound that set her heart pounding with a tiny jolt of panic.
But then he bent and pressed a reverential kiss on her chest, just over her racing heart.
“Christ,” he muttered, his voice thick with emotion. “You’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. I swear I’m not worthy to touch you.”
She heard it, then. The doubt in his voice. The fear that he would never be good enough. It had dogged him all his life, living as he did in the shadow of his older siblings.
With a murmur, she stroked his hair.
“Please, Christian,” she pleaded. “I want you. Don’t make me wait any longer.”
He placed another gentle kiss between her breasts, but then his hands were on her, shaping and kneading with a masterful touch. Fire sizzled through her veins. She moved restlessly beneath him, craving more.
“Christian,” she moaned.
He stroked her breasts, tweaking the hard, rosy nipples. The calloused pads of his fingers tortured her until she squirmed with excitement.
It wasn’t enough.
As if he knew, he cupped her breasts in his big hands, plumping them. Then he fastened his mouth on the tight point of one nipple. A hot thrill streaked along her nerves and she arched her back, eagerly pushing her pelvis against his hip, pressing hard through the layers of their clothing. A small, sharp contraction pulsed in her womb, the pleasure so intense she gave a strangled cry.
Christian played with her, languidly moving from one breast to the other. His body pressed her down into the bed. The sense of being captured and restrained drove her wild. A luxurious, tormenting ache that she had almost forgotten these last several months throbbed between her thighs.
He lifted, pulling back with a hard suck, letting his teeth graze over the rigid tip of a nipple. But still, as if he couldn’t help himself, he dipped again and dragged his tongue across her breast one last time before shifting away. She moaned, arching to follow his mouth.
He held her down.
