“I began with the basics in your book. Common words and phrases.” She leaned in closer and Ian inhaled her scent deeply, his eyelids involuntarily fluttering in rapture. “Sròn,” she said with a smile as she tapped him on the nose with her finger. He chuckled. “Cluasan.” She gently pinched the lobes of his ears between her thumbs and forefingers and he nearly groaned. He’d never before understood how the ears might be an erogenous zone, but apparently they were when Juliette did the touching… His eyes fluttered closed and then he felt her lips upon his eyelids; he fisted his hands against his thighs when she said, “Suilean.” He stopped breathing altogether in anticipation when he felt the shaky puffs of her breath against his lips. “Beul…” And then her lips sealed over his.
It took less than a heartbeat’s time for Ian to flip their positions and slide his tongue between her lips to sample her sweet nectar. She linked her arms around his neck and held onto him as if he was everything she desired in this world.
Ian was more than happy to allow himself to sink into that delusion.
He obliged when she tugged him closer; his hands began to peruse her curves and she sighed in surrender. The breathy little sound of surprised joy escaping her throat was his undoing. His patience and restraint had been held in check for so long by that time. He couldn’t go any longer without a taste of her—without more.
He knelt on the thick rug despite Juliette’s little moan of protest. “Fret not,mo chridhe.” He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder until she relaxed and reclined, watching him with her inquisitive eyes, a swirling mixture of desire and curiosity. Sitting back on his heels, he took his time raising her skirts one delicious bit at a time. His heart raced more quickly with every inch of well-turned ankle and shapely calf clad in virginal white silk stocking gradually revealed to his ravenous eyes. The pink lace garter ribbons, her frilly undergarments only fanned the flames burning deep within his gut.
Though she didn’t stop him, he could read her insecurity in the tenseness of her creamy thighs. He began massaging her calves and gradually worked his way higher in carefully orchestrated circles. When she began to relax, he interspersed them with small kisses. They were nothing more than peppered pecks, but it was enough to make Juliette gasp and Ian’s breeches grow painfully tight. She smelled better than anything he’d ever experienced. She was as clean and sweet as a loch, as heady as heather with its complex, smoky undertones. He was not a betting man, but he would wager she tasted even better.
His body was wound so tightly that he felt as if he would combust if he couldn’t taste her properly. And soon. But he knew he needed to take his time. She was untried and he needed to build her confidence, not overwhelm her with the power of his desire.
“You are a treasure,” he breathed, attempting to keep the tremor of need from his voice. He slipped a fingertip beneath the edge of her drawers as his hands crept higher. “Have you ever explored your body?” he asked as he looked up at her from his subservient position.
The muscles in her delicate throat flexed as she swallowed. Though the skin of her cheeks and chest fairly glowed with embarrassment, she nodded. His cock throbbed as the image of her caressing her most secret of places flashed through his mind. He couldn’t entirely silence the groan of need rumbling in his chest.
“Do not be uncomfortable. Never feel that way around me. There is no shame in it; it is perfectly natural.” Ian continued his gentle stroking of her flesh, higher and higher. “I have done it,” he admitted boldly. “While thinking about you, in fact.”
Those large eyes of hers widened even more. The way she bit her lower lip nearly drove him mad with desire. It took every ounce of strength within him to not spread her legs and take her right there.
His thumb caressed the springy curls at the crux of her thighs, ever so slowly and softly creeping its way nearer to its target. She rewarded him with a shuddering sigh and her knees fell further apart. Ian pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her inner thigh, tasting the pale skin as sweet as sugar. His knuckle caressed the seam of her sex, now slick with her arousal.
“How do you like to be touched, Juliette…mo chridhe…mo leannan àlainn?”
My heart. My beautiful sweetheart.
∞∞∞
Juliette was breathless with nervous excitement, wound so tightly that she nearly jumped up from the sofa when Ian’s fingers grazed her sex. She had no chance to feel shame over the evidence of her desire had Ian not made such a guttural sound of approval.
“How shall I touch you, hm?” One of his fingers began to stroke her, parting her ever so slightly. Even that small touch made her tremble from her head to her toes. More. She wanted more. She needed it.
“Like that,” she breathed so gently it was barely audible. Ian understood, and the pad of finger pressed more deeply to run from top to bottom, stroking around her entrance. Her hips canted upward to accept his touch.
“And this?” Ian asked in a voice deeper than thunder as he stroked higher to the most sensitive little pearl. And Juliette saw stars.
“Yes!” She arched into his touch, gasping and panting as he swirled through the moisture and stroked her there.
“So responsive,” he murmured approvingly.
Her eyes were clenched, but she could feel his gaze upon her watching her every heaving breath and twitch of her muscles. A buzzing began to overtake her limbs, forcing liquid heat through her veins and focusing her every sense on Ian and what he was doing to her. What he was making her feel.
“And this?” The thick pad of Ian’s thumb pressed into her narrow channel. She would have resisted, but the exquisite fullness combined with the consistent rhythm of his strokes made her shudder in delight.
“Oh, Ian!” Juliette whimpered and clutched at the sofa’s cushions to keep her grounded. She felt as if she were near to floating away on a cloud of unspeakable pleasure.
“And will you allow me to kiss you here?” came Ian’s voice, thick with what almost sounded like desperation. She unscrewed her eyes and looked down at him to be sure she’d heard him correctly. He meant to kiss her? There? The tautness around his mouth spoke of his sincerity and intense need to follow through. But she instinctively knew he would not do it without her permission.
Curiosity won out over modesty and Juliette nodded. This was all the prompting Ian needed; it took him less than a heartbeat to part the slit in her drawers and press his mouth to the dewy folds of her sex.
His kisses began very chaste, but all sense of time and place left Juliette the moment his tongue began to lick and stroke her. Her head dropped back and a moan of delighted surprise was torn from her throat when he started to nibble and caress that sensual pearl. His thumb curled within her, teasing her with little strokes and pressing somewhere that sent shockwaves of pleasure surging through her.
Gripping the sofa was no longer enough. Her hands, of their own volition, began to clutch at Ian’s head and shoulders. She held him closer to her body, rocking her pelvis against him as they worked in time to urge her crisis ever closer.
“Please,” Juliette sobbed. “Please, Ian.” Her heart pounded and her limbs quaked. She felt as if she was climbing to a height so unfathomable she could not breathe.
And when Ian sucked deeply, she really couldn’t.
