He rolled her nipples, and she gasped. Desire felt like a seam deep inside her, pulled tighter and tighter, poised to split apart.
He slipped his hand between her legs again. “Breathe,” he murmured. “Watch.”
It was impossible to get enough air. She came up on her toes and then lowered herself back down, helplessly, against his hand. He refused to push his fingers inside her, even as she rocked against him, even as she made a little sobbing plea.
He pulled back, stroked the wetness that had slicked the top of her thighs. “I think,” he said unsteadily, “it pleases me so much because it means you trust me. You do trust me, don’t you, darling?”
She scarcely understood what he meant. Her mind felt thick, mazy, as though she’d slipped into a clouded dream. But she knew the answer—knew it as well as she knew the shape of his smile. “I trust you.”
He shuddered against her. “I can’t—ah God, Ruby. I want it so much.” His fingers were back between her legs, touching, teasing, and his other hand rubbed across her mouth. “You know that I’ll take care of you?”
“Yes,” she managed. She ground herself against his hand, and this time he obliged, pressing two fingers inside her in a slick, deep thrust.
“You trust me enough to wait for me?” he said hoarsely. “As long as it takes?”
“Yes,” she said again. “Malcolm, please—”
“Watch,” he murmured. “Watch us together. See how good we are.”
She hadn’t realized her eyes had closed. She forced her lids open, her body shaking, her mind a bright blaze of sensation. She watched his face and the flex of his arm—watched the way he watched her, so carefully, as she came apart.
She couldn’t help herself. Her eyes closed again. Her body was alight, a desperate animal thing. Pleasure flooded her, crested—broke like a wave and left her gasping.
When she stopped shaking, he gathered her close, skin pressed to skin, and brought her down atop him on the settee. She still felt muzzy-headed, her thoughts slow and syrupy, her body washed clean in the aftermath of her pleasure. She skated her palms up his abdomen and then back down, marveling at the ridges of muscle, the dip of his navel, the dark hair that thickened as she approached his sex.
He made a rough, wordless sound as she touched him. His hips jerked.
It was extraordinary how much she liked that. Dizzying: this sense of her own power.
Slowly, she pushed herself up on one palm. He was splayed loosely beneath her—somehow vulnerable and potent at once, naked and confident in his skin. She wrapped her fingers around his length, firmly, as he liked, and his hips jerked again.
“Giving me—a little torment back, pet?” he gasped.
“No,” she said. “No. I like to look at you too, you know. It’s a mortal sin that you should be forced to hide all of this under your clothes.”
His throat bobbed. She watched the muscles of his belly tighten as her hand moved down to touch him lower. “I’m not certain you and the church agree on the nature of sinning.”
“Probably not.” Her gaze slid up to his face. “I know I’m right. I know beauty when I see it, Malcolm. Every inch of you.”
She felt his length swell beneath her hand as she said the words. Watched the shape of his mouth grow almost pained.
“Do you like that?” she asked. “If I tell you that you are pleasing to look upon?”
He breathed a laugh and pushed up into her hand. “I suppose I do. Only because I know you can’t lie to save your own skin.”
“You please me,” she murmured. Her hand moved a little faster, and she watched his eyes flutter closed and then open again. His thigh was pressed between her legs, and she felt the beat of her own pulse there, a quick throb. “You please me so much. Sometimes at night I close my eyes and imagine the way that you touch me, and I want you so much I can almost feel your hands on me.”
“God,” he said thickly. “Ruby.”
It made sense to her, suddenly, that he should like to hear her praise. That was what he wanted: for her to see him, to know him for a good and decent man. He kept on telling her so; she only needed to listen.
“I ache for you,” she said, and ah—she couldn’t help herself. She pushed herself into the hot muscle of his leg.
He gave a deep, torn-off groan.
“I always want you,” she whispered. “I think constantly of having you inside me.”
“Enough,” he rasped, and caught her thighs in his hands. “I can’t—I want—”
