She should have felt vulnerable. She’d asked him to take his clothes off, but he’d kept his leggings and braies on. She sat while he stood.
Alice could see the fine sheen of his skin, knew this wait was costing him as much as her. She put out her hand as if he might take it, as if she could pull him to her. They were so close and she wanted this.
‘Not yet. You don’t know what you do to me. How much I want to touch you. Your skin looks so soft...’
‘You’ve touched me,’ she reminded him. ‘At Lyman’s. Here.’ She demonstrated with her hand and fingers along her shoulders, and down her arm. ‘And here.’ Her hand went down her thigh.
He went rigid, watching her hand. She didn’t know where this came from—this strength, this need.
‘Through your clothes,’ he said, his eyes lifting reluctantly from her hand to her eyes again.
There was no relief from Hugh being this close to her. She could feel the heat from his body, smell the scent of leather, of linen, of him. See the curl of his hair against his forehead and that fraying of his control as he’d watched her hand.
She was bound to him, bound by a thread, by her feelings, by their love. But still he kept himself away from her when she needed him nearer. Yet all her life if she saw a problem she found a solution. She’d bring him closer.
‘But wouldn’t you like to touch me here?’ She purposefully trailed her fingers from between her breasts up along her collarbone to the arch of her neck. Watched as his eyes absorbed her every stroke.
‘Alice...’
‘Your clothes,’ she said, stopping her hand.
He shucked his leggings and braies as efficiently and roughly as he had the other pieces of his clothing. Then he stood naked before her.
Never had she seen a male before, and never one like this. Magnificent knight. If she was at the mercy of the master spinner who bound them, she wanted it. Needed it. Demanded he twirl the spindle faster to tighten the thread.
His body shot with tension, his breath ragged, Hugh bent his knee on the bed and dipped his head to kiss her neck ever so softly along the path she’d traced with her fingers.
Supported by the bed, she tilted her head for more of his hot kisses, more of his flickering licks as he tasted her.
He lifted his head, his eyes meeting hers. Waiting for her command.
Watching his eyes, she trailed her finger along the shell of her ear to the curve of her jawline and then traced the other ear.
Hugh lips curved more before he bent again. She shivered as she felt his breath, hot and moist. She shuddered as she felt his tongue and lips along the new path she’d created.
He moved further up the bed and so did she, until she was lying down and he was lying over her on straightened arms. A bead of sweat on the side of his face matched the fine sheen on the rest of him. His blond hair, curled like a halo, made him look like an angel. But the shadows and reliefs, the muscles, cords and planes of his body, were wicked.
She’d never seen a man like this—up close, one she could touch. But she lay still, watching his eyes searching everywhere but always ending with hers. Then her lips again.
He wanted to kiss her; she wanted it as well. It was the logical place for her fingers to go. To trace along her lips until he replaced them with his mouth.
He gave it to her. Brief, not enough. She wanted more.
Keeping her gaze on him, she trailed her fingers from the base of her throat down between her breasts, slowly, slowly, loving and watching the surprise in Hugh’s now half-lidded eyes, in the parting of lips that looked swollen and vulnerable, watching as he followed her continuing trail until she stopped at her stomach.
A groan came from him, and she revelled in the heavy weight of him as he lowered his straightened arms, dipped his head to bring his lips to where she’d trailed her fingers, to sample and kiss, to lick at her navel.
She whimpered; he lifted his gaze. Suffused with heat, she shook her head at him.
‘Then let me...’ He adjusted himself between her legs. His hands and fingers curved to the back of her thighs, opening her for him.
She was no longer showing him where she wanted his kisses, his touch. It was his turn.
His body went tense as hers grew slack. As she curved into the cradle of his arms against the locked tenseness of his body while his fingers glided down from her navel.
‘Hugh...’ she tried to warn him.
‘Let me, Alice. Command me. I want to kiss you here.’ His fingers stroked through her curls. ‘And then I want to do more.’
