Ravenous.
He kissed her again and this time, a slow heat spread to her breasts. To her belly, between her thighs, a heat that startled even as it compelled.
“I want—” she began, though the words got lost against his lips.
“Beatrice.” He released her mouth only to find her jaw, her cheek, the sensitive place just beneath her ear. His unshaven skin scraped over hers, rough enough to send a shiver down her spine.
His hand slid to the curve of her hip. The other braced high beneath her breast, close enough that his thumb could have brushed the underside of it if he moved a fraction.
He seemed caught between restraint and ruin, not quite pulling her closer, not quite letting her go.
A little lost.
A little wild.
Good.
She felt the same.
Beatrice did not want careful.
She wanted him.
She wanted the truth of him.
Fumbling with her skirt, she turned more fully toward him.
Gideon’s hands were there—firm at her hips, helping, lifting—and she went willingly, following the pressure of his touch until, in the next breath, she was settled across his lap, her knees pressing into the cushion on either side of his thighs.
The contact between them was intimate, undeniable, and it ignited a carnal ache she'd thought lost forever.
For one startled instant, she recognized it.
Then she was lost to it.
Her thighs tightened around him. Her hips tipped forward, rocking, seeking the hard line of him through all those maddening layers of fabric.
She threaded her fingers through his hair and an almost violent tremor passed through her.
It ought to be frightening, what she was doing—chasing pressure, friction—a connection her body wanted before she even thought it.
She could stop this if she wanted to.
She was in control.
“That’s it,” Gideon murmured, his mouth brushing her throat. “I’ve got you.”
“I know.”
And she did.
She knew it in the loose hold of his hands, in the careful stillness of his body beneath hers, in the tightening of his throat each time she shifted against him.
He wanted more. There was no mistaking that.
His breath had gone rough. His fingers flexed once at her hips, then deliberately eased again, as though even that much pressure was more than he would allow himself.
He wanted.
