Page 72 of The Trick of It

Seph told herself to breathe. She hadn’t realized her fingernails were digging into the soft skin of her bottom lip, hadn’t realized her lungs were aching with how shallow their use had become. And even as the awareness of that tickled somewhere at the back of her mind, she could not find it within herself to acknowledge either thing just now.

Breathing, especially, felt unconscionable.

She grazed her eyes down the full view of him, over the dips of his hipbones and the dark hair trailing sparsely down below his navel, then thickening and curling there at the crux of him. She knew she was staring. Ogling, truth be told, but she had never seen anything quite so powerful or so beautiful as Rhys Caradoc, free of anything to dim his glow.

He was hard for her, thick with want and flushed just as richly as that blush that had covered his nose.

She wanted to touch him. To experiment with holding the weight of his arousal in her hand, of touching and stroking it in such a way that it might make him feel as weak as she did just now, from simply the overwhelming eroticism of seeing him this way.

He stood for her, unmoving as she took in as much as she wanted. He only twitched, very slightly as she moved her legs out from under her, and pushed herself to stand. His eyes followed her, but otherwise, he remained still, with only the firelight casting shadows and movement around his form.

Seph approached him tentatively, her hand reaching out with a little tremble to touch his face again, stroking along the line of his cheek and jaw. She inhaled deeply, her fingertips trailing lower, over the cords of his throat, the lines of his collar, that little spray of curling hair over his heart.

She watched his muscles bunch and quiver as she stroked the warm skin above them and listened to his breathing, which stuttered and quickened as she explored, marveling at the strength he kept hidden from the world, wired and wrapped tightly around his slender frame.

She stopped with one hand pressed flat against his stomach, feeling it rise and fall beneath her palm, and looked up at him, at his eyes, at his mouth. And she managed to whisper, “Do you want to see me too?”

He drew in a breath, sharp and greedy, until his ribs creaked, then nodded sharply—and only once.

She had, of course, expected that his answer would be yes, but even so, she was suddenly flooded with heat and the batting of nervous wings against the hollow of her throat, like the very air she breathed had turned into a chorus of uncertainty.

Still, she would not leave him alone in this. She would not do that to him again.

Her fingers filled with fabric, rucking and twisting herself out of the well-worn pajamas and sending the purple and green birds on the linen into flight as she discarded the garment on the cushions next to the fire. She’d kept her eyes averted, had not been sinuous or seductive in the disrobing, and was almost afraid to look at him again, especially after his own performance had been so very seductive.

She stood, wrapping her arms around her bare middle, one crossed over the other, and gave herself a little squeeze as she studied the floorboards between her toes.

His shadow fell over her feet and his hand came up to cup her chin, lifting her face to the light. She was kissing him again before she’d even processed the change, her arms winding around the delicious heat of his shoulders, their skin pressing together in a dizzying collision of sensation and satisfaction.

He walked her backward until their thighs brushed the tightly tucked coverlet on the feather bed, and only then did he pull back from their kiss, stroking the long strands of golden hair from her face and brushing it back over her shoulders, the tips tickling at her bare ribs and elbows. “You are perfect,” he said without sparing a single glance at the nudity just below her face, his eyes seemingly satisfied to remain locked on to her own. “You are beautiful.”

She smiled, leaning forward to nip at his bottom lip, the flats of her hands sliding over his chest, and whispered, “Stop reading my mind.”

It got a grin out of him, a wide, sparkling grin that lit his features like a hooded lantern. He slid his fingers down the naked curve of her back, over the silken sheen of her hair and down the curve of her bum, until he was holding her tightly to him, ensuring she could feel every possible inch of his body against hers.

She looped her arms around his neck and tugged him, pulling them both backward onto the bed with a bounce and flurry of gasping giggles, amidst the fluttering sheets and fire-warmed blankets. Her legs slid along the bare lines of his as he descended onto her mouth, his hands continuing to explore the dip of her waist and the swell of her hips, until the giggling dissolved into something deeper and quieter, something primal and hot and demanding.

Something had made Seph believe that when one entered the throes of passion, all the world and its context fell away, leaving nothing behind but pure animal instinct and drive. Perhaps it was that way for others, but she found that beneath him, with the heat of his skin sliding along hers, and the clever movements of his fingers in her hair and on her flesh, and the tang of his mouth and tongue against her own, she had never been more keenly aware of Rhys than she was just now.

She had never seen him half so clearly nor needed him half so close.

“I have imagined you like this so many times,” he murmured against her cheek, nuzzling into her hair as he kissed along the line of her jaw. “I have dreamed it and mimed it and more. This is better, Seph. It is so much better.”

She nodded, gasping as his fingers brushed over her bare breasts, his kisses trailing down her throat as his arousal pressed urgently into the soft give of her thigh. He rocked his hips as he moved, little gasps of pleasure escaping him between his leisurely kissing and tasting of her throat.

She could feel the dampness he’d alluded to, just at the end of his cock, warm and slick and seeming to exist only to make his ministrations more pleasurable and easier to access. It was making her vision blur, just feeling this precursor to the movement of joining.

He cupped her breasts, his thumbs tracing over the stiff peaks of her nipples, and only then did he draw back, his eyes falling to admire the impression of what he was being permitted to do, of how pleasing it looked, at how right.

“I am ready,” she whispered to him. “Rhys.”

He inhaled carefully, the air stuttering and ragged as he drew it in, and without ceasing his touching, lifted his eyes to meet hers and nodded. He kissed her again, harder this time, and she felt his fingers drift down along her body to cup her between the legs, as though he wanted to be absolutely certain before he did anything else.

When he found her wet and swollen, a groan tore from his chest, his hips stuttering forward in response as his fingers tested at her entrance.

All of it would have been delicious to observe, even from a distance. Being beneath it, inside of it, was so overwhelming that Seph was finding it difficult to keep her eyes open. She had only ever touched herself in that spot with curious and tentative brushes.

Rhys touched her firmly, steadily, like he knew exactly what she needed. His fingers had always been nimble, but in this moment, they verged on actual magic.