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“Aye?” Fierce male desire filled the word. Barely patient, wanting her. It urged her on.
“I want to see how far your paint goes.”
His body stilled. “’Tisn’t paint,” he murmured, then his arms bent, his hard muscles flexed, and he dragged his tunic up and over his head.
“God in heaven.” The words emerged as breath.
He was magnificent.
Stunning, foreign, and beautiful, he towered before her like carved marble. The entire left side of him was covered in painted, curving, arcing lines, like comet trails across his body. He was a sorcerer, the lines more spell than ink, winding across him like a landscape, down his arm, his chest, across his flat stomach, until they disappeared under his waistband.
She felt as if butterflies had landed on her skin, thousands of butterflies with red-hot little feet, so they burned in shivers down her body.
She reached out to touch the inky flame that licked up the side of his neck and felt his body shudder.
She traced the curve with her fingertip, down his neck, across his shoulder, his chest, over his nipple. His breath hissed. She turned her finger to scrape her nail down his flat stomach, following the trail of ink.
His muscles rippled as he let her explore his body. She felt as though she’d entered another land. She was as far from the rules as the sun was from the earth. She was a shooting star, rushing away from everything she’d ever known in a fiery trail of desire.
Her hand drifted to his waistband, then fell away. Their eyes met.
Then, Aodh did the same thing to her as she had done to him. His hand became a mirror of hers.
He ran a calloused fingertip down her neck, over the rise of her breasts and down her belly. As he went, he caught the loosened laces of her bodice between his knuckles and gave another long pull. It tightened the fabric against her already hardened nipples and the corset, once bound like a fist around her ribs, suddenly loosened.
The breath rushed out of her. The ribbons dangled down in front of her gown.
“Now, Katy, there is no one here but you and I.” His fingers pushed into her hair. He fisted around the veil and tugged it free. “There is no one to see you, no one to disapprove.” He tossed the veil aside, slowly dismantling her, stripping her bare of all the trappings of propriety. “It is only you and I. Let us be.”
She felt dizzy at his words, his touch. The want in them. The hope in them. “And where will it stop?”
His gaze swept to hers. “I will stop whenever you say.”
She gave a small, hiccupped laugh. “Aodh, you never stop.”
“I will stop, for you.” He touched the tip of his tongue to the seam of her lips, so gentle. Oh so gentle. He bent his head to the side and brushed her again, a stroke of lips over lips.
“Let us be. Let us try.”
The bulwark that had held her up all these years, the wall that had held all the passion at bay, was simply washed away under the power of Aodh’s intentions for them.
She tipped her face up and opened her mouth for him.
With a last hard pull, he tugged the final ribbon free and swept the bodice from her body, peeling it away from her skin, leaving her bare and flushed, and then he claimed her mouth.
So gentle the pressure of his tongue, pushing in, parting her lips for him, so gentle, but so explosive. It ignited an arc of fire through her body that grew hotter as the kiss became deeper, more demanding, more open-mouthed, more everything, until her head was back, cradled in his powerful hand, her spine arched, her body unfurling beneath the wicked, wonderful slow lashing of his tongue.
His hands tested the length of her, skimming over everything he could touch. Detoured momentarily by her braid, he swiftly uncoiled it, loosed the plait and ran his fingers through the banded tresses to let it flow down her back. Then he resumed his exploration of her body, skidding down to her hips.
She did the same to him, utterly lost in him, sliding her hands over the hard bulge of his arms, down his muscled back, her fingertips raking into the valley of his spine until he hissed and nipped at her neck, both punishment and invitation.
With a breathtaking move, he pushed his hands beneath her bottom and dragged her forward, until the thrust of his erection pushed boldly into the fabric of her gown, into the juncture between her thighs.
It was a stroke of pleasure, a perfect push. Heedless now, she pressed forward, until she was right up at the edge of the table, her thighs dangling on either side of his hips. She straightened against his body, pressed her bared breasts to his chest, and leaned up to taste his neck.
Her mouth moved down the strong column of his throat. The rough scratch of hair abraded her lips, heightening her pleasure. Dangerous, this was so dangerous. So irresistible.
“Katy.” It was a ragged, male plea. He cupped her bared breasts in both hands. His hands, so hard, so capable of destruction, brushed gently over her nipples.
