AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She began to move them toward the bed and Alec followed, helpless to resist. He, who never gave an inch during such intimacies, was suddenly at her mercy. Utterly. Completely. At some point he had lost his control—no. He knew exactly when. It had been slipping away since he’d beheld her once again. Only it was so gradual he hadn’t realized until it was all gone from him. Until it was far too late.
Alec laid her down gently on the bed and smoothed his palms over the feather-soft skin of her shoulders and arms. He dragged one fingertip slowly along the curve of her collarbone, and she let out a light laugh. “That tickles.”
“Does it?” He gave her a devilish smile even while his heart ached. How badly he wanted to know everything that made her laugh. One hand cradled the nape of her neck, his thumb drawing back and forth across the sensitive skin below her ear, while his other hand slowly journeyed lower. All the while he watched her face for any sign of reticence, of regret. She could still change her mind, and if she did he would halt. But as his fingertip moved from tracing her collarbone to the lacy edge of her chemise, she arched up. His hand automatically opened as she pressed her breast into his waiting palm.
It had been over a decade since Alec first lay with a woman and yet, based on the whimper that escaped his lips, he might as well have been a virgin once again. His fingers closed greedily around her small but shapely breast. As he gently cupped and caressed the firm flesh, a glazed look came over Lottie, and she pulled him down for another succulent, plundering kiss—all lips and teeth and tongue. He wanted to move slowly. To spend hours simply kissing her, but his overwrought body would not heel. Alec jerked down the front of her chemise and plucked the tip of her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Lottie began to writhe beneath him, and a series of increasingly urgent cries vibrated against his mouth. As they continued to devour each other, he pulled up the hem of her chemise in rough handfuls and nearly ripped off her drawers. His hand then skimmed over the supple flesh of her thighs and along the lacy edges of her stockings to the tuft of feminine hair. He wrenched away from her lush mouth to brush a featherlight touch over her most intimate place. Lottie canted her hips forward in response and he rewarded her eagerness with a long, lingering caress that slowly turned deeper. More insistent.
She let out a heart-stopping gasp, and her eyes flew open with a mixture of surprise and pleasure that Alec planned to never forget. After a few moments of trial and error, he found the motion and pressure that seemed to affect her the most. Then he dipped his head and drew her rosy nipple between his teeth. The mere taste of her rosewater-scented skin sated him more than any banquet ever had.
She breathed his name and arched even higher, her fingers digging into his scalp, holding him to her breast, as if there was a chance he might pull away. While he continued to suck, his free hand began to gently pinch her other nipple, and the evidence of her desire grew heavier and warmer under his fingertips. He coaxed her steadily toward her release, feeling every shudder of pleasure, every muffled sigh, every twist of her hips, until every muscle seemed to tighten at once. He pulled away to watch as Lottie’s lips parted, gasping in wordless cries at the sensation rioting within her. Then her brow tensed before it all slowly faded into an expression of pure bliss.
His erection had grown so stiff and hot it was nearly painful, but it didn’t matter. This was enough—more than enough. More than he had ever dreamed. To simply touch her, to watch those emerald eyes grow heavy with pleasure, to hear her cry out with desire built by him, by the two of them together. She could get on with her life, and he could have just a little bit of her. A memory to keep. He pressed a soft kiss against her lips and she brought her arms around his shoulders. Her hands slid under the collar of his jacket and he shivered at her smooth touch, but it was another moment before he realized she was easing it off.
“Lottie,” he murmured, but she only tugged harder, until he was obliged to remove the garment himself, lest he become trapped in his own dinner jacket. He stood from the bed and pulled the jacket off, while Lottie watched him with a dark, ravenous look that threatened to undo him all over again. Her eyes followed the jacket as he let it drop to the floor, then returned to his face.
She uttered just one word: “More.”
A thrill shot through him at the idea of disrobing before such a rapt audience. He sank one knee on top of the bed, looming over her partially clad figure, and began to unbutton his waistcoat, though his fingers slipped more than once, until it, too, joined the jacket. Her hand traveled between her thighs, and she pressed it against the still-sensitive flesh. Alec inhaled sharply at the sight. Lottie gestured to his suspenders with her chin. “Those too,” she murmured.
He pulled each one off slowly, deliberately, riveted by watching her watch him, of pleasuring herself to his image.
“You’re so lovely,” he breathed. “You can’t imagine.”
She gave him a dazed smile while her heavy gaze tracked every movement. As he began to unknot his bow tie, she sat up and placed her palms on his thighs. Alec’s breath caught as she slid her hands upward, and his mind darkened. She brushed lightly against the fall of his trousers at first, then pressed harder. Alec hissed and moved to stop, but he was much too slow. By the time he grazed her wrist, his pants were already unbuttoned and those elegant tapered fingers took hold of his length. Pleasure blazed through him, hot, reckless, and unstoppable. He was at her mercy now, no longer showing her how to be touched but craving her touch for his own sake.
She adjusted her grip, experimenting with different holds until he showed her what he liked best. After a few strokes she swiped her thumb over the moistened tip, and Alec let out a hoarse groan. Lottie glanced up, and the corner of her mouth lifted in a slow, seductive smile. Christ. He could expire at this moment and die fairly happy from seeing that expression. But then she spoke.
“As I was leaving the palazzo, I paused by an open door,” she began, her voice low and husky. “The one you pulled me from. Did you look to see?” Alec managed to shake his head. Lottie lowered her eyelids in a rather ironic display of modesty, considering what she was presently doing. “A man was seated in a chair and a woman knelt before him. I saw her take this in her mouth.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and immediately saw her in the same position. “Lottie.” He meant to say her name as a warning, but instead it came out sounding anguished. The plea of a desperate man.
“I’ve heard of such things,” she continued, “but the practice never sounded very appealing. Now, though…with you…”
Fuck.
The thought of her evenconsideringsuch a thing was more than he could bear. More than he could allow.
“I—”
The rest of his noble protest died in his throat. Died at the sight of those luscious pink lips parting for him.
The heat of her mouth alone forced Alec to the very edge as a pleasure greater than he had ever known rocked through him. Her movements were tentative and inexperienced, but it did not matter. Alec had never been this hard in his life. A sound ripped out of him, high-pitched and unrecognizable, almost like the wild keen of an animal. He was speaking, too, though he could barely make sense of his own words beyondYes. More. Dear God. Lottie.
But before he could lose control completely, he gathered his wits enough to pull her eager, gasping lips away. Her eyes were heavy lidded, as if she had felt as much pleasure in performing the act as he had in receiving it. Then she pulled her chemise over her head and fully revealed the most perfect pair of breasts the Almighty had ever created. Somehow Alec managed to look back to her face, and then he understood.
Lottie wanted far more than his touch.
She would not stop until he had all of her.
And he would do it.
It was if all the air had been drawn out of his lungs. “Lottie,” he protested again, but he was terribly weak and she knew it. “You can’t want—”
She brought her palm to the side of his face and rubbed her thumb against his cheek. “But Idowant, Alec,” she whispered thickly. His heart nearly beat out of his chest, but before he could fully absorb this, she laid back down on the bed, offering her body to him. “Please.”
If her firstpleasehad decimated his self-control, the second severed whatever remained of his reason. The idea that she would need to ask this of him, as if he were doinghera favor, was incomprehensible to his lust-addled mind. Of course he would do this. Of course he would make love to her. There was no other course of action available. He would have done anything,anything, for her in that moment.
He stepped out of his trousers and ripped his shirt off so hard that several buttons scattered across the floor. Lottie let out a short laugh that turned into a gasp as his body moved over hers. He, too, was startled by the sensation of her soft skin against his own; at once both tantalizingly novel and yet so achingly familiar. So damn right. He smoothed a palm up one of her stockinged thighs and slowly rolled it off. Their eyes met as he tossed it aside and moved to the other one. She said nothing, only stared at him in silence. Watching. She was nearly naked beneath him, but so much more seemed to be bared in that gaze. Alec had to look away. As he removed her other stocking, Lottie opened her thighs, and he gladly sank between them. Then he pressed greedy, succulent kisses all along her shoulders, the ridges of her collarbones, and the hollow of her throat, while her fingers dug deeper into his hair.
