Always a Maiden (The Belles of Beak Street #5)(61)
She nodded. Feeling that if he were bound and determined to touch her all over, then she should do the same to him. She slowly slid her hands down his chest. His muscles were hard and smooth. His stomach was ridged, and it quivered ever so faintly as she dragged her fingertips across it. She drew in a deep breath and reached for that last little bit to trail her fingers down that male piece of his anatomy.
His rod beneath the silky skin was hard as steel, but the skin was so lovely, the texture of rose petals. She just wanted to rub her fingers over it again and again. “It’s so soft.”
“Hardly,” he objected. His voice sounded slightly strangled.
“I meant the skin.” A flush crept up her cheeks. He probably wouldn’t want to be compared to rose petals either. But she looked up, expecting to see him trying to not laugh at her. Instead, his lips were parted and his expression spoke of thin control. Was she evoking the same wild jolts in him that he seemed to know how to do to her? A shudder rolled through her. Then an errant thought broke through. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”
“Far from it,” he growled and leaned toward her. “But you better save that for later or I won’t be able to teach you anything about your own pleasure.”
He pulled her hands away and brought them up and over his shoulders. He breathed slowly and deeply for a minute as if to regain control of his faculties.
“After I touch you everywhere. I will kiss you…everywhere,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers. “And here.” His fingers moved ever so slightly dipping into her folds, evoking a sharp sweet burst of intense sensation.
“No!” she exclaimed before the sensations his touch aroused slammed into her. She lost her breath. Everything coiled and tightened within her. Her legs clenched as if to hold onto that sweet, aching sensation.
His hand slid to her hip, wrapping around the jut of bone as if to steady her. But at the same time, her mind reeled as much from the sensations he knew how to make her feel, but from what he’d said he would do to her. Her body was interested, but the idea was appalling. “Not…”—she didn’t really have a word to describe that place on her body—“there.”
His lips moved to within a hairsbreadth of hers. “Most certainly there.”
Then he kissed her more determinedly. Her mind swirled with objections, but she couldn’t voice them because that would interrupt the real kiss that had seemed forever in coming.
He laid her back against the sheets and covered her body with his. His skin against hers was shocking in its intensity. So warm and sensual. She couldn’t help her gasp.
He drew back a little as if to measure her.
But she reached up to pull him down to her.
“You are lovely,” he murmured as he ran his fingers across her shoulders.
He kissed and touched with sureness. He seemed to have some plan he intended to follow. Some sampler he was stitching with a pattern only he knew. And each stitch was a colorful riot. Then she lost the thread of her thought as he nibbled at her neck in a way that made her want to coo. Between kisses, he whispered encouragement and tender words of admiration—all but the one thing she wanted him to say. But she refused to think of that now because it only made her want more, and she was being greedy enough.
He touched her everywhere but avoided the places that made her body burst with sensation. His touches started soft and then turned firmer as if he was experimenting to find the pressure that suited her best. But she liked it all. When he kneaded her buttocks, it made her want to wriggle against him. When he trailed his fingertips over her stomach, her flesh quivered. And when he skimmed his palms over the edge of her breasts, she went mad with wanting. She twisted trying to get him to touch her tightened nipples. The intensity that had scared her a little in the beginning, she now craved with a passion that couldn’t be denied.
“Do you mean to toy with me all night?” she burst out at one point.
He grinned. “Only half of it.”
She decided turnabout was fair play and began mimicking what he was doing to her. In so much as she could imitate his caresses and nipping kisses. That only made the ache between her legs grow tighter as she learned that she could evoke groans and shudders from him, too.
*
Evan didn’t think he could bear it if Susanah flinched as she had often done when he’d reached to touch her. So he’d told her what would happen as he made love to her. He knew he’d shocked her. But he wasn’t taking a chance. This might be the only time he ever had to be intimate with her, and he wasn’t about to leave out anything. Especially not if it might bring her pleasure beyond her wildest dreams. Especially if he could touch something deep inside her soul. Especially if it might persuade her to stay with him.
He wanted to know her, everything about her, every place that made her shiver. Every way to caress her that made her arch. Every way to kiss her that made her moan. Except the little minx was figuring out the same with him. He hadn’t really allowed for her maidenly sensibilities to be cast aside so quickly.
Then again, he wasn’t about to complain about her finding ways to make him shudder, in spite of her nimble fingers making it difficult to ignore the burn of desire. But he wouldn’t rush this.
She was more responsive than he could have hoped for. Although at the same time he could see that it embarrassed her. But all of it only made him love her more. This side of her was his. He may not be able to claim her, but he got the gift of her hidden, uninhibited desires. This gift of her awakening was something that he would hold in his heart forever because he knew how precious it was.