A Passion for Pleasure(57)
A tremble coursed through her blood. She’d be lying if she said she had not imagined this moment, the taut, fevered space just before the consummation of their union. But her speculations had been pointlessly twisted with memories of Richard, tangling the fearful, young virgin she’d been with the woman she was now. No longer young. No longer a virgin.
But fearful…?
Sebastian cupped his left palm around her nape, his fingers warm and strong, then reached to loosen the pins restraining her hair. In moments, her hair uncoiled in long skeins around her shoulders. Warm appreciation glowed in his eyes. Her heart hammered.
Fearful still, yes. Not because the dire portent of physical intimacy stretched between them and the bed, but because he aroused such a flurry of emotions, like butterflies spiraling and cascading through her very soul.
Because she wanted him.
Clara still didn’t understand it. She didn’t know its source or its end, this desire sparking in her blood, at once exhilarating and terrifying. All she knew was that it made her crave his lips, his hands on her bare skin, made her yearn with the need to touch him in return.
Sebastian dragged his fingers through a swath of her hair, softly pulling the tangles free. His brows drew together.
“Did he hurt you?” He spoke in a gentle voice, but the implications of his question corded the words with anger.
Clara shook her head, unable to speak past the knot in her throat. No, Richard hadn’t hurt her. Not physically. He’d been dispassionate and methodical and she’d felt like a vessel rather than his wife, but he’d hurt her only after he died.
And never once had he made her feel like this—restless and hot and wanting more, wanting something she couldn’t name.
Before she could speak, Sebastian captured her fingers in his and, with unmistakable intent, brought her hand to the buttons of his shirt.
Clara skirted her gaze to her husband, her pulse jumping at the heat already brewing in his eyes. No swift rut beneath the covers for this man. She steeled her courage, though her hands shook as she unfastened the first button to reveal the triangle of skin at his throat.
If she didn’t look directly at him…she forced her fingers to work as she slipped each button from its entrapment. When the folds of his shirt began to part, she stepped back, her breath quickening in pace as she watched his long fingers release the final two buttons before he pulled the shirt over his head. Mesmerized by the dexterity of his movements, the graceful lift of his shoulders, she could hardly muster any shock as his shirt pooled to the floor.
A riot of sensations fluttered inside her as she gazed at his half-naked form. So utterly different from Richard’s slender torso, which Clara had seen bare only several times during their six-year marriage.
She stared at the expanse of Sebastian’s flat stomach, the layer of dark hair over the sculpted planes of his chest, the smooth musculature of his shoulders. A strange, urgent pulse flared in her belly.
Dear God, but the man was beautiful.
He closed the scant distance between them, his hand moving to cup her face and draw her closer.
“I promise,” he murmured in the instant before his lips touched hers, “I will only bring you pleasure.”
And then she was in his arms, his mouth crushed to hers, her hands trapped between their bodies. Clara breathed in a gasp and sank against him, opening her mouth to allow him access, drowning in the flood of sensations that swept over her. She unclenched her fists and let her hands spread tentatively over the expanse of his naked chest.
Warm, taut skin and soft hairs tickled her fingers as she pressed her hands against him and slid them upward. The steady beat of his heart quickened against her palms, delighting her with the knowledge that her touch could inspire his reaction.
The pulse in her belly beat harder, sliding heat through her veins and winding around her lower body. Sebastian’s hands stroked her hips, his fingers digging in as he urged her even closer, close enough that the bulge in his trousers nudged against her belly.
Rather than alarm her, the sensation flared a new spiral of heat. He wound the thick mass of her hair around his hand, tugging her head back for ease in deepening his potent kiss. His tongue slid into her mouth as his hand grasped her wrist and guided her to touch the hardening evidence of his arousal.
She hesitated, uncertainty warring with desire, before she allowed her fingers to curve around him. A hiss of pleasure escaped him, hot against her lips, and the sound emboldened her to tighten her hold. Even through the material of his trousers, he throbbed heavy and hard against her palm. A blaze of white-hot lust coursed across her skin. She moaned into his mouth, closing her teeth on his lower lip, swimming in the increasing urgency to see him stripped naked.