A Passion for Pleasure(59)

He murmured a request, lost in the sound of her heartbeat pulsing inside her head, but she knew what he asked and lifted her arms so he could slide the shift up over her head. He tossed the garment aside and levered his weight onto one elbow, a hard breath expelling from his lungs as he gave her body a slow and thorough appraisal.

Clara crushed the bedcovers in her fists, fighting the urge to cover herself—an urge that dissolved like salt in hot water when hunger fired in Sebastian’s eyes.

Then, in a movement taut with masculine grace, he rolled to straddle her, his knees hugging her hips, his lean, muscular body rippling with carnal tension above her.

Clara gasped, succumbing to her body’s urge to squirm beneath him, swimming in arousal at the sensation of his shaft throbbing hard and ready against her belly. She cried out when his long-fingered hand cupped her breast. Pleasure spiraled into her core as he caressed her tight nipples, rubbed his fingers into the warm crevice beneath her breasts.

He shifted on top of her, uncoiling the length of his body as his knee eased between her thighs. Placing his hands on either side of her head, he levered his weight onto his forearms and pressed his mouth to her right ear.

“Open for me,” he whispered, his breath a hot shiver against her neck.

Clara’s throat quivered with a swallow as she curved her hands against his hips and parted her thighs to allow him to ease into place. His hard, slick length breached her body, eliciting a sharp intake of breath from them both. Sebastian paused, sweat beading his chest, the cords of his neck taut with restraint.

Clara couldn’t speak past the burn cascading through her. She coiled her legs around his in invitation and gripped his hips, knowing that only he could ease the urgent ache expanding outward like surging waves. Then with a muffled groan, he pushed forward, filling her, stretching her in one smooth motion.

“Oh!” Clara gasped, her eyes seeking his, stunned to the depths of her being by the desire crackling from him and into her, the promise of untold pleasures evoked by the thrust of his hips, the pressure collecting in her loins.

He lowered himself onto her, sealing their damp bodies together as he buried his face in her neck and thrust harder. Drowning in sensations and heat, Clara instinctively arched her body to meet his, her broken cries flowing through the crackling air. She clenched her fingers into the smooth muscles of his back, reveling in the flex and pull of his body as he urged them both toward an explosion of pleasure that Clara knew would be her undoing.

When it happened, a cry tore from her throat as a tide of bliss overwhelmed her, as her world distilled to nothing but the rocking of their bodies together, the grip of his hands and delicious, increasing press of his shaft inside her. His own groan was muffled against her neck at the moment of his hot release, his hands digging into her thighs to spread her more fully for his final thrust.

His weight collapsed on top of her, his chest hairs abrading the tender skin of her breasts as their bodies heaved together. When Sebastian eased aside, an odd sense of bereftness fluttered in Clara until he curved an arm around her and pulled her against him again. Their breathing quieted. The logs cracked and sparked.

Clara closed her eyes, as if by doing so, she could banish the wealth of emotions rising in her chest, the certain and painful realization that no matter her efforts, Sebastian was winding into her like a plume of brilliant, shattering fire.

Her body fit against his, her curves yielding to the hard planes of his muscles, her leg sliding between his. He brushed his lips across her forehead. Clara’s throat closed.

The cold isolation in which she had lived for so long seemed to be melting. And in its place flourished the warm knowledge that she need never be alone again, that she could live the rest of her days with the reassurance of having Sebastian by her side.

Yet she did not want to imagine the cost of such a haven. If she allowed herself to acknowledge all the emotions beating at her heart, like birds struggling to escape a cage, she could lose sight of the reason she had married him in the first place.

What if loving Sebastian weakened her resolve to reclaim Andrew? What if she lost the sharp edge of her determination, the anger and desperation that had fueled her for the past year?

Lock your heart, she reminded herself. But even now she knew it was a futile command.

She couldn’t lock her heart against Sebastian, for he alone held the key.





Chapter Eleven


The low crash of chords reverberated in Sebastian’s head, woven into a long, spiraling braid of blue and brown. In the early morning hours of his wedding night, he’d left Clara sleeping and come downstairs to sit at his piano. He let the fingers of his left hand extract the notes of Mozart’s Concerto in G Major. The harmonies faded into the still night air. He played them again and added two octaves, struck by the sudden sense that the notes formed a counterpoint.