Beyond Seduction (21 page)

She touched him. This time her hand was bare, her palm damp, her fingers hot where they wrapped the thudding skin. Who'd have dreamed such strong, work-hardened hands could be so delicate? He thought he'd burst as she held him. Her touch was that good, that necessary. He swelled impossibly beneath it, overcome by a gratitude as deep as it was unprecedented. He'd needed this more than he knew, needed her more than he knew. His hips rolled forward, moving him in her grip, subtly, just enough to shift the skin along his shaft. The effect nearly shattered him.

"Shall I rub it then?" she said, as tentative as a girl.

The offer sent a blaze of heat across his face. He gritted his teeth and shook his head. "I couldn't take

that now. Just hold me. There, under the crown. I want you to feel what happens to me when you

come. I want you to feel my veins swell. I want you to count my racing pulse."

Her fingers tightened almost painfully as she arched again at his words. "I'm sorry," she said, forced to release him. "No one's ever made me feel this way."

He could not doubt it. Her head rolled from side to side, rustling her hair against the sheet. He could see she was near her limit. "Don't fight it," he said. "Just let go."

"I have to—" she gasped and her hips began to rock.

He quickened the motion of his hand until her eyes squeezed shut with embarrassed bliss. "Yes," he urged. "Take it. Take what you want."

Her conflict was a pleasure for him to see: her need betraying her shyness, her cries tight and keening in her throat. She was flushed in the candlelight, her breasts trembling, her nipples blood-kissed stones. Her legs twitched as her crisis neared. Her hands fisted on his back. Leaning closer, he looked down to watch his hand, then up to watch her face. He would not miss this. Not for anything. Her sheath began to flutter, gripping, releasing, pulling his fingers deeper. He pressed up against the throat of her sex where she'd feel it most and she broke with a violent shudder, her actual climax silent but intense.

For long moments she shook, arched up like a bow with her veins showing blue and fine against her

neck. She was lost to him, but locked to him as well. He would have painted her like this if he could.

The image was one he would have prized. It ended, though, as all sweet things must.

As he petted her down, she brushed her fingers along his shaft. His skin tingled for a moment, then suddenly felt twice as hot.

"I forgot you," she confessed. Her eyes fluttered slowly open, her smile curling into her flushed and freckled cheeks.

He kissed the dint at the tip of her nose. "Forgive me if I consider that a compliment."

She laughed and flung her arms around him, a gesture of thanks so natural and exuberant it made his throat feel oddly tight. He cleared it and pulled back, then brushed his thumb across one rosy-golden nipple. His hand was wet, fragrant. He lowered his head to lick the shining mark it had left behind.

Mary quivered in response.

"Now," he said, "let's see if you're ready for the second course."

*  *  *

Merry was afraid she'd never be ready, not for the devastating intimacy of his touch, not for the sound

of the bed creaking as his weight moved over hers, not for the hot, wet press of Nic's naked skin.

Me, she thought, his name trapped in her throat. The happiness he inspired was a kind of ache.

He'd been so generous, so knowing. She wanted to hold him tight and never let him go. Knowing the

urge was foolish did not dim it in the least. The touch of his fingers parting his way for entry was enough to melt her anew.

She wasn't ready for this. Couldn't be ready.

"Sweet Mary," he whispered, fitting himself against her most private flesh. "Say you want me. Say you need me inside you now."

She groaned. He was silky hot, his tension both threat and promise. He would fill her, ease her. And

then he would leave her empty.

"Say it," he urged, half plea, half growl.

She closed her eyes and gripped the sweating muscles of his waist. How could she deny him? She

wanted everything he said. "I want you," she whispered. "I want you inside me now."

He pushed .at once and moaned, his thickness slipping inside her like buttered steel. She felt the shape of him forcing her to give way, making room for itself, jolting a little inside her as her body clung and then relaxed. She could feel his pulse now, pattering against her own. More, she thought, enchanted by the heat and movement, by the astonishingly personal invasion.
Oh, more
. But then he stopped and hung

above her on his forearms. A bead of sweat ran down his neck.

"Okay?" he asked through gritted teeth, shuddering when her body clenched in rising greed.

"I want more," she whispered, too shy to say it loudly.

"Jesus." He groaned, almost laughing but not quite. She feared she'd done something wrong. To her surprise, he rolled onto his back with her above him. "You'd better do it, Duchess. You're so damn

tiny I'm afraid I'll hurt you."

Too tiny? she wondered. She liked how he felt stretching up inside her, but who knew how it felt to

him? His grimace when she wriggled worried her. She braced on the straining tendons of his chest.

"I'm not hurting you, am I?"

He laughed in earnest then, until he shook inside her. "You really don't know much about men,

do you?"

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. "Well, I—"

He silenced her with a gentle finger to her lips. She looked at him more closely. His face was flushed

and his pupils nearly swallowed his smoky eyes. He might not have been panting but he was close.

Of a certainty, he was not unhappy with his lot.

"It's all right," he said, still amused. "You're tight is all. Delectably so. Perfect, if you want to know the truth. I just want to make sure you're comfortable."

"I am," she said and worked herself down until she held him full and hot within her.

He swore and gripped her hips as if he didn't know whether to hold her off or yank her closer. Merry could have sworn herself; the shock of his presence was such a marvel. She'd thought what they'd

done before was intimate, but this! They were joined now, flesh to flesh. A wave of strange sensation swelled inside her, part dizziness, part excitement, filling her body just as he filled her sex.

This was better than a moonlit gallop across a moor.

"Nic," she breathed, his name a prayer. Driven by a compulsion she couldn't resist, she dropped her

hand. He shuddered when she touched the place where he pressed inside her.

"Don't move," he rasped, his sex flexing, stretching. A vein jumped wildly beneath her hand. "Do not

for God's sake move."

But he was the one who pulled her down and wrapped her close, who rolled them to their sides and slowly began to stroke.

"Closer," he said. Crooking his arm under her knee, he pulled her calf over his ribs. When he had her

as he wanted, he ran his hand down her thigh to cup her bottom. His smallest finger curled into the

valley there, stroking, tickling, making her blush and heat. Then the finger came to rest against the

pulsing place they joined.

So, she thought, with a secret inward shiver, he can't believe it either.

"There," he said, "that's where I want you. That's where I need you most."

When his hips cocked forward, pressing him even deeper, she realized he hadn't just opened her completely, he'd also made it impossible for her to interfere with what he did. His arm held not only

her leg in place, but her bottom and hip as well. He was controlling her movements, bracing her for

his thrusts, keeping her to his lazy push and pull.

She was helpless and could not even mind. Each thick, slow stroke seemed to drag her deeper under his spell. His rhythm, his breath, was hers. When he gripped her bottom, her nails scored his back. When he coiled and thrust harder, so did she. In everything, they were together, bound by his will like solid ropes of gold. He shifted angles, going deeper, faster. The sense that he was losing control excited her. Need rose in a gathering wave. He felt it, too. His expression was harsh now, his motions wild.

"Fuck," he said, the word a soft explosion as his hips jolted hers. "Tighten, Mary. Pull me in."

It was what her body wanted most. She tightened, her very soul opening for the thrust. He swore at the strength of her pull, rigid, slamming into her with desperate force. "Mary," he cried. "Oh... God." She rode the edge, aching, needy, and then the storm crashed over them with a fury. She knew when he

came because he stiffened and gasped in shock. The evidence of his climax threw her over. They shook in tandem, clinging like the last survivors of a wreck. The release was too sweet to bear. She buried her face in his neck and felt him do the same.

When the madness faded, a lull swept over her, but it was not a lull of peace.

She was sorry then. She wished she'd told him how special this night had been, that no other man had known what she'd given him. She wished the name he'd called her had truly been her own, wished she hadn't lied to an3 misled him. The deception seemed a betrayal not only of him but of her deepest self.

This little rite of passage, this loss of her virginity, had meant more than she'd expected. If she'd told him the truth, maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have gone through it alone.

Neither of them spoke. Merry could feel herself shaking in his arms, hard, as if her body meant to rattle itself apart. No matter how little she knew about the act of love, she knew she wasn't supposed to react like this.

Finally, Nic stirred. "Good Lord," he said. "You must be freezing. Stay here. I'll build up the fire."

"No!" she cried, unthinking. "Don't leave me."

He stiffened at her plea, one brief, irretrievable moment. She knew she'd misstepped even as he chuckled and rolled her underneath him where she'd be warm.

"Mary," he said as she hugged his waist and hid her face against his chest. The word was a gentle scold she pretended not to hear. Alas, Nicolas Craven was not a man to let a woman live in a dream. He kissed the top of her lowered head.

"Be careful who you cling to," he said, soft and full of doom. "Men like me don't trade in hearts. In fact, men like me don't have them. Better save yours for someone who will cherish it as you deserve."

Well, Merry thought, if that condescending twaddle didn't cool her misplaced ardor, she didn't know what would. Blinking back what she told herself were tears of fury, she wriggled out from under him and sat up. Glaring, she shoved her curls back from her face.

"You should be so lucky," she huffed.

"No doubt," he agreed, and lazily scratched his chest. He lounged on his side like a sultan, his head propped on his hand, his still thick organ beginning to stretch and bob. With an effort, she wrenched

her gaze away.

"I am not in love with you," she said. "Not even close."

"Good," he said. "See that you stay that way."

When she scowled at him, he merely cocked one brow. Infuriated, she climbed altogether out of the

bed, the better to remove herself from temptation. "I'm going back to my room now."

His eyes narrowed. "Are you?"

"Yes, I am!" she snapped and turned to go.

She had the door halfway open when he slammed it shut before her. His hands caged her against the wood, his tall, lean body a wall of heat. His aggression excited her, though she tried to hide the sudden leaping of her blood. Instead, she tossed her hair in defiance, wishing she could whip him with its length. Nic blew a cloud of it from his face. When he spoke, he sounded angry.