He replaced the candlestick on the side table and set about painting her with his touch, washing a pink blush over her skin with wide, evenhanded strokes. He touched her everywhere, leaving no angle or curve unexplored.
“I want to have you in every conceivable way, Eliza. I want to touch every part of you I can possibly reach with any part of me. My tongue, my fingers, my cock.”
He stroked her between the legs, cupping and parting the secret folds of her sex. She was warm and already growing wet for him, arching into his caress.
“I will leave no inch of you unclaimed.” With his other hand, he swept a touch down her leg. “I’ll be damned if I’ll lie dying on some battlefield, staring up at the cruel stars and thinking to myself, ‘Devil take it, now some other cur will be the first to suckle Eliza Cade’s toes.’”
“Suckle my toes?” She struggled up on one elbow, laughing. “Whyever would a man want to suckle a lady’s—Oh. Oh, Harry.”
She fell back against the chaise, wriggling and gasping as he pulled her tiny, delicious middle toe into his mouth, working his tongue around it and teasing the sensitive webs between her toes.
“That’s why.” He released her with a quick squeeze to the arch of her foot.
“You’re so wicked.” She threw him a flirtatious look. “And I’m so glad of it.”
Grinning, he shucked off his trousers and pulled his shirt over his head, casting it aside.
He gently lowered his body to hers, letting her adjust to the weight and feel of him. Giving her time to understand how they fit together, belonged together. How softness encouraged hardness, and the reverse. He sighed, and her breasts cushioned the lift and fall of his chest.
As they lay intertwined, he kissed her—the way he’d been wanting to kiss her for ages. Slowly, deeply. As though they had all the time in the world. Every girl deserved this from her first lover—an unhurried session of pure worship, in the form of gentle nibbles and exploratory licks. A long, lazy mingling of breath and lips and skin. She tasted good everywhere. Her hair smelled like paradise.
In time, she began to kiss him back, tracing her lips along his jaw and down the tendon of his neck. She licked and kissed in imitation. He gave her shoulder a gentle bite, wanting her to know even this was acceptable. That he wouldn’t mind if she went a little wild, sinking her teeth into his shoulder at the moment when—
When.
He froze, lips pressed to her pulse, trying to recover his patience. Too late. It was gone. He had to have her, and he had to have her now.
He shifted his weight, nudging her thighs apart with his hips. “Are you ready?”
She nodded bravely.
“Tell me so. I need to hear it, love. I need…” He dropped his head, pressing his brow to her shoulder. “I don’t want you to regret this.”
“I won’t.” She stroked his shoulders. “You’ve always been right about me, Harry. I love to dance, to laugh. I love the warmth of the sun on my face and the feel of my unbound hair gliding across a cool pillow. I love to touch your body.” Her hands slid down his back. “And I’m going to love the feel of you inside me.”
He pushed forward, driving into her softness. Yes. She was so tight, so sweet.
“Darling Eliza.” After a few deepening thrusts, he forced himself to pause. “Are you in a great deal of pain?”
“Not a great deal. Not anymore. Actually, Harry…despite all your warnings, this”—she made a soft, gratifying gasp—“isn’t so bad.”
“No?” He withdrew, gliding out of her almost to the tip, then reversing course to sink back into her heat.
“I’m finding it all”—she sighed as he slid deep—“rather lovely.”
“You’re lovely. So…very…exquisitely…lovely.” He punctuated each word with a slow, gentle thrust.
She clutched him tight and whispered a single word in his ear.
“Faster.”
Harry laughed, even as a bolt of pure, erotic heat shot to his groin. God, he loved her. He couldn’t imagine anything better than a lifetime of this. Making love to her, laughing with her. Both at the same time, as often as it could be managed.
But they didn’t have a lifetime—what they had was tonight.
He obliged her plea, moving faster. And harder, when her arching hips demanded that. He dug deep with his hips, giving her friction where he knew she needed it.
Her arms wrapped around him, and her fingernails bit into his shoulders and back—frantic, clawing, demanding. She was fierce and beautiful in her pursuit of pleasure.
And then she gasped and arched her back. Her face tightened into that beautiful frown of ecstasy, and she gave a soft, pleading cry.
“Yes,” he urged. “Come for me.”
As the climax surged through her body, convulsing in tight waves around his cock, Harry felt a surge of triumph unlike anything he’d known before.
She was pleased. She was his.
She was tighter than ever.