Her eyes shot daggers at him as he reared back to slowly and deliberately untie the laces on his breeches. Once undone they slithered down his bare legs and he stepped out of them to stand perfectly still, allowing his wife to look her fill. She kept her gaze pinned on his face, but the flush in her cheeks told him she was quite aware of the changes occurring to his body well below his nose and mouth. A hard, mirthless smile captured his lips as he slid onto the bed with the calculated grace of a lion closing in on its prey. Catherine tried to squirm to the far edge of the bed and take the blankets with her, but he caught the quilt with one fist and drew it back with a flourish that left her gasping with indignation.
“Surely you are no longer shy? Or perhaps the men you have been sleeping with enjoy your virgin and vapors routine,” he mocked, even as his eyes feasted on every inch of her delicious body. She had stripped down to one very thin, very damp chemise before getting into the bed. The flimsy garment hugged every curve like a second skin and beneath his hungry stare her nipples puckered. A chuckle rose from low in his throat when she crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at him.
“Just get it over with,” she snapped, but Marcus slowly shook his head and inched closer until she was trapped in a cage of his making, her body rigid beneath his, her sapphire eyes wide and luminous.
“No,” he said softly. “I won’t make it that easy for you.” Dipping his head he nipped the spot where he knew her to be the most sensitive – that little appetizer of flesh between her neck and shoulder – and she trembled. His breath caught in response and he aggressively sought her mouth, pushing his lips to hers with an ardent fervor that betrayed his desperate longing.
But instead of softening and yielding beneath his assault she remained stiff as a board, her teeth clenched and her eyes pinched tightly closed.
“Open your mouth,” he snarled.
She shook her head.
“Damn it Catherine, do not play games with me,” he warned. And then, in a voice that had gone ominously soft, “You will not like what happens.” His hand dipped between them to cup her breast over her chemise and his thumb began to draw slow, tantalizing circles around her nipple.
She gasped, arching into his touch, and with a growl of triumph he claimed her mouth. Still she fought him, refusing to yield completely until he had nibbled and licked every inch of her soft lips. On a moan those lips parted and his tongue dived into the dark recesses of her mouth, tasting her as she was meant to be tasted. She kissed him back, tentative at first, then with as much hunger as he, gasping and sighing and whimpering into his open mouth. More. He had to have more.
With a herculean effort Marcus tore his mouth away to pull impatiently at her chemise, tugging at the delicate silk with his fingers and then his teeth until the fabric peeled away to reveal her breasts.
“You are as beautiful as I remember,” he said huskily as his gaze swept down across her ivory skin, taking in the dusky rose of her nipples and the faint blush that colored her chest.
Catherine peered up at him shyly, worrying her bottom lip in a gesture that was both sweet and incredibly erotic.
“Marcus?” she whispered.
“Yes, sweet?”
“Do you think… you think you could kiss me again?
With a laughing groan he dipped his head and captured her mouth in a searing kiss that left them both breathless and yearning for something neither of them would admit to. Trailing his mouth inch by wicked inch down the delicate curve of her neck, he paused to nibble here and there, until his teeth grazed her left nipple and he drew it into his mouth, suckling with wild abandon. She arched beneath him and cried out, her fingers clutching at his hair and then scratching down his back in cat like strokes that left his skin tingling.
His mouth went lower, to the edge of her chemise, and then lower still as he used his nimble fingers to pull the damp silk from her flushed skin and expose her fully. She was perfect, from the sweet swell of her breasts to the shapely curve of her thighs. He drank her in, first with his eyes and then with his lips. She tried to close her legs and twist to side when his breath fanned across the most intimate part of her, but he stilled her anxious movements by pinning her slender hips to the bed.
“Let me,” he said hoarsely. “Just let me, Cat.”
She went limp in surrender, and then cried out in wonder when his tongue snaked through her soft curls to lap at the heart of her womanhood. He licked, nibbled, kissed, and sighed until she was writhing helplessly beneath him and, on a gasping sob, came into his mouth.
He could take it no more. A possessive growl rumbled low in his throat as he shot up the length of her to push breast to breast, belly to belly, thigh to thigh. When he nudged inside of her she welcomed him with arms that clung and lips that cried his name, and the rhythm that quickened between their two bodies before they plunged together off the edge into swirling nothingness was as effortless as it was heartbreakingly familiar.
When Catherine woke the next morning she was alone. For a few precious minutes she remained still, staring up at the wood beam and plaster ceiling while her body languished and her mind scrambled to catch up. What had she done? She had slept with her husband again, that’s what she had done. And heaven help her, she had enjoyed it. No, she corrected herself as her lips parted on a helpless sigh. Not just enjoyed. Relished. Wallowed. Loved.