She gave a tiny nod. “I know.”
He would keep his vow no matter what happened next between them. She left her hand in his. His fingers closed around hers, and instantly the air seemed charged with something wild and unpredictable. A tug, and he pulled her into a twirl as though they were dancing, but he just wanted her with her back against his chest. Strong arms locked below her breasts, and the tight hold stimulated her aroused senses to a fever pitch. His heart was still drumming furiously, setting a frenzied beat in her own blood. He claimed her vulnerable neck in a hungry, open-mouthed kiss, and she let her head drop back against his shoulder on a soft moan. The sensation of his sleek tongue gliding over delicate skin seemed to melt her between her legs, and she had to shift to accommodate the swelling ache. The loosening of her bodice registered with a delay. Elias leaned his cheek against hers, and they both paused to take in the lush view, the exposed tops of her breasts framed quite prettily by the low-cut corset cover.
His ragged voice was next to her ear. “Beautiful.”
He fingered the lacy edge of the cover, measuredly, like a test. Her breathing turned unsteady. Elias turned his face and looked her in the eye.
“If I do something you don’t like, will you tell me?”
She nodded.
“Good.”
His fingertips met silken skin, and he made a sound in his chest while his eyes fell shut. For a moment, she saw his profile in stark detail, every atom clear and magnified: his handsome cheekbones taut with desire, his thick lashes resting against his cheeks like dark crescent moons. He pushed his hand inside her corset. Her breath came through her parted lips now; it felt too decadent, looking on while he was shamelessly feeling her breasts. Glancing touches, then pinches to the sensitive tips, and she was on her toes, pushing her bottom into his groin. With a near audible snap, a leash on his restraint gave way. He turned her in his arms. Her feet left the ground. She was sitting on the commode, her hips level with his and her skirts bunched in his fist. His half-lidded gaze searched her face while he pulled up the rustling swathes of fabric. He would touch her, right where she was thrumming with need.
“Yes,” she heard herself say, when she could have been sensible and stopped it. A smile flashed, and Elias eased her knees apart. Sensibleness ceded to a dreamlike blend of sensations: the cool rush of air over her most intimate place. Elias’s hand, warm and heavy on the top of her bare thigh. He stroked higher. His mouth opened slightly when he slid his fingers over the slick opening of her sex. He rubbed, lightly, over just the right spot. Pure pleasure, bright and hot, spread through her thighs, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth to stifle a cry. He did it again, his fingers moving confidently now, up and down, slipping inside her a little, then back to tease the aching pearl on top. On and on. She realized, quite shocked, that he could take her to the end. The tension in her muscles was already thickening. His touch was skillful, reading her and adjusting; clearly this wasn’t his first seduction, but he was breathing hard now as if pleasuring her was undoing him, too. He pressed his mouth back to hers and his hips replaced his hand, making her feel a hard protrusion through the fabric of his trousers. He moved, as though he was inside her. Her legs stiffened around him, her feet were pointing with the first shivers of bliss. Then she hissed, trying to evade the scrape of hidden buttons against her tender flesh. He slowed and murmured, soothingly, “Shhh, habibti.” Somehow, he opened his trousers, and his penis was between them, thick and flushed.
She gasped. “No, not like this, we can’t.”
“We won’t,” he said softly, “we won’t.”
He hooked an arm under her knee and fitted himself against her.
“See?” He held himself perfectly still, just let her feel the warm, heavy weight of his arousal. When he moved again, skin on skin, they both moaned. This. This part of him was made with a woman’s enjoyment in mind, hot and blunt and velvety smooth . . . he flexed his hips, again, and the tension spiked so hard, her vision dimmed. She gripped the warm cotton fabric of his shirt for purchase, and he glanced down at her, his gaze black; his throat sheened with sweat. He’d be like this in bed, above her, steadily moving back and forth between her thighs, filling her with frantic energy.
“It’s as though we are doing it,” she said, her voice high and strained.
“Not even close,” he ground out, but her words derailed his rhythm. The commode began thumping against the wall, in time with his thrusts. It distracted her, right on the cusp, her toes were already curling. Her climax flattened from an impending explosion to a shallow ripple, a mangled flutter that made her whimper in frustration rather than relief.
Her lover had no such trouble, his release racked him moments later. He was perfectly silent but his strong body arched like a trapped creature trying to break its chains. While he slumped forward, eyes glassy and lips parted, he was reaching into his waistcoat pocket for his handkerchief.
The room resonated with silence. There was just the thump thump thump of her pulse in her ears. Her legs relaxed, and her heels tapped against a wooden drawer. Elias took a deep, shuddering breath next to her temple, and she realized she had not been breathing at all.
They looked at each other with twin expressions of disbelief, like possessed people after a successful exorcism, rumpled and askew. The musky-sweet scent of female arousal lay over the scene, mixing with an unfamiliar alkaline note.
Wordlessly, Elias cleaned his hand and buttoned his trousers. He smoothed her flipped-up skirts back down.
“I take the blame for this,” he said at last. “But have you any sense of self-preservation?”
She gathered her gaping bodice at her throat and sat up straight.
“I trust you,” she said. She glanced away. “I wanted it.”
He balled the handkerchief in his fist and made an exasperated motion with his head. It wasn’t about what she wanted, of course, it was about what was proper. It must be difficult to grasp for him, how the same woman who struggled to look him in the eye and make polite conversation had let him go under her skirts without resistance. Perhaps polite conversation just wasn’t as true or as necessary as the sensation of his hands on her skin; there was a realness to their physical intimacy that made it natural and easy, unlike etiquette. The moment his mouth had met hers, she had reacted on an instinct that had been bridled since girlhood, and it had thrilled her to feel it so ready to charge, so close to the surface. A lifetime of elaborate, petty man-made rules could be swept away by something as base as an open-mouthed kiss. Her body was still buzzing like an electric conduit, all objects in the room had a rainbow halo. They had recklessly penetrated through to a real part of life.