“But how am I supposed to learn?”
“Let me try to explain it this way. Will you agree that a good teacher is confident in what they’re teaching?”
Her “yes” was cautious.
“Well, truth is, I’m not confident enough about what you like to teach you what I like.”
She frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Oh, no, he thought. They weren’t getting into an argument now! “It does, and before you argue with me, let me remind you that I’m the one with the experience.”
“You just said that you didn’t have any.”
He grit his teeth. “With you,” he clarified. “I don’t have experience with you and, as every woman is different, I’m a bit unsure here.”
“Too unsure to teach?” The fingers on his forearm clenched as she exclaimed, “Then what are we going to do?”
It was as close to a wail as he’d ever heard her utter.
“I was kind of hoping, this time out, you could just lie there and let me know what feels good.”
“To me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But I’m supposed to be making it good for you!”
He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Remember in the barn, you moaned when I kissed your neck?”
Her blush started at her breastbone and spread outward to her face and, intriguingly, her nipples. “Yes.”
He couldn’t resist tracing a reverse path, following the curve of her cheek down the length of her throat, over the planes of her chest and then up the rise of her breast until the tip of his finger rested against the tip of her nipple. “I felt ten feet tall then.”
“And that would make it good for you?” She stared at where his finger met her flesh.
“This one you’re flat out going to have to trust me on.” Using his nail, he gently scraped the plump nipple, rewarding her flinch and gasp with a repeat caress. “Nothing makes a man feel better than when a woman feels good at his touch.”
“But later?” Her lower lip sucked in between her teeth as he let his fingertip hover over her expectant flesh.
“Later, I’ll take great pleasure in teaching you to make me howl.” Her nipple rose fat and sassy from her breast, vibrating with the tension with which she held still.
He flicked it lightly in reward for its impudence. Her entire body jerked up in response.
“Providing…” he drawled as if she hadn’t just come off the blanket at his touch.
She looped her arms around his neck and arched her torso toward his hand. “Providing?”
“Providing, this time, you relax enough to let me make you howl.”
She frowned. “I don’t think ladies howl.”
He smiled, watching the pulse in her throat do some fast-stepping as he, slowly, deliberately took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. He milked it rhythmically as he settled his chest over hers. “You will, darlin’. You will.”
He brushed her mouth with his. “Do you like that?” he asked.
She frowned, as serious as a preacher confronting the damned. “It’s all right.”
He stroked his tongue over her closed lips, keeping the touch featherlight. She jerked her head back.
“No?”
She hesitated, then admitted, “That felt funny.”
“Funny good?” While she thought about the answer, he increased the pressure and speed with which he teased her breast. He wanted her nipples aching and sensitive to his slightest touch.
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s find out then.” He did it again.
She jerked but, this time, pressed closer rather than away.
“Good?” he asked against her lips.
Her “yes” was a sigh.
He placed his mouth on hers, rubbing lightly against her contours. He’d never set out to seduce a woman more deliberately. He’d never had the need, but then, he’d never known what he was missing. Breaking through Elizabeth’s defenses was a delicious game of cat and mouse. Her honesty jolted his senses.
There was no coy trying-to-please. He’d asked her to be honest and she was brutally so. She found a no-nonsense surge of his tongue past the barrier of her lips ‘unsavory’ to use her word, but if he preceded it with a few tentative forays, her toes curled against his thigh and her chest rose against his. Clearly, she was a woman who wanted to be seduced.
He held back his need, striving for gentle, but her sensual honesty all but destroyed his good intentions. Never had he had a woman who enjoyed his touch so much. Never had he had a woman so open. That it was his wife who rose to the touch of his hand on her breast was an aphrodisiac in itself.
She was his and no other’s. Only his hands would touch her. Only his lips would coax hers into a mating dance. Only his thighs would settle between hers. Only his lips would wrest a broken cry from her throat when he nipped her neck. Only he would know he could reduce her to sobbing his name by teasing, then suckling her pert nipples. Only he would hear the moaning scream she issued when he nipped one with his teeth. Only he would be gifted with the sweet dampness between her thighs when he delicately explored her silken folds.