He took a knife from his pocket and began cutting away her clothes, each rip a sensuous tug against her oversensitive skin. “Tell me.”
“You bedded them, woman after woman.” She remembered the jealousy, the deep, cutting pain. He pulled the bodice entirely off her. “So many I couldn’t even keep track. Could you?”
“No,” he said softly.
He wrenched off her skirts and threw them to the floor. Taking off her shoes, he tossed them away as well. “I don’t even remember their names.”
“Damn you.” She was naked now, save for her stockings and garters. Her hands were bound above her, but her legs were free. She kicked at him and hit his thigh.
He fell on her heavily, his hips across hers. His mouth was on her breast again, his hand combing through the curls at the top of her thighs. “Tell me.”
“I watched you for years,” she whispered. The tears were drying on her cheeks, and heat was building within her. If he would just touch her. Touch her there. “I watched you and you never saw me.”
“I see you now,” he said, licking around a nipple. He trailed his tongue across her breast and to the other breast, circling the nipple there. Delicately. Tenderly.
Damn him.
“You didn’t even know my name.”
“I know it now.” He tested her flesh with his teeth.
Pleasure mixed with pain shot through her, straight from her nipple to where his hand still played. She arched, silently begging, and he relented, sucking the nipple strongly into his mouth.
“You . . .” She swallowed, trying to focus her thoughts. “You didn’t know I existed.”
“I do now.”
And he slid down her body, spreading her knees and draping her calves over his shoulders.
She bucked, trying to dislodge him, but she couldn’t budge him any more now than she could before.
He lowered his head and licked her sex.
Her belly contracted in shock, her bound hands fisted, and then she closed her eyes and simply felt. The wet stroke of his tongue, the fingers of one hand flexing on her hip bone, the other petting her mound. He licked and licked again, each stroke slow and intimate. Each stroke hitting her clitoris. She flexed her fingers, feeling the tension build. He moved his hands, spreading her folds, opening her and making her vulnerable.
She bit her lip, waiting, waiting.
And then he set his mouth directly on her bud and sucked. Nibbling, dragging, pulling on that bit of flesh until she couldn’t stand it anymore and broke. She arched, thrusting her pelvis into his face, feeling the heat flashing through her, hearing the pound of her heartbeat. He still licked and sucked, his hands heavy, holding her down. Another wave hit and she moaned, the sound loud in the quiet room. Some other time she might care, might feel embarrassed at the erotic sounds she was making, but right now . . .
Oh, God. Right now, she was a creature of pleasure.
He thrust two fingers into her, still gently licking with devastating accuracy, and she trembled. Her whole body tightened, arching, her muscles tensing, waiting. She couldn’t. She was too weak, too spent.
And then he moved his fingers within her and sucked again on her flesh. The muscles inside her contracted and released. She came, shaking with the force of her orgasm, shuddering and gasping. White heat spread from her center in a widening pool of pleasure. She went limp with warm relief.
She felt him move. Opening her eyes lazily, she found him lowering her legs. She let them lie on the bed, her thighs spread wide and wanton. He stared at her exposed center as he stood and removed his clothes.
“I can’t change the past,” he said. “I can’t unbed the women I fucked before I knew you. Knew who you were.”
His eyes raised to hers, and the blue of them was so bright it nearly illuminated the room. “But I tell you now that I will never bed another woman besides you in my lifetime. You are all I want. You are all I see now.”
He stepped from his breeches, and she saw that he was erect, his penis standing to his navel in primitive masculine pride. He climbed onto the bed and prowled up her body, straight-armed. His planted fists made the muscles in his shoulders and arms flex and bunch.
She swallowed. “Untie me.”
“No,” he said calmly, though his voice was a rasp. He bent and scraped his teeth over her throat.
She shivered in erotic anticipation.