Odd that she now felt powerful when he was so clearly in control. But Emma wasn't the least bit timid when she walked the few steps to his massive bed. She stood on tiptoe to brace one knee against the silken tapestry of the bedcover, then she pulled herself up and crawled toward the pillows, picturing her own body in her mind. Tormenting him with every twitch of her hips.
She thought she heard his breath hitch, and then the cool silk was against her belly, her breasts, and Hart's hand was smoothing up her calf.
"You will. . ." she started, shocked to find her voice so weak. "You are determined to treat me as you treat every woman?"
"Ha." His humorless laugh tickled the back of her knee. Emma could feel his chest brush her heels. "Yes, I mean to treat you like any other woman, but I will fail spectacularly." He spoke closer to her thigh now. His hand caressed the tender skin behind her knee before it rose to massage higher. "I mean to take you simply and savagely, but I can't imagine how. What I want is so much more. I want to have you the way I used to have women." His mouth brushed the back of her thigh, swirling darkness past Emma's vision.
"You. . . You refer to your past? You want me to be one of those women who would . . . a companion for those. . .?" She found she could not speak of it. He was arousing her with his touch, breaking her heart with his words.
"Those secret, sinful parties? Would you like that? Would it arouse you to watch strangers having sex? To know they were watching you as they clawed toward their peak?"
"I. . ." He would make her into what she'd always feared, give her over to the monsters.
His hand smoothed up, fingers curving to fit the flesh of her buttocks. "Yes, I would take you there, beast that I am. That is what you reduce me to, Emma. The selfish, sexual animal I used to be. I want to sneak you into one of those homes, watch as you watch, as you blush and grow wet with horrified arousal. I want to be that man with you, but also something more. I'd never let them touch you. Even if you wanted, I would never share."
She froze, her grief suspended in disbelief. "I would never—"
"Good, because you would not. I would not let them even gaze upon you. But I would escort you there, and I would have you. In secret, alone, against the door of a dark chamber.
"I want you like that. And I want you like this." He kissed her, lingered over her hip as his palm pressed into the small of her back. Emma could feel his shaft now, thick and heavy against her leg. She squirmed, pressing her sex harder to the bed.
"I want you like this," he went on, voice deep and mesmerizing. "And I want you on your hands and knees. I want you on your back. I want you tied to my bed with silk ribbons."
Her gasp couldn't be contained by the pillow.
Hart chuckled. "Would you like that? Helpless, limbs spread, sex naked and open? I want to be wicked and shameful with you. I want to do things I've refused to even think of for ten years. I want to lean you over a bench in Covent Gardens, have you right there while people pass by only yards away. I want to hide you behind drawn curtains at a ball, make you come while I swallow your cries with my mouth."
His kisses worked their way up to her waist, then climbed up to her spine. His knee nudged her legs apart; his arousal was heat and strength against her thigh. Emma spread her legs farther.
"You and that bedroom voice and that knowledge in your eyes. You've reminded me of who I don't want to be, Emma."
"Yes," she sobbed as his tongue traced a circle over her shoulder blade. He sucked her flesh between his teeth, bit a gentle pressure there. His thigh pressed between her legs and she opened for him, arching her back, grinding her hot sex into the coolness of his leg. The crisp hair of his thigh tickled her skin as his muscles flexed and rolled.
"You're so wet for me. I haven't even touched you."
My God, she knew that, she knew it as she wriggled against him, needing his attention. His shaft was pressed hard to her thigh, and she wanted it between them, wanted it inside her.
"Shh," he whispered. His tongue teased her skin until he reached her neck. He kissed her a half dozen times, his touch a confusion of lips and tongue and teeth. She groaned and arched and raised her hips like a cat in heat.
"Please. Hart."
His knee shifted and she felt a sharp hope, but then he was nudging her thighs closed, straddling her legs and raising up on his hands.
"Turn over."
Emma scrambled, twisting beneath him until she was looking up into his moon-bright eyes. Holding her breath, she waited, waited. Hart eased his knees between hers, his jaw jumped and he closed his eyes as his sex touched hers for the first time.
"Yes," she breathed, "Yes, yes." But he shook his head and offered a cruel smile.
"No, not for a long while yet, Lady Denmore."
She was going to demand an explanation, but then he was leaning down to kiss her and she ceased to care. His kisses were deep and hot and he rocked his shaft into her mons in a slow, slow rhythm.
His kisses alone were a wicked sexual act. He sucked and tasted and nibbled and licked until Emma found that she could no longer breathe. But when she turned away, gasping, he simply moved to her neck where he sucked and tasted and nibbled and licked. Then down to her collarbone, her shoulder, the rise of her breasts. When he finally reached her nipple, she was desperate and sobbing, and when he caught that hard bud between his teeth, she was horrified to hear herself cry out in a tiny scream.
Hart chuckled against her. She glanced down to find him watching her face with arrogant pleasure. "That was a lovely sound. Let's see if we can find it again."
She clamped her mouth shut and considered pushing him off her, and then his tongue worked while his mouth sucked and Emma was reduced to a panting wreck.