t night, but she was experiencing the same pull now as she had experienced then, without the magic of moonlight and music and disguises. She was baffled by her reaction. She set her hand on his chest, maybe distantly thinking to give herself some space to think, but her fingers splayed to take in as much firm muscle as she could. She could feel his heartbeat and it chipped away at any attempt at rational thought.
He moved his hands to her waist, his touch a caress. An invitation to move closer. She stiffened slightly as tingles of pleasure wafted through her.
He lifted his hands off her so only the heat radiating from his palms touched her. “No?”
She wavered. She had spent her life drowning in a dry sea and his touch was a lifeline so compelling and welcome, so powerful, that she yearned for him, but she didn’t know how to tell him she wanted him to touch her. It felt like a weakness to need it so badly.
Her body spoke for her, flowing without conscious volition. Her hand slid up behind his neck while her other arm reached to encircle his waist. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see how he reacted, only pressed herself to his front and lifted her mouth in offering.
His mouth landed on hers, sending a ball of heat into her middle while his arms closed across her back, pressing the air from her lungs. Maybe she forgot to breathe. She didn’t care. She only wanted this. The uncivilized taste of him and the way her muscles quivered in response.
When he dragged his head up, she whimpered in protest.
“Open your eyes.” His hand cradled her jaw, oddly tender when he was holding her in such a hard clasp, but maybe he was holding her up.
She blinked her eyes open, watched him slowly smile at whatever dazed sensuality was clouding her gaze. It was so intimate that her eyes grew wet. She could barely stand it, but couldn’t look away. Her blood pounded in a primal, painful beat.
“I wanted to see that,” he whispered. “What I do to you.”
“It’s too much.”
“But you’ll come to my bed anyway.”
“I will,” she capitulated, and gasped as he swept her up. Two steps later, he set her on the mattress.
He came down with her, his mouth swooping to possess hers again, ravenous. She tried to keep up, unable to pull apart the sensations that bombarded her. A whisking touch, a tender nibble and the abrasion of his cheek as he went after her neck. The sudden skim of his fingers against her thigh would have been more shocking if she hadn’t somehow pulled his shirt free and was mindlessly brushing her palms across his bare back.
His muscular body, hard as iron, half pinned her, and his eyes filled with shifts and flashes when he pulled back enough to look at her again.
Fascinated, she watched his face as he lifted and found the catch that belted her jacket. Slowly he worked the buckle free and opened the front, settling beside her as he revealed her bronze camisole with its matching bra beneath.
“This is what I wanted time for that night.” He flattened his hand on her stomach, shifting hot-cool silk across her torso, bending to nuzzle where lace met quivering skin. “To undress you.”
He tugged at a sleeve and she pulled her arm free, then draped it across his shoulders, fingertips seeking the heat beneath his collar at the back of his neck.
She learned the difference between expecting and anticipating as she offered her other sleeve only to have him kiss the inside of her wrist, settle his mouth over hers in a way that drugged her into a mindless state and then, when she was trembling, he finally pulled her other arm free.
Hardly anyone had ever seen her this naked and only her jacket was gone. It wasn’t just the lack of clothing that was revealing so much as the way her stomach quivered and her nipples pressed against the cups of her bra, and how her hips angled into him the way leaves of a plant sought the sun. Her desire rose so fiercely that she dampened silk he couldn’t see and bit her lip against a groan of erotic suffering.
He was killing her, looking at her, biting against lace, slipping a strap down her shoulder, lifting to watch the slither of silk as he drew it up and away.
The way he ate up every inch of skin he exposed bolstered yet destroyed her. And the way he roamed his hand across her, from hip to the underwire of her bra, back down to her navel, then up to trace the swell of her breast against the edge of the cup, turned her inside out.
He began to devour her, stubble scuffing her chest while he teasingly bit at her nipples through the bra before he trailed his tongue where his fingertips had been and delved behind the cup to flick at her nipple.
She made a keening noise and his hand hardened on her hip, urging her to withstand his teasing until he finally took pity on her and released her bra, helping her remove it. He returned to lave and nuzzle and suck, driving her so mad that she hitched her ankle around his and tried to insinuate herself beneath him.
He growled and scraped his mouth down her center, making her abs jump at the flick of his tongue into her navel. He groaned in pleasured satisfaction as he reached the waistband of her skirt and discovered it stretched easily to slide down her hips.
He set kisses on one hip then the other, and kept sliding down with a whisper of his body moving against the covers. As he revealed her panties, he trailed kisses down her thigh, making her melt. Making her burn.
“Angelo,” she gasped, shaking with arousal.
“I want you naked this time.” The skirt was tossed to the floor. “Completely naked. So all you feel is me.” He began inching the lace down her thighs.
She pressed her legs together, trying to ease the aching between them, then met his gaze as he patiently waited for her to bite her lip, then relax to let him peel off the lace panties.
He rose onto his knees and tossed them away. Then he dragged at his own clothing, movements efficient, gaze traveling over her as he stood to remove his pants.