Nick took the tiny tab between his finger and thumb. His hands captivated her with their strength and startling dexterity. They were big and rough and looked like they should be clumsy, but their touch told her that he could juggle eggshells.
He undid the zipper in one quick tug. The dress fell at her feet, leaving her completely nude before him, clad only in her jewelry. She stood straight and still in the warm air, letting his hungry gaze roam over her naked body.
Raluca felt bare in more ways than one. He could see her chest move as her breathing quickened, see her nipples hardening and eyes burning silver, no doubt smell her arousal. With other men, she’d been reluctant to expose herself so completely, and had turned out the lights before undressing. But Nick had seen her spit wine all over a table, and he still wanted her. The only way she could change that was if she chose to push him away.
“Your dragonmarks,” Nick said. His voice too caught; he too was breathing fast and hard, as he had when he’d swept her into his arms. “They do go around your breast. I kept wondering if they did.”
“You can touch them, if you like.”
Nick put a finger on the beginning of the dragonmark, at her shoulder. The intensity of the sensation made her gasp.
He froze. “Does it hurt? Or is it just sensitive?”
“Just sensitive,” Raluca managed. “In a good way.”
Nick grinned. “Gotcha.”
He ran his finger down her dragonmark, following it as it swirled over her shoulder. Her entire body felt drawn into the path of his caress, so intimate and unexpectedly gentle. His hands looked rough and big, but the pads of his fingers were smooth, his touch moving easily from strong to feather-light.
Then he stepped up close, moved his hands to her waist, and began to trace the dragonmark with his mouth, kissing and licking his way from her shoulder to her chest to her breast. Raluca stood trembling as he worked his way around her breast, following the line of glittering silver as it spiraled around her breast and nipple. Electric shocks of pleasure went through her whole body, not just her breast.
It was just as it had been in the dressing room. Small touches from Nick were more powerful than the entirety of every sexual act she’d had before.
She bent her down and kissed what she could reach of him, which was the tousled black hair on top of his head. She didn’t have werewolf senses, but she enjoyed the scent of his hair. Like the rest of him, it smelled like leather and steel with an underlying warmth, masculine and enticing.
He tipped his head back, offering her his lips, and she kissed him there before he bent his head again. But Nick didn’t stop at her breasts. He slid downward, kissing and nibbling past her dragonmarks, to her belly. Then he was down on his knees before her, still fully dressed. He glanced up at her, and she saw the same intensity of purpose blazing in his eyes that he’d had when he’d drunk the cocktail she’d offered him.
Then he bent to lick between her legs. Raluca jumped at the shock of pleasure. No man had ever done that before.
“Just sensitive?” Nick murmured.
He spoke from where he was, sending his warm breath over her wet folds. She jumped again, then grabbed on to his shoulders for support.
“Yes,” Raluca managed. “Don’t stop.”
He didn’t. His tongue flicked over her swollen bud, then moved to caress every tender inch of her. Raluca’s control dissolved under his lips, leaving her shaking and crying out aloud. His strong hands held her safe and tight, and she clutched his shoulders with an abandon that she’d have never been able to do with a human man. But Nick didn’t flinch. If anything, he seemed to enjoy the strength of her grip.
Raluca let herself be carried away on the tides of ecstasy until they peaked in a climax more intense than she’d ever be able to give herself. She drifted on its currents, warm and content, then came back to herself as Nick lifted her off her feet and laid her down on the bed.
She looked up at him and was startled into laughter. He was still in his suit, though it was crumpled and the handkerchief and carnation had come off.
“What?” he asked.
“You do look great in the suit,” Raluca said, her words breaking up in fits of giggles. “But you don’t have to keep wearing it!”
Even as she spoke, she worried that he’d take it the wrong way. But Nick laughed too, easily and without defensiveness, his eyes sparkling and his body taut with nothing more than arousal. “Take it off, then. I’m not sure I even know how.”
Raluca rose, pulled him down to the bed so they were both sitting on it, and began to strip him. She knew her way around a white tie suit, if only from watching her cousins learn to put on theirs. Nick looked startled when she began with his feet, and she knew he hadn’t expected a princess to touch his shoes.
“You knelt for me,” she pointed out.
“Well, I wanted to do that,” Nick replied. “And you liked it.”
“I want to do this.” Raluca slipped off his socks, discarding them beside the bed. She hadn’t expected to be captivated by his bare feet, but she was. She’d never seen them before, and they were so nicely proportioned and strong-looking. She caressed them, and was rewarded with another surprised but pleased inhale. “And you like it too.”
“A princess giving me a foot rub...” Nick cut himself off. “No. You’re not a princess now. You’re just Raluca, right?”
She nodded. Now that they’d found their balance, they understood each other so easily. “Just Raluca.”