He slow blinked, his out breath was audible.
“And no one has done this yet?”
“Nothing as comprehensive as what we’ve got.”
She put her hand to his face and he raised his eyes to hers. She leant across and kissed him, softly, quickly, then drew back. He looked bemused. She laughed. “You’re cute when you’re intense.”
He frowned, and then he pounced, pushing her back on the bed, nudging her knees apart and settling himself between them. He had her robe undone and his hands on her, his lips at her collarbone. “Oh God.”
He kissed his way from her neck to her sternum, his hands at her back, lifting her to his mouth. At her belly, he raised his head, dragged his chin across her hip, prickling her skin. “Still think I’m cute?”
There was a right answer here, but she had no idea what it was. Her hands were in his short clipped hair. “Yes.”
“Wrong answer.” He scraped his teeth over her hipbone.
“No!”
He nipped her, hard, and she writhed in his hold.
“Mace!”
He liked that answer. She felt his grin, felt his laugh low on her abdomen, then his mouth on her. That tongue that got tangled with talking had no trouble making her blood hammer in her ears, her eyes shut fast. She draped one leg over his shoulder and gave herself up to him.
Whatever data he’d gathered on her, he used it to send her pulse into overdrive. He’d talked about personal control, but he’d taken hers and bent it to his will. Her peak was so high, so sharp, so shocking she clutched at the bedclothes trying to find a way through it. He found her hand, closing over it, threading his fingers through hers, grounding her while he pushed her towards a summit so unexpected she feared the fall.
He took her over that edge and he held her while she lost her breath and shook apart and when she could open her eyes he was watching her.
“Fuck. I want to do that again.” He brought their joined hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “To see you let go like that. Beautiful.”
She reached for him. “You didn’t.”
“Nope.” He crawled up her body.
“That’s not—”
“What, fair, right?” He hovered over her, the evidence of their one-sided affair brushing her thigh. “I’m happy.”
“You can’t be.”
“Yeah, I can. I have a plan.”
“Plan A?”
He laughed. “A side plan.” He wrapped his arms around her back and rolled them, pulling her down so she was hip to hip with him. He groaned and closed his eyes, as though he hadn’t factored her weight on his erection feeling so good, flexing his pelvis to grind against her. She would’ve willingly spread her legs and taken him in, but he lifted her away. “A plan to try out your pool.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have a pool.”
He settled her in his lap and stood up. She wrapped an arm around his neck and he lifted her. “Yeah you do.”
He carried her to the bathroom. His gait unsteady as he favoured his good foot. He sat her on the wide marble vanity while he turned on the taps. He tossed in bath salts and came back to stand between her legs, his hands spread on her thighs. “This okay by you?”
It was the holiday of a lifetime. Using the bath was novelty enough. She never bothered, it took too long to fill, and what was the point sitting in its temperature-controlled vastness alone.
“I want to kiss you. I should borrow a toothbrush.”
She tilted her head up and kissed him. “I like the taste of us.” The taste, the smell, the whole idea of them was starting to interfere with her sanity. But looking at him, the sheer masculine grace of him, no one could fault her short-term madness.
He grunted his approval and kissed her back, his hand pressing up her backbone, then cupping her head, tying her to him. Nothing easy about this kiss, nothing tentative, slow rising or gentle. While the bath filled she drowned in his mouth, in the tide of his tongue and the suck of his lips. The air filled with lavender scent and her robe was pushed off her shoulders, their torsos surged together. He slapped a hand to her thigh to drag her against his penis, groaning when their heat met. That sting was replaced by the bite of his fingers at her nipple, and the nip of his teet