Quinn walked to the pile of clothes and dug in the tunic pocket. ‘Here.’ He came closer and held out the key to her. ‘Take it and then tell me again what you want.’
‘You,’ Lina said baldly, holding out her hand. Quinn laid the key on her open palm, she twisted her wrist and let the key slide to the floor.
‘I warn you,’ Quinn said, c
losing the space between them and laying his hands on her shoulders. ‘I am angry with you, Celina. I am not sure still if I forgive you. I am not in the mood for sweet nothings, for wooing, for games. I need a professional and no frills. You understand me?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Lina lied with no idea what he meant. ‘I am yours.’ She smiled, and felt as though she had stepped from the top of a tall tower into space. She was falling, but there was no terror, only the consciousness that she had made an irrevocable decision.
If I am not afraid, if I don’t show fear, he will not know, surely? she thought. No, that’s another lie. I must tell him.
‘Quinn, you ought to know, it isn’t what you think, I really am—’
‘Later,’ he said, his voice husky as he began to unfasten her gown. ‘Now is not the time for talking.’
‘But—’ And then the gown slid from her shoulders and he bent his head and took her right nipple in his mouth, sucking through the fine lawn of her shift and Lina felt her protest vanish in a gasp as sensation lanced through her from breast to groin. Quinn’s fingers were busy with her laces even as he switched from one aching bud to the other, tormenting, licking, soaking the lawn until it moulded to her breasts.
Her stays fell away and he lifted the chemise and once again she was naked in front of an aroused man. Panic seized her, then she looked up and met his eyes, clear, green, intent, and the fear changed into a quivering apprehension laced with need and desire. Not quite naked, she thought, biting her lip against the wild laughter that was bubbling up, trying to escape. I still have my stockings, my garters, my shoes.
Quinn knelt, took her left foot and eased the soft kid slipper off, then took the other and removed that too. Lina caught her breath as she looked down on the dark head, bent so that the long hair parted, exposing his nape. He looked curiously vulnerable and she touched his head, a feeling of tenderness she had never experienced before sweeping away the shocking urgency of her desire.
This is why women yield, she thought, no longer trying to understand why she was doing this. Expediency, desperation, the need for protection all vanished in the overwhelming need to be touched, to be loved, by this man. Then he leaned in, kissed her right leg above the garter, his hands stroking down over her hips to hold her, and any trace of tenderness melted into the desire.
The bare skin was sensitive where it was constricted by the garter and Quinn’s questing mouth felt scandalously intimate as he licked upwards. Lina groped behind her and found the bed post, seized it gratefully and hung on, waiting for him to stand. But the soft kisses, the wet, luxurious licks, kept travelling higher, higher until she gave a little scream as his tongue flickered into the moist secrets between her thighs.
She had seen pictures of this in the wicked little books that were scattered around at The Blue Door, but she had never imagined that a man would do that to her the very first time they were together. Nor had she imagined it to be anything but embarrassing and strange.
It was strange, yes. Her head fell back against the post as her hands reached out to cradle Quinn’s head, to hold him, to prevent him ever stopping this shameful, wonderful thing that was turning her into a quivering, liquid creature of flame and passion.
‘Yes!’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, standing up in time to catch her as her knees gave way. ‘But time for that later. Show me, Lina. Show me those skills you have been keeping so secret.’
Chapter Thirteen
He wants me to make love to him? Lina closed her eyes on the sudden alarm. I want him, I want to pleasure him…but he will guess, surely? Or would he? Could she counterfeit enough skill from what she had heard, observed, read in those explicit little pillow books? She had begun to understand her own body now, what pleased her, what made her shudder with terrified delight. Could she use that understanding to make love to Quinn?
He was standing there, his hands supporting her, waiting. She opened her eyes and studied him under lowered lashes. He was beautiful and she wanted to touch him, to taste him. She licked her lips and saw his eyes following the movement, saw the effect that whatever was in his imagination had on his arousal.
Lina turned, bringing him with her until his back was against the bed post, then she caught his hands and put them behind his back, making a pretence of shackling his wrists with one hand. She was so close that their bodies rubbed together intimately, sending heat spiralling through her. She was wet with desire for him already, she realised, trembling with daring at what she was doing.
Quinn’s eyes on her face burned with desire, with demands she could only guess at. Trembling, Lina bent her head and swept her tongue over the flat muscles above his right nipple, tasting salt and musk and man. The kick of delight surprised her, then the tip of her tongue found his nipple and she teased it, closing her eyes at the sensation, feeling it knot under the laving strokes.
He groaned, deep in his throat, and his hands shifted as he gripped the bed post as though she had truly tied him there. She licked her way across to the other nipple, tormented that until he was shuddering, then slowly slid to her knees, her tongue trailing down to circle his navel.
Lina put her hands on his narrow hips, more to steady herself than to hold him and Quinn shifted his feet apart as she realised where she was going, where this was leading, what he expected. Her shyness, her fears, seemed to have vanished. Lina stroked her cheek against the hot, hard length of him, fascinated at how soft the skin was, intrigued to feel the reaction to her slightest touch.
‘Lina.’ It was a plea and a gasp and a groan and she reached for him, took him in both hands, felt him shudder. ‘More…’
There was that book that had shown… Dare she? Her grip tightened as she thought it, drawing a groan from Quinn’s throat, and she tried a tentative stroke, up, down. It was so arousing, so overwhelming. Yes, she dared. Lina bent her head to him and let herself drown in the sensation of pleasuring a man. This man.
His hands came to grip her head, she could feel his whole body shuddering with the effort not to thrust, then he freed her, bent and caught her up. Lina felt herself being laid back on the bed. The mattress dipped, his hands slipped under her buttocks, raised her and then, before she had time to understand what was happening, Quinn entered her with one long thrust.
It was shocking, so much faster and harder and more than she had been expecting. Lina, even as aroused as she was, gasped, ‘Quinn!’ Her body arched beneath his, fighting to accommodate him, searching instinctively to make the joining possible. But the shock was not the pain—she had expected that and it was fleeting, unimportant. The shock was the pleasure. She had not realised how he would feel within her, how she would be completed by his body, how the sensation of being filled almost to the point of endurance could be so terrifying and so wonderful all at once.
Her body quivered and almost instantly she felt it yield, to begin to caress him, to open to him. Sensation flooded her, even through the lingering discomfort, the consciousness of her own clumsiness as she tried to mould herself to Quinn’s long body and the drive of his hips.
‘Hell!’ Lina’s eyes flew open as Quinn pulled away from her, out of her, the heat and weight of his body vanishing to leave her bereft and confused. He flung himself to one side of the wide bed and lay there breathing like a man who had run hard and fast.