Feeling encouraged by his reaction, she tilted her head and explored his mouth ...
tentatively at first, but then with growing eagerness as she registered his familiar taste and he began to participate, rubbing his tongue sensually against her own.
Their kiss continued, exploratory, languid ... more delicious than she could begin to describe. Liquid heat swelled at her sex, and she pressed against his hard chest to alleviate the throb in her nipples. His hand opened along her ribs inches below her armpit, his palm lightly caressing the sides of her breasts. His other hand came up to twine in her unbound hair. He tugged gently and broke the magical kiss.
She saw that he watched her with hawk-like intensity.
"So this is how you would like to spend the evening, witch?"
She met his gaze solemnly and nodded. "If you would find that agreeable."
His low laughter caused the back of her neck to roughen. She couldn't resist leaning down and touching his curving lips with her own.
"Agreeable seems like a pretty lukewarm description to describe how I feel at the prospect of making love to you."
Hope swallowed. "I was hoping that.. ."
"Yes?" he asked when she faded off in rising discomfort.
"I was hoping that you would allow me to make love to you, Ryan."
"It's always a mutual endeavor, honey."
"Yes, but last night.. . you ... you made me feel good again and again, and yet you .. ."
"Only came once? Is that what you mean?"
She stared at his chest and nodded.
"Hope, look at me. It's true that I can come more than once, but in general women have shorter refractory periods between orgasms." Her puzzlement must have been clear because he continued, "A man usually can't come as frequently as a woman in the same amount of time."
"Oh, I see."
His mouth quirked. "I'm not so sure that you do, but you will soon enough given the amount of time I plan on making love to you."
Warmth spread into her cheeks and downward from her belly to her sex when she heard he intended to make love to her often. Didn't that imply he wanted to spend a considerable amount of time with her?
"So may I now?"
"May you what?"
This time instead of a gentle warmth, heat scalded her cheeks. "Make you .. . come?" she asked tentatively, trying out the word in this new context for the first time.
He gave her a slow smile that made her clamp her thighs together to still the dull throb between them.
"Be my guest, witch."
TWENTY-ONE
Hope's heart began to throb in her ears as she leaned on her elbow and reached for the hem of Ryan's shirt. She slowly drew it up over his torso. When the s
hirt reached his chest he obligingly shrugged out of it with a fascinating flex of ridged muscle and tossed it on the floor. She looked down at the breathtaking male landscape just inches away from her face.
She ran her hand over the delineated muscles of his abdomen and up over his ribs. They shivered in tandem.
"I've never seduced a man before."
"You're wrong."