Okay, then.
Gathering her courage, she joined him on the bed and let her gaze roam all over him. There was so much of him to explore, so she straddled him, the hard length of him pressing into her in the most delicious way, and ran her hands over his shoulders and then down his arms, feathering her fingertips over the dips and contours of his muscles and delighting in the way they tensed beneath her touch.
And now she wanted to taste him, so, remembering the pleasure she felt when he held her breast and teased her nipple, she bent down and touched her tongue to his and licked. He shuddered and hissed out a breath, so she did it again, the salty tang of his skin making her taste buds dance and sing, and suddenly she wanted to touch him and taste him everywhere. Thoroughly. The way she’d been too afraid to try all those weeks ago.
And though she’d never done anything remotely like it before, and though she was bound to be clumsy and inept, she’d never know if she didn’t try. If he laughed she could always make him pay. Somehow.
Shifting herself lower, she ran a hand down his body, over the ridges of his muscled abdomen and the faint trace of a scar, and feeling him shudder. Tentatively she touched the head of his erection and then stroked her fingers along his rock-hard length. His skin there was surprisingly soft and velvety and she was gripped by the need to feel it properly, so she wrapped her hand round him and slid it gently up from base to tip and then down again.
Theo growled and thrust into her hand, which was intriguing. As was the bead of liquid gathered at the tip. She rubbed her thumb over it and his hips jerked. She bent her head and licked, and was about to do it again when he put a hand at the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair, and pulled her away.
‘You need to stop,’ he said, his breathing sketchy and harsh.
Her heart skipped a beat as her stomach plummeted. Oh. Had she been doing it wrong? ‘Really?’
‘If you don’t, this will be over embarrassingly quickly.’
Phew. She hadn’t been doing it wrong. And she didn’t mind that he’d stopped her, because his rampant need for her and the tight desperation she could hear in his voice were sending shockwaves of desire pulsing through her and if she didn’t get him inside her just as soon as she could she might well combust.
She kissed him because it had been too long since her lips had been on his, shifted again and pressed her pelvis into his. Acting on the need drumming away inside her she rubbed herself against him and it sent such sparks of pleasure through her that she did it again and again, until her head was spinning and she couldn’t carry on kissing him because she couldn’t breathe. She tore her mouth from his, her breath coming in short sharp pants, and all she could think about was racing towards a finishing line that was simultaneously rushing towards her.
‘Kate,’ he growled and she opened her eyes to see his brows drawn in concentration and his jaw clenched.
‘Yes?’
‘I know I said you could do what you want but there’s a limit to how much of this I can take.’
That went for her as well. She was so close to the edge, one more rub and she’d have been flying apart around him. But she wanted to come with him inside her again and she wanted it desperately, so she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed herself up. She lifted her hips, her pulse thundering, took him in her hand and angled him so that he was poised at her entrance. Then she lowered herself onto him, slowly, feeling every inch of him, hearing his low groan and shivering when he put his hands on her waist.
‘I think I might start moving,’ she said hoarsely.
‘Don’t let me stop you.’
Nothing could stop her. She was being driven by a force that she still didn’t fully understand but was all up for going with. She rolled her hips experimentally and Theo moaned, so she did it again a bit harder and this time she moaned. He felt so good. He seemed to be touching her everywhere.
She leaned forwards to kiss him and gasped as the shift in angle meant he hit a spot deep within her and set off a whole new set of explosions. She felt his hands move to her hips, guiding her, moving her, while her breasts rubbed against his hair-roughened chest, the friction rocking her world.
As the delicious pressure inside her grew and everything began to tighten she found herself moving with increasing urgency and less coordination. Her control was history. The desire and need pounding through her was relentless. Unable to help herself, she whimpered against his mouth, she might even have begged. She didn’t know. All she knew was that Theo suddenly tilted his hips up and buried himself deep as she ground down, and that was it. White-hot pleasure burst inside her like a firework and lights flashed behind her eyelids and her entire world turned upside down.
* * *
Explosive. That was what that had been, thought Theo with the one brain cell capable of functioning. He’d never experienced anything like it. He’d never ceded control in bed. He’d never even considered it. But perhaps that had been a mistake because he’d just done exactly that and his mind had been blown.
The lack of self-consciousness with which Kate had explored him and the abandoned confidence with which she’d taken what she wanted was breathtaking. She was breathtaking. She was also lying naked beside him, uncovered and unashamed, stretching and practically purring with satisfaction, and incredibly he wanted her again.
But giving up control once was more than enough and her allure wasn’t that irresistible. To prove it he would make himself wait. He would use conversation as a distraction. He might even try and get the answer to a question that had been bugging him for weeks.
Rolling onto his side, Theo propped himself up on one elbow. ‘So what exactly is this?’ he asked, trailing the fingers of his other hand over the tattoo at Kate’s hip and feeling her shiver beneath his touch.
‘It’s an upside-down swallow,’ she said with a breathlessness that made him briefly wonder why he’d thought it a good idea to wait.
‘Why an upside-down swallow?’
‘It represents me flipping the bird at the entire male sex. I was twenty and fed up with still not being able to get a date. I wanted to make a point.’
‘It’s pretty.’
‘It’s actually pretty pointless.’