She looked into his eyes. In the same instant, he registered that she was as naked as he. She was all warm silken limbs and lush curves.
Her gaze lowered to his lips. He looked at hers.
She reached for him as he closed his arms about her. Who kissed whom first was moot.
What followed was their usual tussle for sensual supremacy. In the kiss, she ultimately gave way, let him plunder her mouth as he wished, as he wanted. But even while she accommodated him there, with her hands on his shoulders, she pressed him back.
Distracted, he obliged, rolling onto his back.
Lying back, he watched her rise over him in the moon-drenched dark, watched her straighten, watched her arch as she slowly, smoothly, with total control impaled herself on him, as she sheathed him in her body’s lush heat.
Then she rode him, slowly, deliberately driving both him and herself inexorably on, harder, faster, until the peak of fulfillment beckoned.
He caught her hips and rolled, tipping her, then trapping her beneath him. Settling between her thighs, he spread them wider, urging her long legs over his. Pinning her deep in the cushioning mattress, he thrust deep. Home.
Bending his head, he found her lips and filled her mouth as his body joined with hers, plundering to the same primitively erotic beat.
Clarice couldn’t think, could only respond and embrace the moment. Drink in the sensations, the familiar, comforting, freeing dimness, the heat pouring through them, a delicious flame, the powerful flexing of his body as he covered her, possessed her, as they danced within the cocoon of the apple blossom covers, enclosed in a world of passion and desire.
Hot passion, wild desire.
At his urging, she wrapped her legs about his hips, felt his hand spread beneath her bottom, tipping her hips to his. Gasped as he drove deeper into her willing body, into her heat, into the furnace that built and built as he stoked, stroked, until nothing else mattered but the raging flames, the drive for release, the need for completion.
The shattering desperation that it should claim them both.
It came in a rush, and did.
For one long moment, they clung to the peak, trapped in and consumed by the glory, then they tumbled and fell, into blessed oblivion.
He collapsed upon her. Limbs like jelly, she held him, slowly stroked the long muscles of his back. Listened to his heart thunder, then slow. Felt his heartbeat within her, felt her own in her skin, in her fingertips, easing.
Eventually, he stirred enough to lift from her. Slumping onto the bed, he slid an arm beneath her and drew her to him, settled her against him.
Boneless, she let him; laying her head on his chest, she murmured, “That was not how it was supposed to be.”
She’d intended to stay in control, to use her body to overwhelm him, to watch as she sated him. She was still curious over, fascinated by, the fact that she could.
He relaxed, sinking deeper into the bed. “You won’t always get what you want.”
Her lids were too heavy to lift, to stare, to react to his tone, one that suggested he’d understood her intent but hadn’t been of a mind to indulge her.
If she’d had the strength, she would have taken issue with such arrogance, but pleasure lay too heavy in her veins. Some other time.
Right now, the principal issue claiming her mind was how to prolong their liaison in London. That’s what she’d been thinking about while she’d waited in the dark for him to join her. Somewhat contrary to her expectations, she was in no hurry to termi
nate their affair, not yet. There was a lot she’d yet to learn, and a great deal he could teach her. Arrogant lord though he might be, he definitely had his uses.
Stirring, she leaned back against his arm, lifting her head so she could look up at his face. A heavy lock of his hair, a medley of light browns shot with blond, had fallen across his forehead. Reaching up, she brushed it aside just as he turned his head to look at her. The side of her hand connected awkwardly with his temple.
Even in the poor light, she saw him wince. Felt the spike of pain that raked him.
“What is it?” She heard alarm in her voice, realized it was because she saw him as invincible, yet knew he wasn’t. He was only flesh and blood, and flesh and blood could so easily die.
She half expected him to say “Nothing,” but after a moment’s hesitation, he relaxed back on the pillows. “A recent injury.”
“Recent?” She struggled to sit the better to examine him; his arm tightened and held her down. She frowned at him. “How recent?”
“A few weeks.”