One heartbeat before the point of no return, she slowed her attentions, then drew back.
His chest heaved; the night air felt cool against his damp, heated skin. She released him, rocked back, rose.
Fingers loose around his straining erection, she reached up and drew his head down. Kissed him, but briefly; drawing back, with her teeth, she tugged his lower lip—refocusing his attention.
“You have a choice. You can have your sight, or your hands. Choose.”
He wanted his hands on her, wanted to feel her skin, her curves, but if he couldn’t see…“Take off the blindfold.”
Minerva smiled. His gaze she could endure, but with his hands free, her remaining in control for much longer was unlikely.
And she wanted longer.
The air was heavy, thick, the scent of passion and desire a miasma about them. The salty taste of his arousal was fresh on her tongue; she’d wanted to lure him to completion, but the hollow ache between her thighs was too insistent. She needed him there as desperately as he wanted her sheath enclosing his erection.
They each needed the other to achieve their ultimate in completion.
She reached up as he lowered his head. She picked the knot free, unwound the folds, drew the long strip away and stepped back. He blinked, focused.
His dark gaze burned, scorching, piercing.
She caught it, refused to think about his strength, that it was his control that gave her any chance of controlling him. “Put the insides of your wrists together in front of you.”
Slowly he eased his fingers from their death grips on the posts, flexed his arms, then set his wrists together as she’d asked.
She bound them with the linen band. Releasing the trailing ends, she placed her splayed fingertips on his chest, pushed. “Sit on the bed, then lie back.”
He sat, then let himself fall back onto the crimson-and-gold brocade.
Grasping one bedpost, raising the nightgown, she clambered up, kneeling, looking down at him. “Put your hands on the bed above your head.”
In seconds he was lying stretched out on the bed, hands above his head, calves and feet dangling over the edge.
He lay there, naked, delectable, heavily aroused, hers for the taking.
Trapping his gaze, she wrapped one hand about his erection, with the other raised her nightgown so she could swing her thigh over his hips. Sinking down on her knees, she released the gown; the folds fell to his belly, screening her actions as she guided the blunt head of his erection between her slick folds, then eased back.
Releasing him, she sank slowly back, down, smoothly taking his turgid length into her body.
She shifted, sank further still, until she’d taken him all. Until she sat across his hips, impaled, full of him. He stretched her, completed her; the length and strength of him at her core felt indisputably right.
Her gaze locked with his, she rose slowly up, then slowly sank down.
Fingers braced on his chest, she changed angle, pace, found the rhythm she wanted, one she could maintain, sliding him deeply in, then almost completely out. He clenched his jaw, clenched his fists. His muscles hardened, tightened, as she devoted herself to taking every iota of sensual pleasure she could.
It wasn’t enough.
Wrapped in his gaze, acutely aware of all she could see blazing in the dark depths of his eyes as his body strained, fought his control—as he battled his own instincts to give her all she wanted…
In that moment, she knew. For her, with him, taking would never be enough. She had to give—give him, show him, all she was. All that with him, for him, she could be.
All she could gift him with.
All that blossomed inside her.
She reached down, grasped her nightgown, drew it up, off, flung it aside. His gaze instantly lowered to where they joined. She couldn’t see what he could, imagining was enough; the heat between her thighs flared. Within her, he grew larger, harder; she felt the change in his body between her thighs, deep inside her.
He glanced briefly at her face, then looked down again. His hips undulated beneath hers.