Raising one hand, Portia touched his cheek, then, still smiling, settled back on her side, feeling him hard, strong, and hot behind her.
He lay passive, yet . . .
Her smile deepened. Reaching back, she wrapped her fingers around his length. Caressed as she remembered. “You called me a cocktease—did you mean it?”
He grunted. “I wasn’t even sure you’d know what it meant.”
She grinned as, slowly, she ran her thumb over the blunt head of his erection. “Admittedly it’s not something one comes across much in Ovid, but I do know my modern derivations.”
“Derivations?”
The reply was meaningless; he wasn’t thinking about words.
She closed her hand more firmly. “You haven’t answered my question.”
He sucked in a breath; there was a pause before he said, “Not in general, but in specific.”
She thought about that for a moment, fondled not quite absentmindedly as she did. “You mean I tease you?”
It was her turn to catch her breath as he nudged her upper thigh higher, and his artful fingers slid into the softness between her legs.
His fingers played. “You tease my cock simply by existing.”
Her smile threatened to split her face. “How?”
The word was breathless; she angled her hips farther, felt him shift behind her.
“I see you, and all I can think about is sinking it into you.” He fitted the object under discussion to her. “Like this.”
Her eyes fell closed as he slowly, oh-so-slowly slid home. Withdrew, then gave her time to savor every inch of his return.
Her lungs locked; her whole body came alive. Determined, she managed enough breath to say, “I think I rather like being a cocktease—at least in the specific.”
He leaned over her, around her, set his lips to the curve of her ear, pushed his hand beneath her arm, and closed it about her breast—and gave her to understand that, far from disapproving, he liked it, too.
Later, much later, they lay slumped in the bed; he’d settled her, sprawled comfortably over him, her head pillowed on his chest. Idly, Simon played with her hair, sifting the long strands.
Eventually, drew a deep breath.
“I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
Her reply was only a moment in coming. “Yes.” Raising her head, she smiled at him, then crossed her arms, rested her chin on her wrists, and studied his face.
Her eyes were dark and brilliant; he looked into them, waited.
Her smile, that of a woman smugly well satisfied, eased. “I love you, too.” A frown invaded her expression. “I still don’t understand it.”
He hesitated, then offered, “I don’t think love is something one necessarily understands.” God knew he didn’t.
She frowned openly. “Perhaps. But I still can’t stop thinking. . . .”
He stroked his hands lovingly down the long planes of her back. “Has anyone ever told you you think too much?”
“Yes. You.”
“So stop thinking.” He reached farther, suggestively caressed.
She met his eyes, arched a brow. “Make me.”