He watched, eyes like slits, refusing to make her decision for her but unable to resist clasping the back of her head and taking her worried lip with his own, licking and sucking until they were both panting. Pulling back, he relaxed into the chair, covering her hands on his chest and watching as she tried to regain her composure. “What will you do with me, now?”
She tilted her head, nervous, before saying, “I should like for you to be wearing fewer clothes.”
He cocked a smile at her prim wording—so antithetical to the moment. His reply was gravelly, sending a shiver of pleasure through her. “Well, I certainly couldn’t deny a lady.”
He shrugged out of his coat and waistcoat, lifting against her to do so. The movement forced him to press against her, and he groaned at the soft core of her cradling him. Divested of his outer layers, he let himself fall back to the chair, clasping her hips tightly as he did so, unwilling to allow the sensation of her against him to end. Pushing against her again, he watched as she sighed with pleasure at the pressure—just where she was desperate for it.
Holding her gaze, he lifted again, sending a wave of passion through her once more. “Is that what you want, lovely?”
The question came on a pant of breath, and she noticed that he was as affected by the movement as she was. In response, she smiled boldly and ground herself against him in a firm, circular motion. His hands moved instantly to her hips to hold her tight to him. His eyes narrowed, and she felt powerful in the face of his passion.
She shook her head boldly, unwilling to look away from him. “Even fewer clothes.”
He smiled again, sitting up and easing his back from the chair before lifting the hem of his shirt from the waistband of his breeches. Pulling the shirt over his head, he sent it along the same path that hers had traveled earlier.
Watching her watching him, he set his fingers to the tips of her breasts, teasing the flushed skin there. “Now what, Empress?”
She swallowed at the sight of him—magnificent and corded and muscled and male—it was the first time she had seen a man without a shirt, and her mouth was suddenly dry. Dragging her gaze up to meet his, she said, “May I…touch you?”
He gave a little laugh at the words. “Please.”
Her eyes slid down to his chest and she set her hands to him, her fingers softly running up the sides of his torso, playing delicately over the planes of his chest. She ran one thumb over a flat nipple, and her eyes widened as it puckered, and the cadence of his breathing shifted. She repeated the motion, and he growled low in the back of his throat. She looked up at the sound, worried. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” The word came out on a harsh exhale. To prove it, he kissed her roundly, stroking deep inside her mouth, and mimicked the motion, rubbing his thumb across the turgid peak of one of her breasts until she whimpered with frustration. He spoke against her lips. “Does it hurt you?”
She shook her head, taking a shaky breath. “No.” She stroked him again. “But it aches. In a good way. In a wonderful way.”
He nodded. “Indeed. It does.”
She watched her thumb as it traced slow circles around him, then leaned in and set her mouth to his chest. She could feel the thrum of his heart as she traced her lips across his warm skin, and she wondered what would happen if…her mouth found his nipple and she laved the straining flesh there.
He hissed in a breath, plunging his fingers through her hair as she repeated his earlier caresses with warm, lavish strokes of her tongue. He allowed her to explore with hands and mouth until he could no longer bear it, eventually pulling her up for another kiss. He ate her mouth until she had lost all coherent thought, until she was nothing but a puddle of femininity in his arms. It was as though he knew the moment she crossed over into the experience of pure pleasure, because he lifted her in his arms at that moment and, without breaking their kiss, settled her on the long, low chaise.
Callie stretched out along the chaise as he followed her down, the length of him spilling heat over every inch of her skin.
“I want you naked, Empress.” The words were hot against her ear as he took her lobe in his teeth and sent shivers through her. “Let me worship you.”
She couldn’t resist him, couldn’t resist the words that she’d dreamed of for years. Instead, she took hold of one of his hands and boldly shifted it to the fastenings of her breeches. The movement gave him all the permission he required and, within moments, he had removed her boots and breeches, and Callie was naked, laid bare just for him.