He kissed across her collarbone and she smiled as he lingered over the faint scar on her arm, where his foil had cut her during their fencing lesson. “I’m so sorry I hurt you, lovely,” he whispered, worshipping the pink line with his lips and tongue.
Her head rolled back and forth on the pillow as his hands stroked down her body, stealing her strength. She opened her eyes and let all her desire show. “Never apologize for that afternoon. I wouldn’t change a moment of it.” She took his face in her hand and pulled him up for a searing kiss.
After several long minutes, he began to kiss down her body, and her hands fell to his shoulders to stay him. She whispered, “Wait.”
His blue gaze captured hers, hot and arresting, and he placed a warm kiss on her soft, rounded belly. “What is it, lovely?”
“I want to touch you this time.”
His teeth flashed, white in the dim light. “If I remember correctly, you touched me last time, and I couldn’t bear it for long.”
“I wonder if you’d be willing to try it again?”
One dark eyebrow rose as he considered the question. There was a pause, before he grinned and stretched out next to her on his back, hands stacked under his head, naked and unabashed. “I’m yours for the taking, Empress.”
I’m yours. The words echoed in her mind, sending a thrill though her. He was hers. This was the first in a long line of nights when she would be able to touch him, to feel his marvelous heat. He was hers. A smile played across her lips at the very thought.
“You look like the cat that got the cream.”
“I rather feel like the cat that got the cream,” she said, marveling at his body, the strength of his corded muscles, the dark, soft hair that dusted his chest, narrowing to a thin line that led to…oh, my. It was the first time she’d been able to see him in his entirety. He was long and hard and large enough that she marveled at the truth that they actually fit together.
Sensing her thoughts, he said, “Touch me, darling.”
She couldn’t refuse the dark, inviting words, and she set her hands to him, running them over his chest, and down to the part of him that made her so nervous. He flinched as she touched him softly, just lightly enough to drive him slightly mad. She pulled back immediately. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” he said, his voice shaking with tightly leashed passion. “Do it again.” She did, wrapping her fingers around the hard, silken length of him and caressing him with an innocence that threatened to slay him. With a groan, he placed his hand on hers, and his strong, skilled fingers guided hers, showing her just how to hold him, just where to stroke him, just how to please him.
What she lacked in skill she more than made up for in eagerness, and Ralston soon found himself harder and heavier than he had ever been. Her warm hand moved more and more firmly as she gained confidence and he reveled in her touch until his breath was ragged and harsh and he realized that if her hot little fingers stayed upon him much longer, he would not be able to hold back.
And then she spoke, and he thought he might lose his mind. “May I…kiss you?”
He let out a harsh laugh and spoke through gritted teeth. “No.”
“But you have…with me.”
“Yes, Empress, and someday I will happily allow you to respond in kind. But tonight I cannot…for I already want you too much.”
“Oh,” she said, “I understand.” Her eyes revealed that she wasn’t entirely certain she did.
He lifted her hand from him and rolled to cover her with his body, settling between her silken thighs, the length of him pressing against the heart of her, where she was wet and willing and aching for him. “I want you too much to allow you such free rein. Your touch is already threatening my sanity.” His voice lowered as he began to rain kisses across her breasts, suckling first one hard, waiting nipple, then the other, wringing a soft cry from her. “I would much rather spend the rest of the evening inside you, until neither one of us can think.”
He pressed against her again, rubbing against the hard, eager nub of her sex and sending a ripple of pleasure through her. “Don’t you agree?”
“Oh, yes,” she sighed, as he repeated the motion.
He nipped at her shoulder, his lips curving in a smile. “I thought you might.”
With a single, delicious thrust, he was inside her, and she belatedly realized that there was no pain, no discomfort as there had been the first time, but only a rich, welcome fullness that made her feel utterly complete.