He was silent, his fingers at rest, and she kept her eyes closed, certain she had said too much. The erotic exploits of the past days had made the bed a place where the rules did not apply, either, and it had loosened her tongue.
Lucian moved, and she sensed his face was level with hers. His breath was soft on her cheek. “Look at me.”
She peered up at him.
The quiet intensity of his gaze turned her limbs as weak as water. He had looked at her like this once before, during their wedding night when he had ordered her to put her hands on his shoulders.
“I can do that,” he said. “Take you without asking, without stopping. Have you submit to indecencies. Do you want me to?”
She swallowed. The look in his eyes, the undertone in his voice, felt like a key sliding into the lock of a secret box harboring unspeakable desires. All she had to do was lift the lid …
“You’re hardly a marauding stranger,” she said. Not anymore, she added silently.
Lucian smiled faintly. Unexpectedly, he turned her over on her belly, and his hair-roughened thigh grazed over the backs of her legs and pinned them down. His arousal pressed hard into the side of her hip. “It’s good that you know me,” he said, his lips warm against the side of her neck. “You don’t truly want to be hurt, do you?”
“N-no.” He had slipped his right arm under hers and reached up, and he let his fingers play over her throat. “I think it is about the desire …” she stammered. “I want to feel madly desired and not be blamed for my indulgence.”
“Hmm,” he said. “And I could make it feel as though you didn’t know me much at all.”
Her pulse throbbed against his stroking thumb, her thoughts too scattered for her to speak.
His hips gave hers a nudge. “I could take you from behind,” he murmured. “I could hold you, just so.” His hand closed around her throat, lightly, but the suggestion made everything go still inside her head. “You wouldn’t see my face,” came his dark voice. “You could imagine some Viking in my place.”
She was panting and confused. Vaguely she realized she was rhythmically pressing her thighs together. Lucian’s fingers left her neck and glided up into her hair. He made a loose fist at the back of her head and tugged until she faced him, her lips aligned with his. “Though I’d rather you imagined me,” he said against her mouth. His eyes were flinty. “I’m not sophisticated; my tastes are base. I don’t share. I’m afraid any pirate making to touch you would live to regret it.”
She wanted to touch herself, right now while on her belly, trapped by the weight of his leg and his hand in her hair. Her tastes were base, too; how reckless, how wonderful.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Yes what?”
She held his gaze. “I want you to do it.”
He studied her, taking in her flushed cheeks and damp lips ripe for kissing. “All right,” he said, and released her. “Then we’ll do it sometime.”
She blinked. “Sometime?”
He nodded. Sudden outrage crackled along her overwrought nerves. His touch, his husky murmur, the forbidden images his words had painted, had stimulated her to aching point. The soft bedsheet felt abrasive against the overexcited tips of her breasts. She made an angry sound.
He stroked her shoulder. “You’re still new to this,” he said. “Perhaps your tastes are yet to change. And I’d want to read you better. And you’ll need a good grip on a word other than no for when you do want to stop.”
When she did not reply, he made to kiss her, but she pulled away. He gave a low chuckle.
“I’ve angered you.”
“Yes,” she snipped, feeling the chasm in experience between them and not in a titillating way.
Lucian rose and sat back on his heels. “I’d rather take your anger than your regret.” He surveyed her dissatisfied naked form. “Roll over.”
She gave him a sullen sideway glance. “Why?”
The amusement faded from his eyes and his features set in hard lines. “Because I’ll fuck you now,” he said calmly, “and I want to see your pretty face while I do it.”
A hot thrill shot through her center. “But you just said—”
“I know what I said,” he said. “I’m offering a taste—if you want it: on your back, miss.”
Trembling, she obeyed.
“Good.” His stern expression hadn’t changed. He shifted his position until he knelt right at her feet. “Now spread your legs, nice and wide,” he said. “Knees up.”