Her muscles locked. She had let him look his fill just a minute ago, but he felt different now, looming and unyielding. She had always sensed such a side in him, but seeing it emerge made her heart race.
Briefly, his mouth softened. “Too much?”
She gave a small shake.
“Well then.” He tapped her ankle with two fingers. “Open. That’s good. Wider. Ah, no hiding.” She had put a hand between her charms and his penetrating assessment. “You know, hidden things only invite a more vigorous chase,” he said. He palmed his heavy erection, and his biceps flexed as he did it. She removed her hand very slowly. She wanted him vigorous.
“Will you hide again?” he asked, the steady steeliness of his voice seeming to reach her deepest places.
“No,” she whispered.
“We don’t want you tempted,” he said. “Put your arms above your head.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she did, and it lifted her breasts, presenting them to him. Her toes curled when the heat of his gaze brushed over her tender skin and she heard the steady rhythm of his breathing fracture. She had to make quite the picture, a luscious offering for him with her legs spread for his pleasure and her nipples red from days of his attentions.
“Cross your wrists,” he ordered hoarsely. She wanted to squeeze her knees back together, to hide and to soothe the ache between her thighs, but then he might do something outrageous and she didn’t feel that brave. She crossed her wrists.
“Difficult?” Lucian’s tone was faintly derisive, but he was watching her face carefully.
She licked her lips. “Yes.”
His gaze dropped back to her cunny and he gave himself a lazy stroke. “Lucky it’s just me enjoying the view, then, and not a whole crew.”
The thought of another dozen pairs of hungry eyes appreciating her most intimate place, the pretty place she was to keep concealed, nameless, and forgotten, made her face flame. She felt a rush of warm liquid to her entrance, and Lucian let out a low laugh. “You’re greedy, my love.” His hand settled heavily on the top of her thigh as he looked at her with his stranger’s eyes. Pirate, outlaw, thief. He slid his thumb through her softness, and she groaned when he rubbed over the sensitive spot at the top.
“Please,” she heard herself say.
His cool mask cracked.
She squeaked when he grabbed her bottom, pulled her up, and entered her. He didn’t pause; he held tight while he eased forward, and her breath came in erratic gasps. In this position, every minute nudge sent heatwaves through her limbs until she lay molten and boneless in his grip. She felt the rough hair of his thighs against her bottom. The press of his fingers into her hips. His labored breathing while he moved. He was looking down where their bodies were joined, and the dark intrigue on his face alone urged her onto a path straight toward bliss … until he stopped. Her indignant cry made him smile. “Now touch yourself,” he said.
“What?”
“Here.” He pressed his thumb down, sending a jolt of need through her. “Put your hand on yourself, the way you do it.”
He was mad.
Apparently, she was mad, too, for she put her hand where he had ordered it. She closed her eyes, but she still felt him watch, then adjust his own movements, until he took her in a glorious counterpoint to her own efforts, and it set the world on fire.
She couldn’t speak for a long time after the embers had settled.
“You all right?” Lucian was stretched out next to her, on his back, lazy and sated. Sweat had glued a curl to his brow. “No bashful thoughts?”
Thoughts? Her mind was quiet. She was glowing and alive. She smiled.
“Good,” he said, and the corner of his mouth tipped up.
This was why they kept young women in fearful ignorance. She would do reckless things for the rush of bliss that had just swept her away.
What change a little brazen honesty could bring. Lucian’s reaction to her fantasy had been unexpected and thrilling, like stumbling upon a hidden door that led to a vast, secret garden where she could breathe, even within the cage of matrimony … It had brought her closer to him. She had just learned as much about him as he had learned about her. Apparently, he didn’t mind a wanton wife.
“I wonder,” Harriet said drowsily, “if it were women who held all the power in this world, and not because of our pretty faces … what would I have imagined in place of the pirate?”
He turned his head toward her. His eyes were heavy-lidded. “Whatever else you were taught to worship,” he said. “Or a thing you’d want solely for itself.”