Of their own volition, her hands crept up his shoulders, linking behind his neck to draw him down, encouraging him by diving her fingers into his short hair.
His arm stayed locked across her back, but he wasn’t pressing her into him. She did that, not even realizing she was doing it until she felt herself plastered against him. Her dress was open, she realized, but she didn’t care. Her body badly needed the pressure of his chest against breasts that seemed to swell and reach toward him, aching. A moan of longing escaped her.
“What do you want? This?” He drew one of her arms down and slid her hand beneath the soft knit, guiding her touch up his hot chest.
Startled by this new realm, she explored with rapt intrigue. His skin was like sunbaked satin, his chest hair flat and softly abrasive, his nipple small and pebble sharp against her curious fingertips. She splayed her hand, petting, fascinated, and learned quickly when he taught her the pressure he liked. She circled and flicked, feeling him jerk. Wrong again?
His arm at her back pinched her closer. “Do you want me to do that to you?” His head dipped and he caught her earlobe between his lips, sucking and sending a shocking streak of pure excitement flashing into her loins. “This too?”
She groaned at the thought of his mouth on her breast and curled her fingers against his chest, raking his nipple lightly with her fingernail. “Yes.”
His breath hissed in. “Take off your dress, then,” he ground out, loosening his hold on her and backing away.
Shaking, she dragged her hand free, grazing his abdomen on the way, feeling his stomach contract beneath her touch. He was remarkable. This state was remarkable, feeling all hot and fascinated. Alive.
It struck her that he would forever hold a place in her memory for this. The indelible connection was already bittersweet enough to make the backs of her eyes sting. Part of her screamed, Run away. The bond was temporary and would hurt to break, but she craved it all the same. Desperately. So much so that she found herself nudging the straps of her dress off her shoulders. They fell down her arms and warm silk dropped into a dark puddle over her shoes.
She was naked but for her bra, underpants and hose, all black but built for function. Her palms shyly covered the clasp between her breasts, forearms shielding the small, pale swells that peeped over the cups.
“Ask me for help with it,” he said.
“I—” It wasn’t that she couldn’t open it. It was how real this was becoming. What if she wasn’t enough for him, even for a night?
He commanded her with a look, wanting to gaze on her nude body, do things to it. The unknown scared her, but the thought of stopping was equally frightening. She couldn’t move, caught in a trembling paralysis.
He stepped close and sure fingers brushed past nerveless ones. The cups released and her neck went weak. She dropped her forehead onto his chest, aware of her bra skimming lightly over her shoulders and down her back. Her breasts were exposed to cool air while her back was branded by his hot palms. She covered herself with her crossed arms, lacking the confidence to step back and reveal herself.
“Sit on the bed.” He curled a steadying hand under her elbow.
She complied because she would fall down if she didn’t, but sitting put her eye level with his fly and she wasn’t ready to go that far even with a glance. She looked up at him, but he was no gentleman intending to kneel at her feet. He held a look of detached intensity. A roaring sound filled her ears, the kind that warned of danger. She had inadvertently entered into a power struggle with a man who could overwhelm her without effort, but he wasn’t doing it like that. He was turning her against herself. Stoking a hunger that was stronger than her natural reserve.
She clung hard to her shields but sensed he would disarm her without even trying. As easily as he caught a hand behind her knee and stroked tantalizing fingers under her calf, carrying her foot up to his stomach, tipping her onto her back.
Her heart dipped in consternation, and then she squeaked in alarm as the position parted her knees. She shot a hand between her thighs, hypersensitive to where his gaze was traveling, so tangible it was like a physical caress.
Her shoes hit the floor, thump, thump, barely heard over the beat of her racing heart. He reached to stroke her knuckles where she protected her most intimate flesh, his touch so personal she almost jerked her hand away in surprise.
“Let me take off these at least.” He moved his hand down her thigh, stroking the translucent hose. “You want to feel my hands on you, don’t you?”
“Yes, but— You’re not going to undress?”
“Eventually. When you’re ready.” He ran his hand up to the waistband, eyes glittering with challenge while his expression was one of merciless control.
Over her or himself?
Both.
Warring thoughts crashed inside her like storm waves. Apprehension at the reality of being stripped. A moral compulsion to keep her word and go through with this. An underlying weakness of pure want. Terror at the way self-control was slipping away.
He began to draw the hose down and she lifted her hips to help him, eyes closing in denial of what she was doing, but she couldn’t ignore that only her panties remained. She hid them behind her palm, knees bent to the side and locked together, breath held as she tried to imagine what would come next. And then after that.
He stood over her assessing her, proud and commanding, all the power in his court. “Do you want me to join you?”
She blew out a breath of wild laughter at his taunt. He must know how badly she wanted him and was only making her ask for it to prove a point. If she could have revealed that she wasn’t ready, she would have, but it was mortifying how much she wanted to feel him on top of her. “I do.” Her voice broke in surrender.
“Make room, then. When you’re ready,” he added, raking her body with hot, hungry eyes.
She writhed in protest, wanting mastery over herself and wanting him. Rolling onto her back, she straightened her legs, forcing her hand to fall away from her mound, the other to lift off her chest. She’d never felt so vulnerable in her life.
He set heavy hands on either side of her waist and leaned over her, taking his time studying her breasts, making her breath hitch as she felt a need to shield herself again, but resisted it. She couldn’t help watching his face with a timid need for approval. She wasn’t voluptuous. Would she be enough to gratify him?
His expression grew tight as he looked her over. A shudder quaked across his shoulders and it was a long time before he finally met her searching gaze.
She couldn’t hide how defenseless she felt, splayed before him.
“Nice,” he said in guttural English.
Nice? Her stomach plummeted at the bland word. She wasn’t even sure he meant it, but was distracted from questioning him when he grasped her wrists and slid her fists above her head. At the same time, he pressed a knee between hers and opened her legs, lowering himself onto her in a blanket of soft, crushing weight.
Clair moaned in startled delight under him, twisting against his grip, but Aleksy kept her firmly clasped.
If he allowed her to touch him right now, Aleksy thought, if he didn’t have a barrier between his tight hide and her downy skin, he’d lose it. It had been all he could do to find an English word to describe how exquisite she was.
He forced himself to remember that she was toying with him, trying to win a power struggle he hadn’t started, but was determined to win. Stroking his free hand down her arm, past her breast, over her hip and along her thigh, he curled her calf over his lower back, resenting the wool that kept him from feeling the caress of her skin against his own. He shifted and pressed his groin tight to hers, thin layers of cotton