Cold as Ice - Anne Stuart [94]
She gasped, and when he tried to move away she put her hands on his face and drew him back to her other breast, insistent, silent, jerking slightly when he suckled her, her hands sliding down to his shoulders, fingers digging in.
He could have stayed there for hours, his tongue exploring the taste and texture of her nipples, and for a brief, dark moment he considering doing just that. Making her come without being inside her, even touching her, making her come with his mouth on her breasts, all the while holding himself away from her, to prove that he could, to prove that she didn’t matter, that he was inviolate. He would be safe again in the ways that mattered most. Not from guns and knives and the uncertainty of a violent life. But safe from the strangling tendrils that had wrapped around him and wouldn’t let him go, apron strings, an umbilical cord, something that tied him to her and wouldn’t let him break away.
He could do it. And once she realized what he’d done, what he’d proved to her, she’d retreat in on herself in silence. Leaving her in Canada would be fast and uncomplicated and they’d never have to think about each other again.
But that wasn’t what he’d come halfway across the world for, and he knew it. He’d come for her, in every sense of the word, and he was going to take her. In every sense of the word.
He bit the underside of her breast, lightly, just a tender nip that made her jump, and soothed the bite mark with his tongue. She had such a lush, rich body he could get lost in it, and he nuzzled against her skin, awash in the taste and the scent of her.
He needed to slow things down. She was trembling, ready to explode, and he wasn’t ready to have her. She really knew so damn little about sex and pleasure— he wondered how she’d managed to live so long without someone taking her in hand and showing her. He could only be selfishly glad the men she’d met were so stupid; he could be the first to taste the fullness of her response, to show her just how limitless love could be.
Sex could be. He pulled away from her for a moment, lying back on the bed to catch his breath. He wasn’t worried that she’d change her mind, kick him out of the bed, run away. She had already gone too far down that road to draw back—he could practically feel the need thrumming through her body.
And then there were words from her. Anxious little words in her slumberous, aroused voice. “Why did you stop?” she asked. “Did you change your mind?”
God knew how such a maddening woman could have such a capacity to make him smile. And he knew what he was going to ask, had to ask, even if she gave him the wrong answer and tore him apart.
“Do you want it?” He’d started this when she was half-asleep, vulnerable, and brought her almost too far to draw back. But she brought out the decent idiot inside him, the man he’d tried to bury long ago, and he had to ask her.
She didn’t answer. Not with words. She put her cool, soft hands on him, and she kissed him. Kissed his mouth, full and sweet, kissed his throat and his chest and his nipples, her tongue swirling against them with agonizing, arousing delicacy. She put her hands on his stomach, and slid them beneath his briefs, and she managed to pull them off him despite the unflagging stiffness of his cock getting in the way.
He knew what she wouldn’t do. What he needed her to do. He didn’t say anything as she put her cool, soft fingers on him, learning the shape of him, the size of him. And then she leaned forward and learned the taste of him, her loose wet hair falling around her face as she drew him into her mouth.
He made a sound of pleasure and despair, reaching down and pushing the hair away from her face so he could watch her as she took him deeply, her lips and tongue closing around him, pulling at him so that the pleasure was almost unbearable.
She was shaking, trembling, her hands holding his hips, and he knew he’d reached his limit. He pulled her up, away, and she clutched