Lord of Scoundrels - Loretta Chase [134]
"Going directly to sleep would be unreasonable," she said. She slid her hands up and into the opening of his robe and stroked over his chest. The muscles there tightened and pulsed, and the pulsations raced downward.
"You're exhausted from your ordeal," he said, swallowing a groan. "Also, I'm sure you must be bruised in a hundred places. You don't want a fifteen-stone brute heaving about on top of you."
She drew her thumb over his nipple.
He sucked in his breath.
"You could heave about under me," she said softly.
He told himself to ignore what she'd just said, but the image rose in his mind's eye, and his rod rose eagerly with it.
It had been a month since she'd told him she loved him. It had been a month since she had actually invited him, instead of simply cooperating. Enthusiastic as the cooperation had been, he'd missed her brazen overtures almost as much as he'd missed the three precious words.
Besides, he was an animal.
Already he was as randy as a rutting bull elephant.
He lifted her off the table. He meant to set her down, because carrying her would be too dangerously intimate. But she wouldn't be set down. She clung to his arms and wrapped her legs round his waist.
He tried not to look down, but he couldn't help it.
He saw soft white thighs encircling him, caught a glimpse of the sleek, dark curls just below the sash that was no longer holding the gown decorously in place.
She shifted a bit, and the robe slid from her shoulders again. She slipped first one, then the other arm from the loose sleeves. The elegant robe became a useless scrap of silk dangling from her waist.
Smiling, she brought her arms up to circle his neck. She rubbed her firm, white breasts against the opening of his dressing gown, and it gave way. The warm, feminine mounds pressed against his skin.
He turned and came back to the table and sank down upon it.
"Jess, how the devil am I to climb the stairs in this condition?" he asked hoarsely. "How is a man to see straight when you do such things to him?"
She licked the hollow of his throat. "I like the way you taste," she murmured. She drew her parted lips over his collarbone. "And the way your skin feels against my mouth. And the way you smell…of soap and cologne and male. I love your big, warm hands…and your big, warm body…and your immense, throbbing— "
He dragged her head up and clamped his mouth over hers. She parted instantly, inviting him in.
She was wicked, a femme fatale, but the taste of her was fresh and clean. She tasted like rain, and he drank her in. He inhaled the chamomile scent mingled with the fragrance that was uniquely hers. He traced the delectable shape of her with his big, dark hands…the graceful column of her neck, the gentle slope of her shoulders, the silken curve of her breasts with their taut, dusky buds.
He slid back and down upon the table, and drew her down on top of him, and traced those feminine outlines again with his mouth, his tongue.
He stroked down her smooth, supple back and molded his hands to the sinuous turn of her slim waist and the gentle flare of her hips.
"I'm clay in your hands," she breathed against his ear. "I love you madly. I want you so much."
The soft voice, husky with desire, swam in his head and sang in his veins, and whirled its mad music through his heart.
"Sono tutta tua, tesoro mio," he answered. "I'm all yours, my treasure."
He grasped her sweet rump and lifted her onto his manhood…and groaned as she guided him into her. "Oh, Jess."
"All mine." She sank, slowly, down upon his shaft.
"Sweet Jesus." Pleasure forked through him, jagged and white-hot. "Oh, Dio. I'm going to die."
"All mine," she said.
"Yes. Kill me, Jess. Do it again."
She came up and sank again, with the same torturous slowness. Another lightning bolt. Scorching. Rapturous.
He begged for more. She gave him more, riding him, controlling him. He wanted it that way, because it