Beauty Tempts the Beast (Sins for All Seasons #6) - Lorraine Heath Page 0,95

being laid waste before him, yet she would be the one victorious. She scraped her fingers through his hair, and once more he laced his through hers and held them tight. The restriction only added to the pleasure building inside her. As the sensations intensified, her thighs began to tremble and shake. Still, he continued to plunder.

“Ben?”

“Give in to it, Thea.”

Her breaths turned into shortened gasps, her chest tightened, her skin felt as though it was shrinking. Her head thrashed from side to side. She no longer had any control over it, no longer had any control over anything. Her fingers clutched his. Don’t let go. Don’t let go. Don’t let go.

Suddenly, an ecstasy so intense, so incredible, burst through her, burst out of her. As her back arched, she swallowed her scream, and it somehow made the release all the more powerful.

While she trembled and shook in the wake of the cataclysm, he lapped at her, once, twice, thrice. Finally releasing her hands, he shoved himself up the length of her body, and cocooned her within his embrace, murmuring in her ear. Shh, sweetheart. Shh, darling.

Some minutes later she noticed a dampness on his chest, her cheek. Surely, she’d not wept. Yet, the intimacy of what he’d done had left her reeling, feeling incredibly raw, while at the same time treasured. How could tears have not been a response?

Only when her quivering lessened, did she manage to rasp, “You?”

Lifting himself up slightly, he held her gaze. “I found my pleasure pleasuring you.”

As touched as she was by his words, she shook her head. He’d done that once before, in his study, and she’d been too overwhelmed to consider what he’d not taken for himself. “It’s not fair that I should”—she didn’t know exactly how to identify it—“should . . . come undone”—yes, that described it: an unraveling, a coming apart, a piecing back together—“and not you.” Tonight it made her feel vulnerable and somehow . . . “It makes me melancholy. Show me what to do. Aren’t you supposed to be inside me?”

“I’m not taking your virginity.”

“Why ever not?”

“You might have a need for it.”

If she kept to her plan. But how could she after experiencing him?

“There must be another way for you. Please, don’t leave me alone in this, not this time.”

Never taking his gaze from hers, he reached for her hand, brought it up, and placed an openmouthed kiss against her palm, coating it in dew. She watched his throat muscles work as he swallowed hard. Slowly, slowly, he lowered her hand and pressed it against his hard, throbbing cock, groaning roughly when she wrapped her fingers around him.

Keeping his hand covering hers, he guided her in stroking the hot, glorious length of him. Down, up. At the top, he steered her thumb over the silky dome, spreading the moisture gathered there before directing her back to the long caresses.

Because their gazes were locked, because neither looked away, it seemed more sensual, more intimate . . . simply more.

She gloried in watching the shifting of his features, the tightening of his jaw, the manner in which his eyes would briefly squeeze shut as though he’d experienced almost unbearable pleasure, the intensity with which his eyes smoldered when they were again open. Releasing her hand, he began kneading her breast.

“God, I love your breasts.”

She was discovering she loved his cock. She felt naughty calling it such, but no other word she could think of would suffice. Every so often, when she skimmed her thumb over the head of it, gathering the dampness there, he would groan so deeply she’d feel the shuddering in his chest. It made her feel powerful to know she had such an impact on him. The melancholy drifted away. This was what she wanted: to feel equal.

“Harder, faster,” he rasped.

She obeyed, tightening her hold, pumping more quickly.

Satisfaction swept through her as his breaths began to stutter because hers had when she’d neared the height of sensations, so he had to be close. He growled a harsh curse—or perhaps it was a benediction—as he buried his face in the curve of her neck and closed his mouth over her shoulder. His body jerked, trembled. His hot seed poured against her hip, over her hand.

Gently, he stilled her actions, and she wrapped her arms around him, held him tight, not certain she ever wanted to let him go.

Fortunately, a wash basin and pitcher were in the chamber, so Beast was able to clean up the mess