The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,94

didn’t care. Because her pleasure was as much her triumph as it was his. Nay, it was more. She wanted this moment, and took it boldly and unapologetically. The real weakness would be for her to deny herself all this. Any of it.

Emma bit her lip sharply enough that she tasted the metallic tinge of blood, and with his fingers still stroking through her sodden channel, she mimicked his earlier movement, reaching between them and gripping his length through his trousers.

Charles hissed sharply between his teeth, his already impossibly hard length surging even harder and higher under her touch.

And she knew the very same triumph he had moments ago, and celebrated this new discovery of her power over him.

“Do you like that?” Emma teased him with those same words he notoriously loved to ask of her, and with his eyes squeezed shut and his neck muscles struggling through the motions of swallowing, she took her torment further. Sliding free the front placard of his trousers, Emma bared him . . . to her eyes. And her touch.

His hips shot up. “Hell,” he groaned.

“Is that a no?” she asked huskily, already knowing the answer, but playing the same game he’d insisted she play.

“Nooooo.” Charles angled his neck about, searching for her mouth with his.

Emma, however, continued to deny him, withholding what he wanted. “You have to be more clear, Lord Scarsdale,” she breathed against the corner of his mouth, and the moment she removed her hands from his shaft, he cried out.

“Yes,” he hissed, his eyes flying open, those dark irises burning her with the heat there. “I love your hand on me. I want it.”

And her breath caught at the rawness of that unrestrained avowal.

In one fluid movement, he reversed them, flipping her over, so that she lay under him and the mattress was at Emma’s back. Sliding down her body, he rested with his head between her legs and put his mouth on her, devouring her.

He alternately nipped at the swollen flesh of her lips and tongued her channel.

Emma melted under him; she moaned her approval, letting her legs splay, and tangling her fingers in his hair, she anchored him in place. Thrusting her hips up, and pushing herself against that wicked kiss.

And then, in a devious turnabout, he abruptly stopped.

Her entire soul screamed at the loss of him. “Charrles.” Emma wept his name, blending it with a plea for him to continue.

“Lay your hands beside you, love,” he ordered, a command that sent a new hungering through her, and she complied. Doing as he bade. Then he picked up where he’d left off. He laved that oversensitized bud. He stroked her with his tongue.

All the while, she did precisely as he’d bidden. Emma forced her arms to remain at her sides; her fingers curled into the sheets, and she gripped the satin fabric tightly to keep from touching him. The pressure mounted, that merging of pleasure and pain, two conflicting feelings that—when making love to Charles—only made sense.

She closed her eyes, and her head lolled back and forth of its own volition.

This made sense between them. This, when nothing else seemed to. When they were at odds in so many ways.

Refusing to let that encroach upon the splendor of this, her first time making love, Emma shoved herself up onto her elbows. It was too much. “Charles?” she pleaded, and he immediately ceased tasting of her.

He quickly shucked off his shirt and shoved down his trousers until he stood naked before her.

Emma worked a hungry gaze over him, taking a moment to worship every defined, contoured muscle of his chest lightly covered with tight, golden coils. The equally firm, muscled wall of his belly. And then she dipped her appreciation lower, to the length of his shaft that sprang proud and hard from a nest of golden curls, the smooth plum tip of him gleaming.

Her breath caught. “I want you,” she breathed, owning her need of him. For him . . . and what only he could give her.

His eyes darkened, and she held up her arms for him.

Leaning over, he yanked open his nightstand drawer and removed a small sheath. Their gazes locked as he slid the French letter over his length, and then he covered her body with his.

Emma wrapped her arms about him and let her legs spread.

He buried his head in her chest, suckling fiercely at the peak of her right breast, and there was a hedonistic pull to the wet sounds of his