The King's Bride By Arrangement - Annie West Page 0,21

and warm, rounded flesh. Her eyes darkened as he squeezed. Her gaze turned the hazy blue of the sea at dawn.

She was killing him.

Then his eyes rolled back in his head as she cupped his erection with her other hand. His breath hissed and his body turned to stone. All except that throbbing, eager part of him that surged harder against her touch.

‘Kiss me, Paul. Please.’

Her lips were against his, inviting him. The perfect swell of her breast was in his hand and the possessive clasp of her fingers around him obliterated all thought.

Paul kissed her. Hard.

It wasn’t enough. He wanted all her sweetness. He wanted...

Dazed, he let himself savour the heady prospect of her giving him exactly what he wanted—relief from the tangle of frustrated longing, thwarted passion and the inhibiting voice of his conscience that told him to move away.

This was just a moment’s fantasy, not reality.

Yet he exhaled with relief and something close to despair as Eva tugged his zip down and slid her fingers inside his trousers to hold him, her soft hand against hard, needy flesh.

Lightning seared his blackened vision, strobe lights of white-hot energy that arced and whirled as Eva tested his length, then squeezed.

Air expelled from his lungs in a guttural rush. There was a thrumming in his ears as he tried to collect his scattered control.

He’d be strong again in a second. When he had time to regroup. Except now, somehow, he held both her breasts in his hands, testing their weight, revelling in the graze of her pebbled nipples. Barely, he resisted the need to strip away the flimsy satin dress so he could feast on her ripeness.

Then she was undoing his belt with her other hand.

It was exactly what he wanted and everything he shouldn’t.

He opened his mouth to stop her when Eva’s mouth collided with his again. The movement was clumsy, almost desperate, but so beautiful that he felt himself sink back into the bliss of the moment.

Paul’s whole body trembled. He relinquished her breasts, wrapping one arm round her and using the other to push back her long hair that had fallen forward, caressing his cheek.

It was incredibly soft, impossibly decadent, that long skein of silk that somehow wrapped itself around his fingers, just as she wrapped her fingers around him, stroking, teasing.

He had to let her go. Make her release him too.

But then, before he could act, there it was, thundering towards him like a freight train racing down a mountain. Paul felt the building pressure, the torture of a body grown too taut and hard to contain itself. The careering rush of pleasure.

He just had enough time to read Eva’s wide-eyed look of elation, and cover the head of his erection with his hand, before he convulsed, helpless, against the sudden, raw rush of ecstasy.

Eva was stunned.

How could a man be magnificently powerful and at the same time so vulnerable?

The sight of Paul lost in the throes of climax, the feel of him jerkily pulsing in her hand, was the most exciting thing she’d known.

Watching his big shoulders judder, seeing him fling his head back, the tendons in his throat standing proud, made him seem not weak but incredibly strong.

Despite the fact he was at her mercy.

The knowledge floored her.

No, this wasn’t about knowledge, it was about the visceral feeling, the love, compassion and deep sense of connection.

How she loved the feel of him, satin-soft yet impossibly hard, beneath her hand. The feel of him shuddering with pleasure at her touch.

Hers. Not someone else’s but hers. She’d done that. Brought sexual fulfilment to the man she loved.

Pinpricks of delight exploded through her.

Even when he bowed his head and nudged her hand aside, those great, racking shudders easing to small tremors, she was dumbstruck by the power she’d unleashed.

She’d had no idea it could be like this. So intense, so exciting. Because of course theory was no substitute for reality. Her knowledge of sex, apart from a few pretty innocent kisses, was all theoretical.

Even the heavy musk scent in the air and the sound of Paul’s laboured breaths were something completely new.

New and exhilarating. Though she still felt that edgy, needy sensation between her thighs, making her shift her weight to ease it.

She sighed, trying to ignore her own needs. Instead she took in the dull flush of colour across Paul’s high cheek bones, the heavy-lidded look from glittering eyes that spoke of sensuality and satisfaction.

A shiver ripped through her and headed straight to her sex. Everything