“I’ll simply taste you and indulge one of my most fervent wishes.” He let several beats of silence go by, looking at her, no doubt, and then Leah felt a little warm flick against her nipple. The sensation returned, soft, wet, warm, and then cool.
Her hands threaded through his hair, and without her intending it, Leah’s back arched, and she offered herself to his mouth again.
“You like that,” Nick concluded, pleasure in his voice. “I like it too, lovey.” He got down to business, settling his mouth over her nipple and introducing her to the use of a skilled tongue on a very sensitive part of a lady’s body. When he finally drew on her, Leah heard a small, helpless moan escape her throat and knew the urge to clutch at him—his hair, his head, his shoulders, any part of him, just to convey her desperation.
He shifted again on the bed, crouching over her, and Leah found that helped her growing sense of restless unease. When he used his mouth on her breasts, it stirred feelings beneath the pit of her stomach.
And they weren’t comfortable feelings, either. This was arousal; she didn’t have a lot of experience with it, but recognized it, and both marveled and cringed at its intensity.
But twining through the arousal was something darker, an empty ache, a forlorn, homesick quality that was anxious, needy, and unwelcome. Having Nick once again over her, surrounding her with his weight and scent and muscle, helped with that hollow ache.
She arched up again, wanting to be closer to him. The hard length of his arousal, clearly evident through his breeches, brushed against her stomach before Nick could crouch back out of range.
“Don’t do that,” she muttered, her fingers going to his falls. “Let yourself touch me.”
“I want to lose these breeches, but you mustn’t look,” Nick admonished, humor warring with sternness in his voice. “Promise me, Leah.”
“You are worrying for nothing, Nicholas,” Leah said, her fingers stroking over his hair. “I am not a virgin, and you have assured me we will not copulate, in any case. But if it’s important to you,” Leah whispered in his ear, “then I will not press you on this, particularly when my interest in lengthy discussions is not now at its greatest.” She kissed his cheek, and Nick let out a sigh.
“You are hairy,” she went on, her lips pressed to his throat. “Like a golden lion. I like that you are different from me.”
And she wasn’t done with him. He wanted intimacy, and by heavens, she’d oblige him.
“But your chest is smooth, with only a little hair on your stomach. I wonder”—Leah’s tone became teasing—“if your body is as sensitive as mine.” She recalled her previous interest in his nipples, only this time, she angled her body so she could get her mouth over one of his.
“I am your willing servant.” No lazy seduction warmed his words. They sounded tight, bitten off.
“Take your breeches off, Nicholas. Please.” Leah planted one hand on the small of his back and eased it under his waistband, a suggestion of the pleasure he’d feel were her hands anchored on his muscular fundament.
“No peeking,” he admonished.
She peeked as he rolled to his back, unfastened about half the buttons on his falls, and jerked the last of his clothes from his body. They joined Leah’s nightclothes at the foot of the bed, and then Nick was positioned back over her, giving her no opportunity to inspect what he was so intent on keeping from her view, the dratted man.
She would not suffer him to frustrate her curiosity entirely. “Closer, Nicholas, let me feel you.”
Tentatively, he gave her contact with his chest then wrapped his arms around her and held her to him, a sort of static body caress that let his tremendous heat seep into Leah’s joints and bones.
It helped, to be this close to him, and it tormented to know he would not join with her. The greater torment was Leah’s sense that Nick hadn’t been honest with her regarding his reasons for his self-enforced limits.
“So is this what you wanted?” Leah asked when Nick eased his hold and shifted off to her side. “Is this what we’ll share besides a passing nod on the dance floor?”
“Not quite,” Nick murmured, shifting to his side. “There’s a bit more.”
Leah yawned, slid a hand down over his buttocks. She didn’t come right out and tell him to be about it, though she gently squeezed a handful of taut male