“You trust me?” Nick asked, brushing the hair back from her forehead.
To break her heart and keep her safe while he did it. She squeezed him again. “In bed, I trust you.”
“Spread your legs a little,” Nick suggested, his hand stroking the center of her chest. “You’ll be more comfortable, and please recall”—he pressed a kiss to each of her closed eyes in turn—“you are to relax and not peek and trust me.”
He covered her mouth with his, and while his tongue teased at hers and slipped over the heat of her mouth, that hand shifted to gently caress each breast. He palmed the weight of each one, glided his fingers teasingly over her nipples, and gave her just the weight of his hand resting over her. Leah arched up, trying to inspire him to greater activity, but he growled a warning and let his hand drift down over her ribs, then her stomach.
He stroked his fingers over her navel, evoking surprising sensations from a place on her body Leah had never really considered, and again he paused, while Leah experienced the warm weight of his hand on her naked belly.
“Nicholas, must you be so…?”
“Tender?” he suggested. “Careful… deliberate… enthralled… enchanted…?”
“Aggravating.” Leah landed on the word with relish, because Nick was wandering about her body as if the growing restlessness inside her were pleasurable, and to Leah, it was increasingly bothersome. Aaron had not left her feeling like this, had not taken more than a few minutes of kissing, poking, and apologizing, then grunting and making the bed creak.
“Can’t have my lady aggravated.” Nick brushed the backs of his fingers over the down on Leah’s mons, and her breath escaped on a gasp.
“Eyes closed.” Nick bent his head over her breast. “Legs spread a little.” He settled his mouth over her nipple just as his hand began to stroke her thighs, and this time when he suckled, it was Leah growling. Her eyes were closed, and behind her eyelids, colors were dancing and surging, and her body felt the same way. Full of heat and color and odd, novel sensations.
When she felt him trace up the crease of her sex with a single finger, Leah’s hands found Nick’s shoulders and gripped hard.
“Easy, lovey,” Nick murmured between kisses. “Move if you want to, against me.”
He pushed gently against her mons, and she pushed back, slowly but not so gently. The undulation of her body eased her and made things worse, too, but she was helpless to stop it as Nick’s deft fingers delved gently into her folds.
“You are growing eager,” Nick whispered as his fingers slipped higher. “Your body grows slick in anticipation of your pleasure.”
“God above, Nicholas…” She clutched at his thick wrist and stilled his hand. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Nick didn’t remove his hand.
“You touched me, and it felt like I rapped my elbow, but much, much worse.”
“You’ll grow accustomed to such sensations,” Nick said, his words laced with amusement, “and they’ll become more pleasurable if you’ll be patient with them.” He moved his hand again, with her fingers still circling his wrist, but this time he used a more definite pressure on the apex of her sex.
“Ye gracious gods…” Her grip loosened as her eyes fluttered closed, but still she didn’t let him go.
In silence, he touched her for long, fraught moments only there, letting her focus on that one source of sensation until she was breathing heavily and moving against his hand in slow, powerful surges of her hips.
“Nicholas…?” She wet her lips with her tongue, her arousal and bewilderment ringing in his name.
“Trust me,” Nick reminded her, dipping his head to brush his lips over her nipple. “Trust me and take your pleasure, Leah.”
Pleasure took her, as tight spasms seized Leah from the inside, turning her into a thrashing, keening, blind, and mindless wanton, her nails digging into Nick’s wrist, her body moving desperately to accept what he was giving her, her heart pounding with the sheer, terrifying glory of it.
“Too much…” she panted, and then Nick drew on her nipple, and the too much redoubled to be more than too much for long, shuddering moments.
When it passed, she lay on her back, body slack, mind slack, her only thought gratitude for the comfort of Nick’s hand, still pressed firmly against her sex. If he moved, if he moved even one inch, she was going to dissolve into fairy dust and drift away up the chimney.