because . . . ?” he teased.
“Because when you asked me if you should use your hands or your mouth, that is not where I imagined your hands.”
God, she was too much. But she was right. It would be a shame if this ended before he got to feel her. So he went to work on her jeans. The scratching sound the zipper made as he lowered it echoed across the otherwise silent clearing.
She was wearing black lace panties. She didn’t seem like the black lace panties type. She seemed like the white cotton nightie type. “Did you put these on for me?” This was a case where he wanted an actual answer. And he thought she would enjoy it if he pressed her on the matter. Their interests were aligned here.
“Did you put these on hoping I’d see them?” he goaded. He worked her jeans down over her hips, fully exposing the little scrap of fabric covering her mound. It had a tiny black bow on the front. He sucked in a breath. There was something . . . dangerous about that bow. It was small and shiny and it was a bow, for fuck’s sake. It shouldn’t have had that much power over him. But it caused an infusion of something that felt curiously close to too much, like a jet of water into an already full bathtub.
He covered the whole thing—the bow and the panties and her—with the palm of his hand so he didn’t have to look anymore. “Or maybe you were hoping I’d shove them out of the way and do this?” he rasped, sliding his thumb past the waistband and into her.
She bucked her hips, chasing his touch, and he gasped at the slick heat of her. Which was not the way he wanted to present himself to her. She was the one who was supposed to be gasping.
So he turned his attention to extracting the answer he wanted.
“Back to the original question. Which do you think?” He pulled the panties down farther, so they joined her jeans halfway down her thighs and maneuvered his body so he was looking right at the mass of short, springy curls. “Tongue?” he used a hand to part her folds, part of him wondering if actual steam would be emitted given the temperature differential between the air and . . . her.
A shudder racked her body—her whole body. It was sudden and startling and violent.
Had he pushed too far?
“Leo,” she whispered again, all needy and trusting, and it almost undid him. She started shivering.
It was too cold to be doing this out here. So he pulled panties and jeans alike back up and arranged himself so he was lying on his side next to her, but he kept the one hand on her.
“Hands,” he said decisively, using the hand not down her pants to reach over and grab one side of her coat and re-cover her. “Hands now, tongue later.” From this angle he had his fingers pointing down, so he let three of them move exploratorily, making small circles near but not directly on her clit. He watched her closely, trying to assess what worked. He needn’t have, though, because when he grazed the nub straight on, her eyes flew open, and she said, “Oh!” It rang out across the clean, cold air.
So he did it again. And again. He also allowed himself to shamelessly press his erection against her hip, grinding harder with every “Oh!” she emitted—and she emitted a lot of them.
It took a while, but he judged that his best bet was to keep doing what he was doing. He felt like he was unraveling her slowly but inexorably. And he enjoyed the hell out of the process. It sounded stupid, but he felt almost honored to be witnessing this. He didn’t get the impression that Princess Marie Joséphine Annagret Elena let go like this very often, much less in front of other people. Much, much less at the hands—literally—of other people.
He saw the level of trust involved and honestly, it scared him a little.
But not enough to stop.
And eventually the telltale panting started up again, and she was undone.
The more alarming part was that even though he hadn’t come yet, he kind of felt like he had, too.
Leo was such a good kisser.
Which was a somewhat strange thing for Marie to think given that he had done so much more than kiss her. It was just that she’d spent so much time