“Then let’s make it a reality,” she gasped, rising beneath him as pleasure shot from the place on her neck where he scraped his teeth and settled between her legs. She throbbed there already.
He grunted an answer and then pushed off of her. She sat up and watched him walk to the door. He locked it and smiled at her. “No interruptions.”
She nodded. “No interruptions.”
As he returned to her, he shrugged out of his jacket and unwrapped his cravat, tossing each aside as if they didn’t matter. When he dropped back down to cover her, she wedged her hands between them and partially unbuttoned his shirt. As she pushed the edges wide, she sucked in a breath. She hadn’t seen a man like this in a very long time. And Erasmus didn’t hold a candle to him.
Not only had she had no interest in her late “husband,” but he hadn’t felt so warm, so solid, when he covered her. He hadn’t held her stare with such intensity, making her feel like she was the only woman in the world. The only woman who mattered.
She felt that way in Owen’s arms and she never wanted it to end. He sat up a little and tugged the shirt off, and she stared.
He was lean and lanky, with defined muscles along his arms, his chest, his stomach. She bit her lip as she stared, mesmerized by the lines and curves and angles of him.
“You look like a statue,” she whispered.
“I may be hard as marble at present,” he agreed with a chuckle. “But I assure you I am alive and here to please. May I?”
She tilted her head at the request. She’d already given consent, and yet here he was, asking for more. Checking in to ensure nothing had changed. As if he actually gave a damn for her pleasure and her well-being. What a concept. “Yes. Oh yes.”
“May I undress you?” he asked.
She gripped at the cushions of the settee with both hands. “I…I’m not sure I would please you.”
His brow wrinkled. “What would make you think that?”
“Erasmus…he…” She turned her face. “He made it clear I didn’t please him.”
“Well, Erasmus was a fool,” Owen whispered as he tugged her to a seated position and stripped the line of buttons along her spine open. “In more ways than one. There is no way you couldn’t please me, Celeste. I am already vastly pleased.”
As he said the words, he peeled her dress and chemise forward as one, and she was bared from the waist up to him. She fought the urge to cover herself, to look away, but he wouldn’t allow it. He cupped her chin with one hand, holding her steady while he dragged his fingers across her breast with the other.
She hissed out a breath, pleasure so powerful it bordered on pain. Need so loud she feared it could be heard as surely as a brass band screaming through town.
He bent his head and swirled his tongue around her nipple, lowering her back against the settee as he did so. She let out a low moan, one that echoed in the quiet room. He smiled against her skin as she did so and sucked her. She jolted at the tug, the heat of his mouth, the wild sensation that ripped through her entire being.
She couldn’t help but compare this moment to all the ones she’d been forced to endure before. This one made the rest pale in comparison.
“Don’t roll away in your thoughts,” he murmured as he moved his mouth from one breast to the other. “Stay here with me.”
“I only want to be here with you,” she promised, and meant it on more levels than just this one. But those were foolish thoughts, ones that could hurt them both, so she shoved them aside and put all her focus on sensation instead.
He rocked against her as he sucked her, licked her, teased her. She felt the hard length of him bumping her belly, and lifted to meet him. She pressed her fingers into his bare back, memorizing the muscles there, the lines of the body that was so pleasing her own.
She wanted to remember every part of this moment for later. Forever.
He lifted his head from her breasts and smiled at her. “I want to make you come, Celeste. I want to taste you come.”
She blinked. Come. She’d heard of the word before. Felt it at her own hand. But she wasn’t certain she was capable of