and strength. She could hardly believe this was her, and was relieved he had taken control.
She did not understand his game but, to her own shock, she enjoyed playing it and basked in his teasing. If he could make her feel like this, she would do whatever he asked.
The soft, fragrant petals tickled her lips, tracing their shape, and she was breathing in rose and, beyond that, him.
“The petals are not quite the color of your lips.” His voice smoldered like hot jagged coals. “But ah, your cheeks…Your blush, here, where you blush for me.”
The feathery touch trailed up over her cheek, circled lazily, then slid down and grazed her jaw. She tilted back her head in a silent command. He obeyed, and the rose quivered over the sensitive skin of her throat.
“There is just enough light for me to see your pulse, racing in your throat,” he murmured.
Yes, it raced, and her blood did too, rushing madly through her like a river in a storm. She tried to breathe, tried to stop breathing. She dug her fingers into his thigh. Her world narrowed down to the sensations: his hard muscles under her fingers, the mattress heating her back, the silk of his robe tickling her, and that rose, tormenting her with lazy zigzags over her chest. Fluttering between her breasts, circling first one and then the other. She arched her back, in another demand; the obedient petals grazed her nipple, oh, so pleasurable, but not enough, oh heavens, never enough. A mewling sound escaped her lips and he answered with a rough, breathy groan. He swept the rose across the valley between her breasts to continue his torment on the other side. How was it that he touched her in only one place and she felt it everywhere?
“Your nipples are darker than the rosebud,” he whispered. “And I bet they have a sweeter taste.”
She caught herself rolling her hips and forced herself to stop. One hand still anchored her to his iron-hard thigh, and she realized that her other hand was on her own thigh, tracing shapes in her own skin, and she tried to make herself stop that too.
“I bet your skin right here is as soft as these rose petals.” Those rose petals caressed the underside of her breasts. “What a shame you won’t let me touch you.”
She tried to tell him that he could touch her, she never said he couldn’t, he was the one who had made that silly rule, so of course he could, and he should, please, he should, but he did not want to hear, he had his game, and she had no breath to speak and craved so much more.
The rose skated over her ribs, tracing the curve of her belly. She wanted it back on her breasts and between her legs, but no, not the rose, it was too feathery, too delicious, too much, she needed more.
“If you let me touch you, I would touch you here too. And down here.”
The rose swept over the curve of her hip and she squeezed her thighs against the madness throbbing between them. It skimmed over her thigh to her knees, then crawled, slow and desperate like a sleepless night, up the valley where her legs met, right up over her inner thighs, brushing the curls at their juncture.
“If only you would let me,” he whispered.
She whimpered, letting her thighs fall apart, and she realized how close her own fingers had crept to the insistent molten ache. Dimly, she was ashamed of her sinful brazenness, but not enough to stop.
Yet he cruelly ignored her invitation, her need, and the rose danced inexorably away, feathering up over her belly, across her ribcage, finding again the undersides of her breasts.
She lost her patience, gripped his arm, so strong and sure beneath her hungry hand.
“Joshua, please.”
“What a shame you won’t let me touch you, and kiss you.”
“I will. I do. Stop teasing. Yes.”
The rose stilled. “Why?”
“I don’t understand.”
Then the rose was gone altogether. Their only connection was her hand on his arm, and she slid her palm up to his shoulder, rising up to him, clutching at him, tugging him closer.
This time he did not obey. He pushed her gently back down onto the bed but leaned over her. Even blindfolded, she sensed his tension. She let her hands roam over his back, kneading the muscles.
“Why do you want this?” he asked softly.
“Because I want…what…I…” Something to do with husband and wife and duty and babies