laugh burst out of me. But I sobered when I remembered the rocket in his pants. “Oh…should I…do you need me to…” I glanced down at the alluded-to member, straining against the confines of his pants.
He chuckled. “No, I don’t need you to anything. Not until you can think about it without that look on your face.”
“What look?” I tried to smooth my face, but he laughed, catching my chin in his fingers.
“That one. You look like somebody just told you you’ve got to eat monkey brains.”
I barely had time to laugh before he kissed me.
It was an unhurried stretch and flex of lips, the languid slip of his tongue into my mouth. The satisfaction I’d found began to burn away as he set me on fire again. Our bodies came together, our breaths mingling and loud. For a little while, he made up the sum total of my thoughts. But my mind began to wander, wondering what was next. What else? Would he leave and go sleep in his room? Or would he stay here all night and kiss me like this? Would we sleep? Or would we…
My stomach clenched, though not with aversion—with anticipation. I decided something then and brought my lips together, leaning back so I could see him.
His lids were heavy, his ebony lashes long and sweeping as he looked down at me with a look I could only define as adoring.
My rib cage filled with something warm and tingling. I smiled. “Will you…will you sleep with me?” When his lips angled higher, I added, “I mean, like actual sleep, not like sleep, sleep with me, although if you want to keep kissing, I really, really want to keep kissing, too. I just don’t know if that’s too much or if it’ll make…I don’t know. Are you…frustrated?”
He angled his face like he was inspecting mine, his smile small and amused. “I’m a big boy, Melia. I possess nearly bottomless self-control—don’t worry about me. I can wait. Okay?”
I sighed, the tension in my body easing with the exhale. “Okay.”
“And yes, I’ll sleep with you. But not sleep, sleep.”
I chuckled.
“I’m glad you asked,” he added quietly. “I didn’t want to leave.”
My insides liquefied. My hand cupped his neck and pulled, bringing him down for another kiss. His hand rested on my ass almost passively. I imagined him giving it a squeeze, and my thighs clenched involuntarily.
I had never been so horny in my life. Of course, I’d never had Thomas Bane’s hand on my ass or the python in his pants pressed against my stomach.
First time for everything.
When I broke away, I said, “Come on, let’s get ready for bed. I’ve got to get out of these thigh-highs.”
He smirked. “Yeah, you do.” His hand slipped from my ass to my thigh, his big fingers fiddling with the crimson satin ribbon. “Can I?” he asked gently.
There was legitimately no way to say no. I nodded like a dummy.
His eyes shifted to my thigh, his tongue sweeping over that pouty bottom lip of his, drawing it into his mouth.
I rolled onto my back, leaving my hand on his shoulder as he turned his attention to my legs. But he sat, pulling one leg over his thigh. His fingers hooked my bootlace, slipped in the crisscross, and tugged to loosen them. My heel rested in his palm as he squeezed and pulled, discarding the shoe with a thump.
Every nerve reached for him as his fingers approached the ribbon.
“I’ve been thinking about this all night,” he said half to himself. “I’ve wanted to untie these since you walked out of your room in them.”
With a whisper of satin, the bow unfurled. His fingers slid between the black silk and my skin, his thumbs hooking the edge. He dragged the stocking down the length of my leg, his hand riding every curve, skin to skin, all the way down to my ankle, my heel, the arch of my foot.
With almost absent reverence, he held my foot in one hand, cupped the back of my knee in the other, followed the line of my leg back up to my thigh, where he shifted to press a kiss.
That kiss fanned the fire in me, a fire that grew to an almost unbearable heat.
To my disappointment, he didn’t linger. He reached for my other leg and repeated the process. When my legs were naked, he pulled them into his lap, knees together and bent, hips turned gently in his direction. He studied the lines of them