“Take it off,” he directed her, his voice hoarse and low. Anna saw the glitter in his eyes intensify as he waited for her to do his bidding. She felt her mouth go dry. Slowly, feeling both sinful and deliciously free, she shrugged the gown from her shoulders, deliberately delaying its fall to expose first small, pink-tipped breasts, then the slenderness of her waist, the gentle flare of her hips, the ash-brown triangle of hair at the apex of her thighs, the creamy length of her legs. When, finally, she let the gown drop to puddle at her feet, his eyes were aflame, and a tiny muscle twitched noticeably at the corner of his mouth.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said, his hands lifting as though to draw her to him. Anna stepped quickly out of reach, shaking her head.
“You’re wet, too,” she reminded him in a throaty whisper. For a moment he merely looked at her, his eyes hungry on her flesh, but then his lips curved upwards in the smallest of wicked smiles.
XXV
“Shall I strip for you, sweetheart?” The question was almost teasing despite its husky undertone. Unable to trust herself to speak, Anna nodded.
Then she watched, barely breathing, as he proceeded to do as she asked.
First he took off his boots. He sat on the end of her bed to pull them off, dropping them side by side on the floor. Then he stood up, unbuttoning his cuffs. That done, he started at the throat of his collarless shirt, undoing the buttons one by one. Anna felt her heart speed up as the broad, black-pelted chest that had seared itself on her mind was slowly revealed. When he pulled the tails of his shirt from his breeches and shrugged out of it, her eyes ran greedily over him. His shoulders were huge, wide and powerful, his arms corded with muscle. His chest was wide, tapering into a narrow waist and hips. Above his breeches were the beginnings of a muscle-ridged abdomen, the round shadow of his belly button. That thick triangle of black hair that she longed to touch arrowed past it to disappear inside his breeches.
His hands were already busy with the buttons of his pants. Anna followed their progress, feeling her heart pound harder with each new bit of flesh he revealed. Until finally the buttons were all undone, and he was sliding his breeches down his legs and stepping out of them, leaving him gloriously naked.
Anna looked at him and forgot to breathe. The thought that came to her then was, simply, that this was a man. She had never seen anything so magnificent in all her life.
Her eyes dropped down his body, rose again. He was hard with wanting her, and huge with it. Anna felt an answering ache deep within her belly. Quivering, she raised her eyes to his face.
“Come here,” he said then, and held out his arms to her. Anna drew a deep, shaking breath, and walked into them.
This time, when they closed around her, she had the sensation that he would never let her go. With no barriers left between them, she could feel the abrasion of his body hair against her breasts and thighs. She could feel the heat of his skin, seeming to burn hers everywhere they touched, and the even greater heat and silkiness of that hungry part of him, pressed against her belly.
She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in the hollow between his neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply of the musky scent of him. His hand came up to find her chin, lift it.
“I’ve wanted you,” he said, and the tip of his thumb stroked the soft line of her mouth. Anna’s lips parted helplessly. He smiled at her then, a sweet and tender smile that made her blood heat, and bent his head to her mouth.
Anna strained against him as he kissed her, holding him tightly, kissing him back. She felt his hands slide over the bare skin of her back, and closed her eyes at the sheer wonder of it. He stroked the indentation of her waist, the roundness of her bottom, the gentle curve of her thighs, with slow, sure strokes. By the time he gripped her bottom, cradling a silky half-moon in each hand, to pull her more fully against him, Anna was shaking as with an ague.
“Have you wanted me?” he whispered, sliding his mouth across her cheek to her ear, where he pulled the lobe into his mouth and nibbled it. Anna arched her neck to give him greater access, feeling her bones turn to water. Had she wanted him?
“Yes.” Like the rest of her, her voice was shaking. “Oh, yes.”
It was such an exquisite relief to admit the truth, to give in to her craving for him, not to fight her own feelings anymore. Had she wanted him? In that moment, Anna thought she would have walked over hot coals barefoot to get to him.
“Lovely, lovely Anna,” With one hard arm under her thighs and the other supporting her back, he lifted her off her feet and carried her the few steps to the bed. The covers were pulled back from where she had left it earlier; the pillow still bore the indentation of her head. Gently he laid her down on the cool sheet, then stretched out beside her and turned on one side, one hand propping up his head. His body was very dark against the white sheets; his eyes were blacker than the blackest midnight. With his foot he pushed to the floor the bedclothes that she’d earlier left all of a heap. She lay where he had placed her, naked, exposed, quivering. His eyes roamed over her, touched her breasts and belly and thighs. Then they lifted to meet hers. Dark fires blazed in them as they moved from her eyes to her mouth, drinking in each feature. One long-fingered hand reached out, so slowly, to smooth the tendrils of hair from her face.
Anna watched him, her eyes huge and vulnerable, her hunger for him plain in her face. He was being so gentle, so careful, but suddenly she wanted him to be neither. Her blood had heated to the point where it ran through her veins like raging lava, and she thought that if he didn’t put a speedy end to her torment she would be incinerated by her own desire.
“Your eyes glow like a cat’s in the dark,” he muttered, one finger moving to stroke the soft skin just beside them. Anna moistened her lips, which had suddenly gone dry. Then she caught his hand and carried it to her mouth. Softly, delicately, she pressed her mouth to his palm, her tongue coming out to touch his skin, reveling in the faint taste of salt.
His eyes flickered, narrowed, and his hand moved so that it cupped the side of her face, turning it toward him. Anna rubbed her cheek against that hard palm, closing her eyes, feeling her body simmer and burn until she could bear it no longer. Her eyes fluttered open to find that he was still watching her, a curiously guarded expression on his face. Almost as if he were afraid.…
But she could wait no longer. Reaching up, she slid her hands over his shoulders, behind his head, pulling his mouth down to hers. Maddeningly, he still held back, his mouth poised just millimeters from her lips.
His eyes searched hers, asking a question that she didn’t see.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, ready to beg, ready to do whatever it took to soothe the hunger that clamored inside her. “Please, Julian.”
He caught his breath, the sound almost a hiss, and the fire in his eyes flamed suddenly out of control. He bent his head to her mouth.
His kiss was gentle at first, soft and slow, parting her lips so that his tongue could slide inside, nibbling at her mouth. It was Anna who pressed her hand against the back of that black head, tilting her face up to deepen the kiss, her lips and tongue responding ardently to the tenderness of his. His hand found her breast, closed over it. The heat of his palm seared her nipple. Anna gasped, arching her back, wordlessly begging for more. Julian lifted his head and looked down at her. His face was hard with passion, his eyes hot with it. But there was something more than passion there too. And again Anna refused to see.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, her hands making begging little forays along his shoulders and the back of his neck. “Please don’t stop.”
“Christ,” Julian said, the word part prayer and part curse. Then he rolled on top of her, pressing her back into the mattress, his hands suddenly everywhere as his mouth staked bold possession. Anna trembled and quaked and clung to him, her nails digging into his shoulders as he kissed her with a fierce need that told her that the time for gentleness was over. One hand found her breast, her nip
ple, kneaded, squeezed. Anna cried out. His legs shifted, but before he could part her thighs with his knees Anna had already spread her legs, arching her back, offering herself to him.
“Sweet Anna,” he whispered against her mouth, and then something else. But already she was kissing him again, clinging to him, wrapping her legs around his waist like the wanton she had never been, and the muttered words went unheard.
His breathing rasped raggedly in her ear; his arms molded her to him. His hand slid between their bodies, between her legs, found the soft hot wetness of her, and stroked her there … where he had touched her, to her shame, before. But this time she felt no shame, felt instead a need and a hunger and a heat that made what he was doing seem as necessary to her survival as air. With experienced sureness, his fingers located a place that Anna had never dreamed existed, a tiny reservoir of feeling that exploded when he touched it. She cried out, gasping and trembling with the sheer wonder of it, as with no more than that gentle massage he introduced her to an ecstasy that she had never even imagined it was possible to feel.
Then, even as her body shuddered with its own pleasure, he thrust inside her. He went deep, so deep that at first she was unprepared for the sheer enormity of him and thought that he must hurt her, that the pleasure he had given her must surely be a prelude to pain. But there was no pain, only more pleasure, pleasure so intense that she convulsed again with it. Panting, she clung to him, her nails digging deep into his back and her legs tight around his waist as he taught her exactly how much she had yet to learn about lovemaking. His thrusts were deep and hard, driving into her with almost desperate strength—and she loved them. Her body was by now a thing utterly separate from her mind. It writhed beneath him, a wild thing, and wanton. From her throat came curious mewling sounds that were muffled by the curve of his neck, where she pressed her face. He was hot and wet with sweat, as urgent a primal force as the wind as he claimed her and made her his own. Anna, mindless, matched his desperation. Until at last, with a muffled shout, he found his own release and in doing so again gave her hers.
XXVI
When Anna surfaced, from somewhere far, far away, she found that Julian was lying on his back with her head nestled cozily against his chest. His arm circled her, held her to him. His other arm was beneath his head. One of her hands rested in the tangle of hair on his chest. He was very warm to the touch, slightly damp, reassuringly solid. And unashamedly, beautifully naked. Her eyes ran along his body with proprietary interest. Hard of muscle, long of limb, bronzed skin roughened by a quantity of dark hair, he was the very essence of man. Her dream lover come to life, in spades. Even sprawling, his body sated, sweat drying on his skin, he was a feast for her eyes. Anna took a deep breath and let it out in what sounded very much like a sign of contentment. Then she looked up to find that he was watching her. One corner of his mouth was turned up in a crooked smile.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since the first time I set eyes on you,” he told her.
Anna fluttered her lashes at him. She felt absurdly lighthearted, girlish, almost flirtatious. The chest that she had been longing to touch waited beneath her hand. Moving her fingers sensuously through the thick nest of hair, she decided that crisp was the best word to describe it.
“Have you?” she murmured distractedly.
“Umm-hmm.” He caught her hand, stilled it, carried it to his mouth, where he sucked the end of each oval-tipped finger in turn.
“Mm-hm. You looked like a little girl, with your silver braid and ruffled nightgown, all curled up in that chair. Your eyes were huge, and as green as the emeralds in my hand, and your back was as straight as if you had swallowed a poker. Then you jumped up, and I saw”—his hand strayed to cup and jiggle her breast, as if to illustrate exactly what had made him see—”that you weren’t a child after all. And I wanted you.”
“You frightened me,” Anna murmured, watching his hand on her breast through lashes that veiled her eyes. “I thought for sure that you were bent on murder—or rape.”
He grinned then, even as his hand stroked along the valley that separated one breast from the other. Attaining his new goal, he ran his palm idly over her nipple, causing it to harden and swell.
“You defended your honor very capably, I must say. If perhaps a trifle excessively. Did you really have to hit me so hard?”
“I’m sorry about that. But I couldn’t think of any other way to make you stop.”
“You might have tried a simple no.”
“You didn’t seem to be taking no for an answer.”
“Maybe I wasn’t,” he conceded, cupping her breast with his hand as if to test it for size. Anna, distracted, began to lose the thread of the conversation. “I knew that sooner or later you’d end up in my bed. You might say it was preordained. Destiny.”
“As a point of fact,” Anna murmured, giving in to the temptation to trace a circle around a pink-brown male nipple, “you’re in my bed.”
“Don’t quibble.” Her braid hung over her shoulder. He found the ribbon that secured it and tugged it free, running his fingers through her hair until it spilled over her breasts like golden silk. “You have beautiful hair.”
“Ummm.” Her nail ran over the top of his nipple, making him twitch away. His body tantalized her; she wanted to stroke him all over, to learn the feel of his skin and muscle and hair.
“Want me to show you what to do with that?”
“What?”
“A nipple. Any nipple. Mine. Yours.”
He was shifting as he spoke. Before the words were all the way out of his mouth Anna found herself on her back with Julian looming over her, a lopsided smile playing on his mouth even as he lowered his head.
“This,” he said, touching her nipple with his tongue, “is the proper way to treat a nipple.”
“Is it?” Anna felt her breath catch as his tongue flicked over her breast.
“Mmm-hmm.” Then, with no warning at all, he drew her nipple all the way into his mouth, nibbling it with his teeth, sucking on it. Anna felt a shaft of pure fire shoot from her breast clear down to her toes, and gasped.
“See?” It was a muttered aside, accompanied by a sideways flicker of his eyes to assess her reaction.
“I see.” Her response was husky as he continued his breathtaking ministrations. The sight of his black head nestled so intimately against her breast made her heart speed up. Her hand came up to stroke the rough strands of his hair, pressing his face more closely against her.
“You smell good. Like roses.” His mouth moved on to the other nipple, which he accorded the same lavish attention. Anna, who had thought she was sated, found that her body was waking up again. Delicious quivers ran over her skin, and the secret place where he’d given her such pleasure before began to throb.
“It’s my toilet water.” It was a distracted whisper. All Anna’s attention was focused on the pink-tipped creaminess of her small breast as it was drawn up into the hard masculinity of his mouth. Watching, she felt a rush of heat.
“What?” Clearly he was as distracted as she.
“My toilet water. It smells of roses.”
“Oh.”
His mouth left her breast to slide down her body, tracing a scalding path between her ribs and over her belly until he came to her belly button. There he paused, his tongue coming out to explore the small hollow until Anna pushed his head away.
“That tickles,” she protested faintly, because indeed it felt very odd, not quite a tickle but a sensation she could not quite describe.
“Let me show you something else that tickles,” he murmured, his mouth sliding lower still and his hands moving to part her legs.
“No!” Anna gasped, shocked back to awareness as she realized exactly what he meant to do. Surely gentlemen did not ordinarily do such things? With a lady? Such an act was quite beyond her experience, although over the course of the last hour she had come to realize that her experience was sadly limited. But she could not like this.… Julian still se
emed determined to proceed, however, so to prevent him she quickly rolled onto her stomach.
“All right,” he answered obligingly, as he took in her very real shock. Anna relaxed. For a moment she’d been afraid that he would proceed regardless. Then, just as she felt safe, his mouth crawled hot and wet over the soft roundness of her bottom.
“Oh!”
“Shhh. Lie still. This is fun, too.”
He was kissing her bottom, running his lips and tongue over the tender curves, nibbling, sucking, exploring all the hills and valleys.
“Oh!” Anna cried again, helplessly, as fresh waves of desire broke over her. He pressed her down into the cocoanut-husk mattress, his mouth moving up her spine. Her hair was flowing down her back now. Pushing the silken mass aside, he caressed her neck with his mouth.
“I love the way you taste,” he whispered into her ear. Anna, powerless to so much as speak in the face of her own growing need, shivered.
His tongue slid along her spine, found the cleft between her buttocks and stroked her there. Anna’s eyes fluttered shut, and she moaned.
“You’ve got a beautiful ass,” he said, softly biting each trembling cheek. Then she felt his body against her, felt him part her legs so that that part of him that was swollen with need could find its pleasure. He thrust into her from the rear, and because it was so new to her, so unexpected and probably forbidden and certainly nothing like anything she had ever expected a man to do to her, waves of pleasure rocked her almost instantly. His arms came around her, one hand fondling her breasts while the other found the nest of hair between her thighs. He stroked her there again, on the secret place that had exploded for him before. Anna cried out, writhing beneath him, her breath rasping in her throat as he took her to heaven and back.
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