She battled the sweet weakness invading her knees. Another deep breath helped her win the struggle to keep her heavy eyelids open and not let her body sag against him. “How…will I do that?”
“Go kneel on the bed.” He took her hand to help her step over the dress. “Face the mirror. Keep the shoes on.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, but did as he asked. Thanks to the mirror, she could watch him watch her. See his gaze sliding over her body, from the jiggle of her breasts in their stretchy lace confines as she crawled over the mattress, to the arch of her back and the round curves of her ass left bare by the minuscule G-string, but bracketed on either side by thin black garters that ran from her hips to the tops of her thighs, where they clipped lace-topped stockings in place.
His hands weren’t anywhere near her now, but the way his eyes tracked her made her hyperaware of her every move and his every reaction. Once she came up onto her knees and faced the mirror, he peeled off his jacket and slung it across a chair in the corner. Next, he dragged at his tie with practiced fingers, loosening it until he could slip the knot free. The striped silk went into a tidy fold on the nightstand. As if he wanted to keep it handy. He flicked his cuffs open with an ease that had her insides quivering again. The links went on the nightstand, too, and he rolled the cuffs to the tops of his forearms, highlighting the wrists and hands that had drawn her attention from across a bar the night they’d met. The stainless steel watch encircling one wrist should have struck her as domesticated, but there was nothing domesticated about the man wearing it.
For some reason she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight of the civilized accessory. She watched it come nearer. The big, capable hand reached out and picked up the black bag sitting beside her on the bed. The other came into play as he worked the top open.
“Czarina?”
She looked up from the bag to find him watching her in the mirror. “Ever used one of these before?” He withdrew a sleek pink two-pronged device and held it up by the sculpted white handle. A vibrator—a nice one. The longer prong jutted upward in a smooth, gentle arch, flaring out midway to culminate in a wide, rounded top. The smaller prong looked like a graceful pink thumb. Her internal muscles clenched in anticipation. “Not one like that. Another of your careful selections?”
He grinned and inclined his head. “Yes.”
“Well, it’s a lovely color.” She hoped her face wasn’t turning the same shade, but she didn’t dare move her eyes from his.
“This particular shade of pink made me think of all the places you’d use it, but my careful selection went a little further than just color. Care to hear what else I considered?”
He didn’t need the toy. He’d learned how to turn her into an aching mess with just words. “What else?”
“You like deep penetration. You like when it stretches you to your limits.” His gaze flickered to her shoes. “A little discomfort makes you feel sexy.” Then he pointed to the vibrator. “The length and graduated thickness of this model should scratch that particular itch. It can also prepare you for…more.”
More was coming, she hoped, when he toed off his shoes. He climbed onto the bed, settled behind her, and held the vibrator about waist high in front of her so she could see it better. “Both the shape and motion are designed to help you hit your G-spot.” He tapped the handle and showed her the different speeds and undulations. “You’ll have to experiment to find the settings and motions that work best for you, but this should get you started.”
Then, with no warning at all, he reached behind her. Lace bit into her skin for a quick second, and then gave with barely a sound. The G-string landed in a lacy scrap on the bedspread, ruined for anything beyond tonight. Would she end up the same? Before she could ponder the question as fully as it no doubt deserved, he nudged the vibrator between her open thighs.
“Oooh.” She bowed her head, braced one hand on her thigh, and wrapped the other around his, holding tight like an eager passenger as he guided the vibe into her. After a few thoroughly effective gyrations, she let out a long sigh. Carefully selected, indeed.
“Eyes up, Czarina.” She raised her head to encounter their reflection in the mirror. His rangy body enveloped hers. Arms surrounded her. Long legs backstopped hers. The superfine wool of his trousers brushed her skin—a civilized veneer encasing the jutting ridge of his cock. She watched, hypnotized, as he worked the vibrator in leisurely strokes. The woman in the mirror started rocking her hips in a counter-rhythm. Only the low hum of the vibrator, her increasingly labored exhales, and the occasional wet glide of silicone over her dampening flesh disturbed the silence. The parts of her body framed by the bustier, the garters, and the thigh-highs melted.
“Look at you. So fucking sexy. How can you resist yourself?” After a few moments, he swept her hair over her shoulder and pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. “This is all yours now.” He released the vibe and left her in exclusive control. “Just don’t get too distracted by the clit teaser.” His cocky grin teased her clit just as effectively as anything he could pull out of his bag of tricks. “I’ve noticed you like a lot of attention there, too.”
“I…where are you going?” She lost the rhythm as she turned to look at him. He eased off the bed.
“Not far.” He brought his fingers to the top button of his shirt, but waited. “Eyes front, please. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
She turned, relieved to find she could see him in the mirror. Relieved to know she wasn’t going to miss out on anything. From outside the glass doors, the setting sun painted the room peach. She reestablished her rhythm with the vibrator. The reliable action of the device kept her in a steady, comfortably predictable zone of pleasure, but the sight of him stripping off the dress shirt to bare every lean muscle of his chest caused unpredictable spikes. Those destabilizing spikes intensified as hard-etched abs came into view, and then intensified again when he pulled his shirttail free of his pants and revealed the faint trail of hair running from his navel to points south of his belt.
The shirt landed on the rug with a hushed rustle, and she admired the braided muscles of his arms. His fingers moved on to his belt. Anticipation tickled along her spine, but he paused. “Don’t get lazy, Czarina. You’re not a spectator.”
“Are you?” Despite the cranky response, she resumed attending to herself with the vibrator.
“I’m whatever it takes, as long as you keep doing your part.” He nodded at the activity between her thighs.
If he said anything more, she missed it, because he dragged his belt out of the loops so deftly the leather whipped the air. Then his eyes locked with hers in the mirror. “What’s it going to take?”
“You,” she bit out, and quickened her pace. “Naked.”
He whisked off his pants and underwear, and then stood, gloriously, staggeringly naked while golden light filtered through the doors and gilded his skin. His cock bobbled from the movement and then landed with a little smack against the taut drum of his abdomen.
“Touch me,” she added, pushing the words from momentarily clumsy lips.
He approached the bed. Behind her, the mattress gave under his weight, forcing her to plant her knees wider and lean forward to keep from toppling.
Then his hands were on her. Wide palms smoothed up her thighs, squeezed her backside, cupped her breasts—enflamed her everywhere. She amped the vibe to a speedier setting. Her vision blurred as new waves of sensation swept through her.
“Look at me.”
Oh God. She blinked and focused on his reflection.
“Does it feel good?” One hand kneaded her breast. The other molded to the back of her thigh.
“So good. I feel so good.”
“You’re the seduction, Czarina. Look at you, all flushed and glowing.” He stopped to press a hard kiss to the point of her shoulder and then trapped her gaze in the mirror. It was the only part of her she could hold still.
“Can you get yourself off, just like this?”
The possibility twisted inside her, twining so tight she gasped, but she shook her head. The programmed rotations of the vibrator and the predictable thrusts of her hips weren’t enough. She couldn’t lose control the way she yearned to. Worse, she didn’t want to. She wanted…she wanted… “I need you. Inside me.”
He looked at her a moment more, then picked up the black bag and flicked it.
A small black and green tube rolled onto the bed.
Chapter Thirteen
“Another careful selection?”
Despite the attempt at sass, the czarina’s words weren’t quite steady. She swallowed and stared at the lube. Jesus, she killed him with her quick mouth and wide eyes. “Feel how wet you are here?” He trailed his fingers along her slick inner thigh. “Feel all this natural lube you’ve teased out of your pussy with that pretty pink vibrator?”
She nodded. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders; her breasts heaved against the black lace. She had her legs spread and her busy hand still working the vibe.
He picked up the tube and pumped the clear liquid onto his fingers. “I’m going to make sure you’re just as wet for me.” He rubbed his thumb across his fingers to warm the lube, and then danced them along the back of her thigh.
She jumped as if he’d shocked her and then gave a self-conscious laugh. “God. Sorry.”
Nervous. But also excited. He could feel the anticipation snapping between them. “Shhh. Relax.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and held her. Just held her. “Keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t mind me.”
“Ohhh”—her response trailed off as he rimmed the target and then eased one finger inside—“kaaaay.”
He went as deep as his first knuckle and did a slow circle. The hand between her legs faltered on the vibrator.
“Here’s how this works, Czarina. You stop, I stop. Are we stopping?”
“No.” She answered with heart-touching speed and reinforced her hold on the vibe. “No. Don’t stop.”
He waited until she got her rhythm going again and used that momentum to his advantage, letting her take his finger as long and as deep as she saw fit, encouraging her with low words. When she’d worked it all the way in and held it deep for several seconds at a time before withdrawing, he tightened his arm around her waist to keep her still. “Ready for another finger?”
Her head tipped back against his shoulder, and she rolled it from side to side. Her eyelids drifted low. “I—I don’t know.” Despite her uncertain words, she continued to whisk the vibrator in, out, and around her sex.
“You are so ready, Czarina. And when I give it to you, you’re going to thank me.” Still, he held back for a moment, to give her the chance to disagree, or ask to slow down. When she did neither, he introduced another finger.
“Oh God.” She lifted. “Okay.” She hovered. “Thank you.” She came back down.
He pushed in a little deeper, stirring his fingers in a slow circle opposite the steady cycle of the vibrator.
Her throat worked. Her body trembled against his arm. “Ri—”
“I’m here.” He cut her off on purpose, not wanting to hear that name on her lips, and stirred again, going a little faster, a little deeper. “I’m right here.” His cock pounded to be inside her. His balls ached from the strain of holding back the need she incited simply by breathing. “Tell me what you want.”
Her hand wielded the wand of the vibrator while she clenched around his fingers. “I want…I think I’m ready…”
That’s all he needed to hear. He pulled out of her quickly and pumped an unholy amount of lube into his palm. Quickly, he rubbed his hands together to coat both with the specially blended gel. He massaged her with the heel of his hand to slick up her entrance and keep her entertained while he coated his dick with the rest, layering it on so thick he’d have a cushion of lube around the base of his shaft after she seated herself.
“Lift up.”
She rose up onto her knees, churning the vibrator furiously as she went. He looped his arm around her waist and angled the head of his cock into position. “Stay still,” he breathed into her ear. “No rushing this. Don’t move until I tell you to.”
Her breath hitched and her muscles quivered, but she held the position while he fed himself in to the halfway point. He stopped there because she bit her lip and started to rock her hips—ready to take over.
“Go.” He slapped her ass, and she was off to the races, riding that dildo hard and fast, lifting up until he almost slid free and then surging down to take him deeper each time. He kept his hands moving over her, stroking her legs, gripping her hips, burying one in her hair while he kneaded her breasts.
After a few energetic minutes, she paused to catch her breath and flip her tousled hair away from her face. It tumbled around her shoulders, revealing her breasts overflowing the lace confines of the bustier. His handiwork. Her stomach fluttered.
He sat back against his heels, pulling her with him, letting gravity do the work for them. She resisted at first, leaning against the brace of his arm, pushing her weight into her knees. Her body trembled.
“Do you feel me filling you?”
She let out a breath. Sweat gleamed on her forehead and beaded on her upper lip as she cautiously seated herself on his lap. “Yessss.”
“Ar—” Holy shit, he’d almost called her name. He bit it back and forced his mouth to form other words. “Are you ready for more?”
“More?”
He cupped her ass, parting his fingers around the spot where their bodies joined. His fingertips reached low, curled under to massage the drenched, swollen folds that plumped every time the vibrator gyrated.
She whimpered. Her lips opened. He took hold of her chin and pushed two fingers into the soft, warm cavern of her mouth.
Her body bucked, shuddered, and her eyelids drifted low over eyes more blue than green in the lengthening shadows slanting across the room. A long moan rushed out from deep inside her as she climaxed. Muscles clenched and released in rapid waves, milking forth the release he’d been holding back. He had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes glaze before his own urges took control.
Energy surged. He pulled his fingers from her mouth and rose to his knees, lifting her in the process. She fell forward, vibrator abandoned, and scrambled to catch herself. One hand curled around the ball-shaped cap to the footpost, and the other grabbed a fistful of comforter. As if in slow motion, she raised her eyelids and brought her gaze to his in the mirror. In those gleaming depths he glimpsed eternity.
The next thing he knew he was on the move, grasping her hips and holding them still so he could deliver rapid-fire, tit-jostling, flesh-slapping thrusts. Her breath exploded from her lungs. Color flooded her face.
Words tumbled from his lips, uncensored. “I wish you could see this, Czarina. See your perfect ass framed by lace, packaged up so pretty just for me. See me claiming it. Tell me it’s mine. Tell me.”
“It’s yours,” she panted. “Yours.” And then, incredibly, those inner muscles began to twitch and spasm again. She cried out his name—over and over—until it echoed in the air, the room, and his mind as he lost himself.
Chapter Fourteen
Arden felt the bed move, felt a weight lift off her, but couldn’t work up the energy to open her eyes.
Firm lips pressed a kiss to her temple. “Stay there,” a voice whispered.
Check. In her mind, she lifted her hand and gave a thumbs-up, but in reality, she might not have accomplished more than a muscle twitch. The sound of footsteps padding off to the en suite bathroom alerted her to the fact that she was missing the chance to watch Rider prowl around naked, but checking him out would require turning her head and opening her eyes, and that was a little too much to ask of herself right now. Instead she attempted a silent inventory. Physically she was all there—a well-used assemblage of weak, heavy limbs, and raw, tingling, but oh-so-satisfied parts.
Mentally, things were harder to quantify. Thoughts and emotions pulled at the
edges of the happy blanket the climactic release of hormones had woven. She batted them back as best she could and clung to the contentment, but one persistent worry sneaked past her defenses.
How are you going to walk away from this man?
Water ran in the bathroom, filling the silence her mind offered up in response to the question. Sadly, solutions didn’t flow as readily as Maui tap water. By the time he’d shut off the faucet, all she’d come up with amounted to stubborn denial. Maybe you don’t have to walk away? Maybe you can ask if he’d be open to more?
Before she could even piece together a picture of what “more” looked like, footsteps approached. Next thing she knew, her world spun. The bed creaked, and she landed on his lap, arms around his neck to anchor herself, head nestled against one strong shoulder, her backside suspended between his powerful thighs. She drew the corners of her blanket of contentment closer and snuggled in, only to bolt upright an instant later when something warm and wet pressed against one of those raw, tingling places she’d taken stock of earlier.
“Whoa…what—?”
He cupped her head and guided it to back to his shoulder. “Can’t have you sitting at dinner cursing my name.”
Her face flamed. Thankfully she doubted he’d see it. The sun had set, leaving them doused in blue-tinged shadows beyond the halo of light from the bathroom. She sat still while he did his caretaker thing with the washcloth, but inside, she scrambled for a little composure. “Surely by now you’ve figured out I’m not fragile.”
She was, though, when it came to him. She was damn near breaking.
“So noted.” The hand at her head wandered down her leg and tugged one of her shoes off. It hit the rug with a thud. “We’ll skip the foot rub.” The other shoe followed, and despite what he said, he squeezed her tortured instep until she sighed.
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