by Nalini Singh
Sliding his free hand up her side, he nibbled at the skin pressed so temptingly against his mouth. A shiver shook her body and in his hair, her hand clenched. It was that reaction which gave him back his control.
Tonight was about Charlotte. He could indulge himself later, once he’d plied her with pleasure. He’d make this night perfect for her. She deserved nothing less.
He murmured a question to her about the protection. Her response was breathed against his cheek. “In the bedside drawer.”
Then he stopped thinking about anything aside from making Charlotte feel adored, cherished, beautiful. Moving his lips from her neck, he kissed his way along her jaw and captured her mouth once more. She kissed him back with passion and heat, the sensuality in her nature rising to the surface.
His arousal pushed at the softness of her belly as she arched against him and he had to clench his fists tight to restrain the urge to plunder. Taking a shuddering breath, he relaxed one hand and ran the fingers along her back at the point where bare skin ended and her waistband began.
She pressed closer, a silent invitation for him to take what he wanted. What he wanted most of all was to have his Charlotte naked so he could worship her luscious body from head to toe. Suckling her lower lip into his mouth, he flicked open the button on her jeans.
Their mouths parted as she made a little noise and pulled away. He halted, but realized in seconds that she wasn’t saying no. She just wanted to watch. He should’ve guessed that a woman so intrinsically sensual would want to savor every moment.
Her eyes lowered to where his hand slowly slid down her zipper. He’d intended to pull her jeans off but with her sultry gaze locked on his hand, he decided to tease her a little—show her that between them, this act would always include tenderness, affection and joy.
At that moment, it didn’t occur to Alexandre why it was so very important to him that Charlotte was in no way hurt by this intimate dance, physically or emotionally. Heart thundering, he slipped his hand through her parted zipper and cupped her through her panties.
Jerking, she clutched at his upper arms. He tightened the hand he had around her waist and moved the hand between her legs just enough to tantalize. Gasping for breath, she looked up at him and made a silent request for more.
“What do I get if I give you more?” he asked aloud, teasing, tempting, playing.
Eyes going wide, she licked her lower lip…and then moved against him.
Once.
Twice.
“I think, ma petite,” he said, his voice gone rough, “you’re going to drive me crazy.” He withdrew his hand before the feeling of her damp and hot against him succeeded in destroying his teeth-gritting control.
She pouted a little. “Alexandre.”
He pushed her jeans off her hips and to the floor. “Lift your foot for me, kitten.” When she complied, putting her hands on his shoulders for balance, he completed the removal of the denim barrier.
Then he glanced up. A dark-eyed siren looked down at him, all sun-kissed skin and midnight hair. Dressed in a white lace bra and matching panties, she looked sexier than a woman had any right to look.
At his continued silence, her hands tugged at his shoulders. As he rose, he ran his fingers up the backs of her legs, luxuriating his senses in the feel of her. She shivered under his touch, especially when he passed over the curve of her bottom.
He kissed her again, tempted by the lushness of her lips, slightly swollen from his earlier caresses. Her arms slipped under his shirt and clutched at his waist, her grip firm and just a tad possessive. He liked the way she was beginning to touch him, liked the fact that she considered him hers.
Accommodating the request she communicated to him by tugging at the material of his shirt, he shrugged it off. She sighed into the kiss and rubbed herself against his skin. He thought he’d lose his mind at the feel of her breasts teasing him through satin and lace.
Aware that his restraint was dangerously close to shattering, he guided her to the bed. “Will you lie down for me?”
Clearly reluctant to stop touching him, she climbed onto the sheets. The beautiful view of her heart-shaped bottom had his erection pounding. Thankfully, she lay down on her back seconds later, giving him a moment’s relief. Until she raised a hand and reached for him.
With a rumbled groan, he kicked off his shoes and shucked his pants. Unwilling to shock her with the blatant evidence of just how much he wanted her, he kept on his briefs as he followed her onto the bed.
Then, taking a deep breath, he ran his hand down her sweetly curved body. His throat locked as the marauder in him roared with need. She was perfection. Absolute perfection. He had no need to pretend she fulfilled his every fantasy—it was true. He’d never been with a woman who was so much everything he desired.
Tenderness, he thought, recalling the words he’d read in her journal. Of course he’d give her tenderness this first night—that was not something she should’ve been worried about receiving from her first lover. From him.
“Why are you so quiet?” Charlotte’s big eyes were looking into his, a touch of worry in them.
He wanted to erase even that smidgen of discomfort. “I’m simply indulging myself with the sight and feel of you,” he said honestly. “You’re so lovely, I could gaze at you for hours, though I admit I’d want to touch far too much to resist.” So saying, he ran his hand to the curve of her hip and spread his fingers.
She was blushing, the worry gone. “I should’ve guessed you’d say something outrageous.” Her lips tilted up.
Learning down, he nibbled on her for a while, teasing her with almost kisses. He didn’t rush despite the tightness in his groin. Tonight, the woman in his arms needed slow seduction, not dark heat.
“You taste better every time I kiss you,” he murmured. “I’m addicted to you, chérie.”
She ran her hands up his chest to his shoulders. “Your voice—you could seduce me over the phone.”
He grinned, delighted. “I shall do my best whenever you’re away from me.” Leaning closer, he urged her to wrap her arms around his neck as he pressed his chest lightly against her breasts.
She shivered. “You feel so good.”
“Why do you sound surprised?” He chuckled and kissed the side of her neck, slipping his hand under her body to undo the clasp of her bra.
Her hands slid from his neck into his hair, playing with the sensitive skin of his nape. This time, he shivered. He felt her smile against him as he continued to taste the skin above her pulse.
“I never thought it would be this wonderful to just have a man’s weight on me.”
He lifted his head to glare at her. “My weight, not any other man’s.”
Eyes locked with his, she slid the bra down her arms and threw it off the bed. “I didn’t know you existed before,” she said, a teasing light in her eyes.
It was an effort to not immediately caress her lush breasts, pressed so temptingly against him. “So who did you imagine would hold you so?”
Her smile turned into something far more sultry. “I think I always dreamed of you without knowing it.”
Mollified, he kissed her until she gasped for breath and then resumed his languid stroking of her body, from breast to thigh, indulging himself even as he stoked her desire to fever pitch. Her skin was so damn beautiful, he wanted to kiss every inch of it. Did he have the patience tonight? Could he survive the passionate torture?
Shuddering, he kissed her cheekbones, then the line of her jaw, before moving to her shoulders and her collarbones. When she clenched her fingers in his hair and sighed, he knew he’d find the patience he needed to give her this tenderness.
And then he began caressing every sweet inch of her skin that he hadn’t yet savored. Erotic ecstasy laced his blood at the taste on the curve of her breasts, and he had to take her into his mouth. She arched as he tugged at a nipple, her desire open and sensually beautiful. When he finally had his fill—for the moment—her breasts were sheened
by the touch of his lips, her chest heaving with her attempts to suck in air.
As he moved his hands over her, intent on this slow loving, his fingers touched the lace of her panties. Frustrated at being unable to touch her without hindrance, he tugged them off and threw them aside. Then he continued on his quest to taste every secret hollow and curve.
It was an intoxication of the senses, an initiation into the arts of pleasure by a master. Charlotte felt her body arch as Alexander’s long-fingered hand lingered over the planes of her stomach, the strength of him compelling.
He kissed the edge of her mouth. “You’re tense, ma petite. Is this not to your liking?”
How could he ask that question when she was burning from the inside out? Swallowing, she turned to face him, as always, stunned by the sheer beauty of him. “I’ve never felt this much.”
His hand slid down her hip to rest on the sensitive skin of her upper thigh, his fingers so close to the heated place between her legs that she felt like begging him to take the next step. “I’m rushing you, Charlotte.” The way he said her name was a temptation, an invitation by a fallen angel to join him in sin.
“If you go any slower, I’ll melt at your feet.”
His smile was wicked. “Ah, but it’s not your feet that I want to melt, kitten.” That seducing hand curved, the fingers brushing over the delicate skin of her inner thigh. A moan escaped her.
“You’re so very sensitive.” His husky murmur was a purr against her ear. “The idea of spiriting you away to my chalet, for my eyes only, is looking more and more attractive.”
Turning her head, she met that dark gaze. “I’m no trophy,” she found herself saying, barely aware why it was so important to her that he understood that.
Intensity flared in his expression. “Oui—you’re far more prized than a mere trophy.”
She ran her fingers across his lips and he kissed the tips before bending his head and capturing her mouth again. Against her body, the hard heat of him pulsed, making her want to rub against him as he kissed her with passion and heat…and heartbreaking tenderness.
The last vestiges of shyness and uncertainty disintegrated under Alexandre’s exquisite gentleness. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kissed him back with every ounce of passion in her. She’d been saving it for a lifetime. For her dream lover—her Alexandre.
He shuddered in her arms and she felt him reach blindly into the drawer beside the bed. Frustration in his groan, he broke the kiss only long enough to find what he needed and then his lips were taking her again, hot and sensuous and unashamedly possessive.
No matter what happened afterward, tonight she belonged to Alexandre Dupree. And he belonged to her.
He whispered something French in her ear, as if he’d forgotten she couldn’t speak it and shifted off her. Moments later, he returned to the kiss, pressing the length of his body against hers. She jerked at the shock of sensual heat that sizzled between them as their naked bodies came in full contact.
There was nothing separating them now, nothing but their own searching hands and hungry mouths. When his hand stroked the inner skin of her thigh, she trembled and spread her legs for him.
Gently, so gently, he guided one over his back. She followed with the other, enclosing him in a prison of desire. He trailed a rain of kisses from her mouth down her neck to her breasts, as his hand slipped between their bodies to touch her with stark intimacy.
She gasped. But there was no self-consciousness in her, only pleasure. How could it be anything else when the man parting her slick folds looked at her as if her hunger for him was purest temptation?
As she grabbed at his shoulders, he began to make love to her with his fingers, rubbing and fondling, teasing and caressing. When she moaned, he lavished attention on her breasts, too, doubling the firestorm of erotic heat. She was aware of his fingers asking for entrance into her body and she responded by pushing toward him, drunk on the scent of desire, more than ready to have him inside her.
Those elegant fingers were very strong…and very careful. He caressed her deep inside, seeming to relish her every broken moan, occasionally leaving her sensitized breasts to sip at her mouth.
Unable to speak, she kissed and touched in turn, feeding her sensual need by tracing and holding onto the muscled planes of his back. He nipped at her neck when her fingers trailed over his buttocks, shocking a tiny quiver deep inside her body, where his fingers continued to do their magic. She almost panicked at the aching depth of sensation.
A hoarse male chuckle sounded in her ear as his lips trailed along the shell. “Don’t fight it, kitten. I’ll hold you safe. I give you my promise.” And then he kissed her again and his tongue did something to her mouth that shattered her.
She stopped breathing as pleasure splintered her thoughts into a million pieces, as the most intimate of her muscles clenched around him again and again. Her body arched under his as the darkness of pleasure engulfed her but he kept his promise—he held her safe.
Sucking in a breath after she could think again, she said, “I wanted you with me.”
Her declaration made all that beautiful male muscle turn to steel around her. “I’ll be with you this time.” Removing his fingers from her pleasure-weakened body, he rose over her.
When he pushed for entrance into her, her sensitive flesh shuddered with aftershocks. Wrapping her arms and legs around him, she welcomed him. And when he tore through the finest of barriers inside her, she barely noticed it, the pain lost under the delight.
This time, his kiss was carnal but his body remained still, letting her get used to the feel of him inside her, stretching her so completely that she ached. But the ache promised such absolute ecstasy that she whimpered for him to give her more.
Kissing the sound off her lips, he pushed again and lodged fully in her. Her breath fractured on a groan as he began to move and their lips finally parted. Inside her, he was a living brand, hot and powerful. Slow and deep, his loving stoked the embers of her desire and she felt another firestorm approaching. Looking into his eyes, she saw the storm mirrored in eyes gone black with passion restrained.
For her.
She wanted to tell him that it was okay, that he could let go now, but before she could find the words, stars began to explode in front of her eyes, the weight of his body and his scent overwhelming her senses. But, as if he’d heard her silent permission, his body arched and she knew he’d thrown the reins of control aside.
This time, he came with her.
Nine
Charlotte felt completely boneless. She lay on top of Alexandre, her face buried in his neck, breathing in his maleness and feeling the woman in her sigh. This was her mate and she reveled in him.
A big hand stroked down her back and came to rest on her bottom, possessive and certain of his right to touch her so intimately. “Are you awake?”
Velvet and danger, she thought, that’s what his voice sounded like. Velvet to sensuously wrap around her and danger to tempt. “A little.” Smiling against his skin, she made a valiant effort and raised her head. “I’m not sure I’m capable of rational thought though.”
His eyes glinted with amusement. “You flatter me.”
She laughed. “Credit where credit’s due.” An unexpected thought intruded on her happiness, stealing away a little of the sunshine.
“What is it? Are you hurting?” Concern, sharp and intent, layered his question. The hand that had been stroking her with languid ease was suddenly a band of steel locking her to him.
“No. I’m fine.” Leaning down, she pressed a kiss to his jaw. “I’m being silly…will you be offended if I ask you something very personal?”
His arm relaxed. “We’ve just shared something very personal, ma chérie. We’ve claimed certain rights over each other—so ask.”
“You’re very good at this,” she whispered. “I suppose I’m jealous of the women who came before me.”
She expected him to say something sophisticated and French, som
ething charming and teasing. Despite what he’d said about claiming, he was a man used to lovers, not at all like her, for whom a sharing of the body could only come with a sharing of the heart.
Long fingers stroked down her face. “I always respected the women I was intimate with, so I won’t say that they meant nothing. But what we shared this night—it has little to do with experience and skill and everything to do with us. Nothing has ever been this powerful, this beautiful.”
She adored him all the more for his honesty. This man would never treat her as lesser because she was a woman. Even more, by accepting that what they’d shared was special, he’d given her a glimpse into his heart. She could do no less.
“I’ve never been with another man,” she said, looking down into his face, “but I know I’ll never regret this. You’re the only lover I could imagine spending this first night with.”
His jaw tightened. “Perhaps you shouldn’t imply having other lovers around me, Charlotte.”
Though the words were light, the tone was anything but. Not having expected possessiveness from her sophisticated Frenchman, she couldn’t help but feel joy at this sign of deeper feeling on his part.
Smiling, she folded her arms flat across his muscular chest and put her chin on her hands. “Have you ever been in love?” she asked, encouraged by his openness.
His cheeks creased with male amusement and that stroking hand began to wander over her body again. “When I was a pup of twenty, I believed myself madly in love.”
“And?”
“Celeste was rather lovely, flashing blue eyes, long blond hair. I thought she was the epitome of grace.”
Jealousy sunk her fangs into Charlotte once again. “I see.” She fingered her own ebony mane.
Alexandre’s chuckle rubbed along her skin. “You should be careful. Otherwise, I might begin to believe that you care.”
“You already know I care.” She made a face at him. “Why didn’t you marry Celeste?”
“I decided it would be imprudent to marry a woman who was gracing all of my friends’ beds.”