Her scalp grew sensitized and a shiver chased down her spine. She reflexively pulled from his light hold on her hand to cross her arms and rub away the goose bumps that rose beneath her sleeves.
“Am I making you shiver? I want to.” He stroked a light touch from her shoulder to her elbow and back, reigniting the prickling sensation she’d tried to erase. His touch firmed into a warm massage that was equally inciting. “Don’t hold back any of your reactions. Your pleasure is my pleasure.”
“Really?” Her experience with men was...not that. More like, Go farther, faster. Why aren’t you into this?
“I want to know you’re as excited as I am.” He tucked her hair behind her ear and played his fingertip along the whorls he exposed, caressing behind and into the hollow beneath her earlobe.
Why that made her nipples stand up, she didn’t know, but she felt them tighten and sting. She bit her lip and wanted to lift her hand to erase that sensation, too, especially when his gaze dropped. She looked down and yes, her nipples were poking against the soft red knit of her pullover.
“I want it to be so good, you can’t bring yourself to leave my bed.” His voice grew husky and intimate, his concentration wholly on the vision he created as he slid his hand to her side. He pressed the knit of her turtleneck taut so her breast was blatantly outlined, nipple standing firmly against it. “No bra?”
“I don’t like them,” she confessed faintly.
“Neither do I. Not anymore.”
She had never experienced such a strange euphoria simply by being near someone, barely touching. His light caress through her clothing was feathery and wonderful. She liked being snuggled close to his solid warmth, able to discern his strength and take in his scent of wool and outdoors and faint aftershave and a more intimate, personal fragrance that was spicy and musky and all him.
His touch slid back to her shoulder, encouraging her to lean in as he did, closer and closer, gaze on his mouth. He didn’t kiss her, though. He touched light kisses along her jaw, then stole a very brief kiss. Started to come back for more.
She drew back slightly. “Shouldn’t we go to the bedroom?”
He frowned with insult. “I’ll have to turn in my Italian citizenship if I don’t seduce you.”
“But I already said yes.”
“You agreed to the sensual attack I promised you.” He grew serious. Maybe faintly suspicious. “Why the hurry?”
“I’m nervous,” she admitted with a sheepish wrinkle of her nose.
“Then we should take it slow.”
“But I feel...impatient.” Her low-grade blush increased until she was so hot, she probably glowed, fully embarrassed by how urgent she felt. “I want to be naked and feel all of you and know how it will be when we’re...together.”
He gathered her in his strong arms and his chest muscles flexed as he pulled her to sit fully in his lap, so they were nose to nose. His big hands moved over her lower back and hips, waking her up to swirling sensations that expanded into her inner thighs.
“This is how it will be,” he told her, opening his mouth against her throat and licking at her flesh. “Better and better with every minute that goes by.”
He really did attack her senses. She caught her breath at the onslaught of sensations, gasping when his hands hardened on her, holding her in place.
“I’m dying to have you naked and spread out on my bed, weak with need for the release I give you.” His hot breath wafted against her nape. “I’m going to take liberties that are liable to shock you. I’m as impatient as you are for all of that.”
“Are you?” He seemed in such complete control.
“Do you lack sensation below the waist? What do you think that is against your ass? A penknife?”
She chuckled shyly and glanced down to where a stiff ridge dug into her cheek. She gave a small wriggle that made heat flare in his eyes.
Oh.
She did it again, testing her newfound feminine power.
“You will be the death of me,” he said in a rasp and rocked to shift his legs open a little farther, nestling her deeper into his lap. “Can we lose these?” He tugged the zipper on the inside of her boot.
She nodded, wondering how the slow relaxing of her boots and their loose drop could pull such an erotic sensation from her loins to the arch of her foot.
He caressed her calf and invited, “Kiss me.”
She did, sliding her arms around his neck while she worked her mouth over his, dabbing her tongue into the taste of him between his parted lips. Trying to slake a greedy hunger she’d never experienced—or expressed—in her life.
Gradually, she became aware of his arms firming around her. His hand was in her hair, his other one soothing along her rib cage while he took control of their kiss. He was unhurried about it, but she slowly became aware that they were fully involved. He was thoroughly ravaging her and it was fantastic. She curled into him with a groan, pressing her thighs together to ease the growing ache between them. When his touch crept over her breast and he molded the swell while sweeping his thumb across her nipple, she moaned into his mouth.
He drew back and his heavy-lidded gaze was fixated on where he was fondling her. “Let me see,” he said in a thick voice and gave a tug against the back of the turtleneck.
“Yes, I’m so hot,” she breathed anxiously.
“Me, too.” He swept off his own pullover first, then helped her do the same. He swore as she twisted her naked torso back toward him, stalling her with his wide hands against her shoulders, still balancing her on his thighs.
“You’re so beautiful.” His palms went down to cup the sides of her breasts. His thumbs shaped the swells to plump them and tilt her beaded nipples higher.
She trembled as she tried to work his shirt buttons loose. It wasn’t easy. He dropped his head to set the sweetest kisses across her shoulders. His light touch grazed her stomach and ribs and tickled the curves of her breasts. It was such a tease! Her breasts grew heavy with anticipation. Everything in her wanted to sit still for the lovely sensations he was causing with those clever fingers and damp lips, but more than that, she wanted to feel him. His hair against her jaw made her turn her nose in to his scent, but she finally had his shirt undone enough to push it open and—“Oh!”
She thrust her arms beneath the edges, hugging his sides. The scrape of her naked breasts against the silken hairs on his chest sent a glorious, electrical excitement through her. He made a growling noise and caught her into a passionate kiss. As they devoured each other, tongues tangling, they moved against one another, skin against skin in hedonistic friction.
It took her a moment to realize her perception of falling was real. He was tipping her onto her back on the cushions, but coming down with her. He leaned over her, mouth finding her throat and taking soft, wet bites.