When he touched her, she gripped at his arms, even though it was the most glancing of grazes along her entrance. She was so sensitive in that moment, he might as well have been doing far more.
“Do you want to come, Imogen?” he asked.
She let her gaze flit to his face. “Is that a serious question when I’m splayed out before you like a wanton, gasping and arching and shaking every time you touch me?”
“A very serious question,” he assured her as he leaned in and nuzzled her neck, abrading her skin gently with his whiskers. “I want you to say it. Say you want me to make you come. Tell me that’s what you want. Very simple, and you can have it.”
She gritted her teeth at the demand, for that’s what it was, no matter how sweetly it was supposedly requested. He was denying her until she prostrated herself on the altar of his fingers. His mouth. Hopefully his cock.
“I want you to make me come,” she said, forcing herself to meet his eyes. “Please, please make me come.”
His pupils dilated to an impossible blackness. He cupped her chin, and this time when he kissed her it was rough. Demanding. Like stripping her control had somehow taken his own. She moaned against him, lifting into the devouring pressure of his tongue, warring with him in a battle for need and release and connection.
At last he broke from her mouth and panted down at her. He looked…angry, almost. Though she felt no fear for herself. But he didn’t speak as he returned his hand to the place between her thighs. He laid the flat of his palm there, just covering her, and she ground into him out of instinct and desire.
“Don’t push me,” he growled. “Just let me. Close your eyes and let me.”
She stared up into his face. Dark and intense and focused in the dying firelight. She could refuse him and she believed he would back away, exit the room, and they would probably never speak of this again. She didn’t have the sense he was the kind of man who would force or even punish.
But he was still demanding trust. Trust a stranger who could hold her perfectly still with just a glare. Trust a stranger who was waiting, she would say almost patiently, for her to respond to his harsh order.
She settled back, dropping her hands away from his body, and shut her eyes. He grunted, almost another low laugh but not quite. What would he look like if he smiled?
She didn’t get to think further because his hand moved against her sex. He peeled her open slowly, revealing her. Even in the dim light, he’d be able to see her. She felt heat flooding her cheeks and lifted toward him.
“Don’t make me teach you how to behave,” he breathed, but there was a catch in his voice that told her he was as wrapped up in the power of this as she was. If he drowned her, she at least forced him to take on water.
That was power in its own way, even if he was holding her down as he traced her entrance with his fingertip. She was wet already, felt herself close to dripping as he swiped his finger through her excitement a second time.
“Very nice,” he murmured. “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes and watched as he licked the proof of her desire from his fingertip. “Oh my God,” she grunted, almost against her will.
His gaze narrowed and he held her stare as he dropped his finger back to her entrance, and this time he gently pressed himself inside. Inch by inch, to the first knuckle, to the second. He stretched her with his fingers and she flexed around him with a gasp of pleasure.
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” he whispered.
“Y-Yes,” she gasped. “I was looking for a protector but hadn’t advanced this—this far with anyone yet. I only…with my hand…”
“Don’t think about that,” he whispered as he flexed his fingers and sent a jolt of sensation through her. “Just think about this.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “This.”
He nodded. “I’m going to make that wait worthwhile.”
He curled his finger inside of her, and she gripped the covers as a bolt of pleasure as hot and fast as lightning tore through her. He held her stare, punishing, hot and hard as he kept working her, grabbing her pleasure and pulling it from her with such expertise that she felt like a novice even after years of marriage that had been anything but celibate.
She flexed against him, gripping him with her body as she reached for more. For release. For everything.
He shook his head and settled his thumb against her clitoris, grinding against her there as he continued to pump inside of her, adding a second finger to stretch and tease her further.
She could no longer make coherent sounds as he forced her pleasure. As he created in reality what she had fantasized about when she touched herself in the bath what seemed like a year ago rather than a few hours.
And when the orgasm hit her at last, it was far more powerful than that release had been on her own. She bucked against him, grabbing for his arms, digging her nails in as she keened out all the pleasure. Wave after wave rocked her, too intense, too powerful, and never-ending because he forced her to continue to ride it out. He tormented, never letting up, making the moment last far longer than she’d ever imagined it could.
Only when she was limp and sated, still twitching, legs still shaking, did he withdraw his fingers from her. He never broke eye contact as once again he licked them clean of her essence. She shuddered as she watched. The man was a virtuoso and she wanted to be his instrument until he tired of her.
She opened her legs farther, ready for him to slake his own need by taking her. He obviously wanted her. That was clear by the way his cock tented out the silky fabric of his dressing gown.
But to her surprise, when he touched her thighs, it was to close them. He rolled her on her side so her back was against his chest and wrapped his arms around her. His breath was warm against her neck, her ear, as he whispered, “Sleep now, Imogen. I won’t leave. Just…sleep.”
She wanted to argue. To ask him why he wouldn’t take what he so obviously wanted. She wanted to grind back against him and test the remarkable restraint he so obviously contained.
But she hadn’t slept well in months. Certainly not in the last week or two. And with his arms around her, his warmth encircling her, her pleasure still thick in her veins, the exhaustion began to overwhelm her. All questions faded, all desires simply pulsed rather than throbbed.
And she slipped into sleep at last, with no answers, no certainty and nothing but pleasure and his body to keep her warm.
Chapter 7
Imogen jolted awake, and for a moment she had no idea where she was. She stared up at the intricately carved ceiling, so different from her own worn, leaky one, and it all returned to her in a wave.
She was at the home of Oscar Fitzhugh, the man who had drawn her to shattering orgasm not so many hours ago. But he was gone. She was alone in the comfortable bed, covers tangled around her bare legs.
She hadn’t stirred when he left, which was a shocking thing because normally she slept so lightly that the tiniest sound or movement could disturb her slumber. She moved to the window and threw back the curtains, flooding the room with light from the sunny day. For a moment, the briefest moment, her troubles faded a fraction. Here, at least, she was safe. Here in these halls, she wasn’t…afraid. Or at least she was less afraid.