The delicate fragile bones beneath her skin, the smallness of her next to his enormous frame. This fragility coupled with the outsize enormous fierceness of her concentration when she orgasmed. She was going to get this right. She attacked bedsport with the same singularity of focus, the same drive for perfection, that she attacked a blank page with a quill dipped in ink.
She would write her pleasure in bold prose, make it sing, make it memorable. And he loved that about her. It was a gift. A lover who wasn’t worried about posing, and making sure that she was always attractive, a woman who let herself feel in a raw, present way, who carried her heart on her negligee, who met him more than halfway and was eager and wholly present.
It drove him toward a dangerous tenderness, a desire to unburden his heart to her, gift her his cold, charred heart and ask her to breathe life into it. An insane notion that she could protect him from himself, that she was a haven, a place to lay his head, to lay down his burden.
And it was thoughts like those that stopped him from consummating the marriage. He told himself that he was waiting for her to be ready... but really he was the one who needed more time. It had something to do with the idea that physical consummation with this extraordinary woman might force him to confronthis buried emotions, that he might lose the iron control that had sustained him for so long.
What had always been an act of measured control for him—giving pleasure freely but never giving his heart.
But it was Ana. And this was different. Her smile, her incessant questions, the joy with which she attacked life, it disarmed him.
Waiting gave her more power over him. He would consummate this marriage tomorrow.
He’d make sure she was so thoroughly pleasured that she begged him to take her. Picturing her surrender filled his mind with desire and stiffened his cock. He’d give her instructions and feel the thrill of having her obey. Rough, gruff instructions. The dark needy things he would do to her. Stroking himself, body tensed to the point of pain, moaning into his pillow, close now...
“Dex?”
Fuck. He threw the coverlet hastily over his throbbing erection.
“Is this what you do when you leave my room? You pleasure yourself with your own hand.”
“Yes,” he ground out. “This is what I do.”
Her gaze traveled from his lips down his torso to where his cock stood upright, tenting the coverlet. “Could I give you the same pleasure?”
“Go to bed, Ana,” he growled.
“No. I won’t. I’m cold and I want you to warm me.” She slid the covers back and crawled in beside him. It was all he could do to keep from groaning aloud when she curled her body up against his, laying her head on his shoulder and her arm across his chest.
“Now then, as you were, soldier.”
“What?” He bit back a laugh. The cheeky baggage.
“As you were. Keep doing it. I want to watch.” She lifted the covers and stuck her head inside.
No way he could refuse that request. He was too far gone, and her warm, womanly curves pressed against him were only making matters worse.
She wasn’t looking at his face, intent instead on his hand and his cock. He resumed stroking himself, driven nearly mad by the knowledge that she was watching. Then... dear God—then her hand slid down his chest, over his naval, and joined his, tentatively circling his cock with her small fingers. “May I?”
He grunted.
“Is that a yes?” When he didn’t answer, she lifted her head a little, searching his face in the darkness. “I know you said that I can’t touch you... but this isn’t the same situation, is it? You were already touching yourself, I’ll just add another set of hands...”
He grunted again, unable to find the words to tell her to go away.
“Say it, Dex.”
He couldn’t refuse. He was too far gone now. He wanted her too much. In the darkness, her soft hand questing, sliding gently over him.
He lay back with a moan. “Please. Touch me.”
She fit her hand around him, her fingers barely clasping together. “Like this?” She moved tentatively up and down. Not hard enough. Not fast enough. But it was enough, more than enough. To feel her touch, her hair silk and feathers, brushing his chest.
Her eyes glowing in the dark as she concentrated on her task.
“Perhaps... two hands,” he said through gritted teeth.
She understood, wrapping both her hands around his cock, hergrip tighter now. But still so inexpert. The need was growing, he must find release.