He shaped it while she gasped. He teased her pert nipple as she writhed. And he kissed her again so that he could taste her passion in the play of their tongues.
Then she broke from him. She tore herself back while her breath heaved, and her hands pressed tight to her chest. “You have come for me then, tiger?” she asked, and he did not understand what she meant.
“Have you ever felt a quickening?”
She shook her head.
“Do you know what it is?”
She nodded. “I have heard of it.”
“I could show you.”
She looked around them. “Out here in the open?”
He smiled. “Wherever you want. If you want to feel it.”
He saw the debate inside her. She was so different now that the servile woman who had first come to the castle. She still held herself back, still pressed her hands together across her belly, but now he saw the daring in her. What artist did not want to feel something new? She had been bold to explore him, now he tempted her with an experience wholly her own.
“You can even stay covered, if you want.”
She did want. He could see it in the way her hands pressed against her belly then softened, pressed and softened. She was feeling the same hunger he did, but she did not fully understand it.
The day was a fine one, but the ground could be hard. He lay out his clothing as best he could, then sat down such that there was room for her in his arms. A rock propped up his back and his body was open to her. Still randy as hell, but relaxed enough to be inviting. Or so he hoped.
She looked at him, obviously torn, then murmured something that pleased him. “Ignorance is something even Mrs. Dove-Lyon abhors.”
He smiled and pulled her close for a kiss. His hunger—which had quieted for a moment—roared like the tiger she’d named him. And as she opened to his thrusting tongue, he maneuvered her to stretch out beside him.
Then he stroked her leg, pulling her skirt higher with every caress. She grabbed his shoulders, her fingers pressing hard into his bicep.
“I will let you control it,” he said when she pulled back from his kiss. “You tell me when you want more.”
He caressed the curve of her ankle up to the side of her knee. He squeezed her calf and flattened his hand over her knee, and then he teased his fingers along the narrowest part of her thigh.
“I love the feel of a woman’s leg,” he said. “Especially when she is strong like you.” Then he looked into her eyes. “Do you want to feel more?”
She nodded. He brushed his hand up between her thighs, first one side then the other. Broad strokes as if his hand were a large brush and his fingertips had the lightest dusting of paint. She trembled in his arms, but she didn’t fight him.
“More?” he asked.
She nodded, but when he passed his fingertips lightly across the juncture of her thighs, she stiffened and drew back. He immediately withdrew.
“Here then,” he said, as he returned to her thighs. He brushed her again, his strokes deeper. And while her breath caught from that, he pressed his mouth to hers. He didn’t demand this time, but teased his lips across hers. She was the one who became frustrated with that. After light touches against her lips, she grabbed his shoulders and drew herself higher in his arms. She demanded a deeper kiss, and he gave it to her with all the pent-up desire in his body.
He pressed her until she lay flat in his arms, and he followed her down as he thrust into her mouth. And when he was done, her legs were open to him.
“More?”
“Yes.”
He cupped her sex. He didn’t invade. He didn’t even move. But he held her wetness in his hand and her eyes went wide.
“Is that it?” she asked.
“What do you feel?”
Her mouth opened, but she didn’t seem to have the words. Then he pressed down with his palm. It was above her sex, but the pressure was enough. She arched into him, her sex pushing back as her tongue had.