It was indescribably strange and incredible. A hidden glory she never would have anticipated. The terrible, terrible risk of being caught honed the relentlessly ramping pleasure to a blinding edge. It made a begging slave of her with shocking speed.
“Please don’t stop. Promise me.Promiseme.” Her voice was a shred against his chest. Very nearly a sob. Her hips moved with his clever fingers, even faster now. She was frantically, shamelessly chasing something, or something was chasing her; she could not say what, only that it seemed to promise salvation.
“What is happening?” she whispered against his throat. “Dominic...?”
His breath was in her ear. “I have you, sweetheart. It’s safe. Let go.”
The bliss called from corners of her being by his clever fingers built into a torrent that pressedagainst the very seams of her. Her breath was a roar. She whimpered, helplessly from it, against his chest. She was blind with need.
He knew.
And he knew when she shattered.
Because his hand fanned across the back of her head and he pressed her scream of ecstasy against his coat, as her body was whipped backward. She would have buckled; his arm was an iron band around her body, holding her upright as a violent bliss racked her.
She became aware of things in fragments: her own breath, a ragged roar; the chill of the air; his hard cock still pressed against her, and when she shifted against it he hissed in a breath.
She reached for his buttons and his hand clamped hers. “No.”
“Let me touch you. Show me,” she demanded on a whisper. “Show me how. Show me what you need.”
He hesitated. For a heartbeat, he was in indecision. Then with deft, expert speed he opened the fall of his trousers and guided her hand beneath the miles of his shirt to his cock. “Hold me like this.” He wrapped her fingers around his shaft.
Her breath hitched at the hot, thick primitive feel of it in her fist. Very like it had a life of its own. Which probably wasn’t far from the truth.
He closed his hand over hers, and dragged it down and back again. “Like that. Fast. Hard. Hurry,” he said tersely.
She obeyed. And at first he took her lips in a searching, carnal kiss as she moved her fist. But soon his head thrashed back from enduring the pleasure and the moonlight glanced off his glistening bare throat. She wassuffusedwith the power ofgiving him that sort of pleasure. Of having him essentially at her command. His hands covered her bare breasts again and, God help her, she wanted him so badly.
Her moving fist and his hips were a quick frenzy, and then he went rigid, his body bowing back, his lip bit against a stifled groan. “Oh God. Oh Christ,” he breathed.
She sucked in a shocked breath as he spilled into her hand, his body quaking as though struck by lightning.
And even though his chest was heaving from release he became efficient. Because every second they lingered they were in danger of being caught.
He found a handkerchief and gently, thoroughly cleaned her hands.
He folded it and tucked it back into his coat.
Wordlessly, he placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her around gently so he could lace up her dress.
She’d been undone, and now she was being done up again, and she submitted, still feeling pleasure-stunned and a bit removed from her own body, which rang from the aftermath of her release. It had felt as though she’d soared over London like a firework, as exploded particles of bliss and light. She had not yet fully reassembled.
Finally, gently, he pulled her into his arms again, and held her as if she was breakable. She could feel his heart thumping beneath her cheek. His breath against her temple.
Her heart felt too hot and too bright and too sore and too crowded with conflicting emotions, all enormous.
Well. She had asked for this. She was mortifiedand exultant. Humbled and subdued and, in truth, thoroughly shocked. The dregs of the jealousy and hurt that had in part driven her to tempt him, to goad him, still simmered around the edges of her awareness.
But she understood now how someone could chase this feeling. How one could escape from the world through passion. How it needn’t have anything to do with love at all. Indeed, until this moment in his arms, it hadn’t seemed loving at all this time, for either of them. It had seemed a pure expression of anger and hurt and hunger. Primal and desperate.
But perhaps that was part of love, too. She couldn’t possibly know. And though she’d naively pressed him for answers before, this was a question she didn’t dare ask. She wasn’t naive anymore.
He brushed his lips against her temple. Her brow. Her eyelids.
“Catherine,” he said quietly, finally. “Have mercy.”
He dropped his arms from her.