Her chest tightened at his fervency, her corset becoming an unbearable restraint. Needing to be free of it, she went to him and presented her back. “Help me.”
The touch of his fingers was light, too light to quench her thirst for him. As the halves of her gown parted, Jess began to feel warm and slightly intoxicated. The scent of his skin, the exotic blend that was uniquely his, filled her nostrils with every inhalation. She knew he had to be as heated as she was, and she longed to touch his bare flesh, to press her nose and lips against it.
Alistair pushed her sleeves off her shoulders, and she wriggled out of her dress, allowing the garment to pool on the floor. He caught her stays next, loosening them with a dexterity born of experience. She’d enjoyed that skill firsthand, remembered it vividly, dreamed of it.
He helped her push the corset down past her hips, and she stepped out of the boning, feeling a novel sense of freedom and lack of inhibition.
“Jess,” he breathed, a moment before his arms came around her and he nuzzled against her back. His large hands cupped her breasts, kneading the aching flesh with a firm yet tender grip.
Her head fell back and her eyes closed, a sigh escaping her. The desire to give herself over to him was nearly irresistible, but she restrained herself. If she allowed him to, he would take over, and she didn’t want that. He’d had more than his share of women who wanted him to work in bed. She did not want to resemble those women, especially after her rash words the other evening. She wanted to give pleasure, and she wanted him to take it.
Turning carefully in his embrace, Jess filled the space between his spread thighs. She caught his face in her hands and pressed her lips to his, wanting the kisses that made her feel seductive and desirable. His hands encircled her waist, pulling her closer.
“Allow me to enjoy you,” she breathed into his mouth. “You refused me last time …”
“After seven years, you cannot be asking me for patience.”
She pushed her splayed fingers into the thick silk of his hair. “After seven years, what are a few moments more?”
Alistair’s head fell back on a low groan, his eyes staring up at her with a bold, heated passion. It amazed her that she could incite such a response in a voluptuary as beautiful and sensual as he was. She, a peeress known for her chilly deportment, while Alistair radiated a sexual heat that made her melt and soften.
Her fingertips stroked over his dark, winged brows. Their shape lent wickedness to his countenance, while framing his stunning eyes and thick lashes. Her thumbs caressed the sculpted line of his cheekbones, holding him still as she pressed her lips to the tip of his aristocratic nose.
“Christ, Jess,” he said gruffly. “If your aim is to kill me, be mercifully quick about it. Don’t torment me.”
Pulling back, she began to work on the knot of his cravat. “I’ve yet to do anything.”
“You drive me to madness.” He tugged on her hips, drawing her close enough to capture a hard, peaked nipple in the heat of his mouth. He made a rough sound of desire, and Jess sagged into his grip.
Even through the thin lawn of her chemise, the contact was scorching. She arched and gasped, her womb clenching in greedy hunger. Catching his shoulders, she steadied herself as her knees weakened. His tongue flicked over her with ruthless skill, reminding her of the last time his mouth had been on her. When her breast grew heavy with need, her nipple swollen and red, he moved to lavish similar attention on the other side. Jess felt the hot trickle of her own arousal, the flesh between her legs growing moist in welcome.
She moaned. “I want you naked. I want to feel you inside me.”
He released her with a low growl. “Oh, you will, love. You’ll feel every inch. I have never been so hard. I am going to cram you full, and you’ll come over and over and over again.”
Tackling the ivory buttons of his waistcoat, Alistair quickly divested himself of the garment. When he pushed to his feet in a powerfully graceful movement, she stepped back on shaky legs, her entire body feeling alien to her. She was a mass of sensation and wanting, her emotions so riotous she might’ve run in fear if her limbs hadn’t been weighted by longing.
Seven years. It felt as if her attraction to him had been simmering the whole of that time, waiting for his touch to free it. Now it spilled over her in heated waves, flushing her skin and making the ephemeral weight of her chemise and pantalettes a burden. But she dared not remove them. As it was, she was too vulnerable. Too bare. None of the shields she was used to erecting—her rigid deportment, biting rejoinders, and faultless manners—were available to her now. She didn’t know who she was beneath all that protection, which left her feeling so open and unprotected.
Blissfully unaware of Jess’s turmoil, Alistair finished unwinding his cravat and tossed it aside. The next moment his shirtsleeves were yanked over his head. He was reaching for the placket of his breeches when she stayed him.
“Stop,” she said, swallowing hard at the sight of him. As elegant as he was while dressed, he was pure unadulterated male beneath his clothes. The evenness of his sun-kissed skin color betrayed how often he went about without a shirt, while the thickness of his biceps and the taut roping of abdominal muscles told her how often he worked alongside the men he employed.
Her hand lifted to touch him, her feet moving her forward without volition. She pressed her palm to his warm skin, and a shiver moved through her. She felt his heart racing. There was so much power and strength in him. His anticipation was tangible and visible; his muscles were hard and delicious. She was searingly aroused by his virility, quivering with eagerness at the thought of that pure masculine energy focused on pleasuring her body.
Alistair caught her wrist. “I am aching with lust for you.”
“You are not alone,” she whispered, tugging free of his easy grip to touch his shoulders. Both of her hands stroked over the broad curves, then slid down his biceps, her fingers squeezing and finding no give to her applied pressure. He was like warm marble. She wanted to touch him all over, take her time, nuzzle her nose against him and breathe him deep into her lungs. She wanted him. In that moment, she wanted him more than anything else in the world. She felt as if her repressed hunger had overtaken her completely. Her need and longing for him was all that was left of her after he’d stripped the entirety of her defenses away.
His fists clenched at his sides as her hands drifted over the rock-hardness of his rippled abdomen. “Are you wet for me? Do you feel empty without my cock in you?”
Jess nodded, feeling her sex clench tight with greed.
“Let me fill you,” he purred, temptation incarnate. “Let me push inside you and make you come—”
“Not yet.” Wrapping her arms around him, she drew closer still, delaying her surrender because she desired his first. With the flat of her tongue, she licked across the hard disk of his nipple.
He hissed and gripped her hips with bruising strength. “In a moment, I will pin you to the bulkhead and take the choice from you.”