To Distraction (25 page)

His lips and fingers explored her face, her lips, her throat, her breasts, treated her to caresses that traced the long line from her waist over her hips to her knees; every touch was more intense, heightened, colored by the fact that this time he was joined with her.

Clever fingers and palms lingered on her flexing thighs, sculpting, tracing, making her even more aware of the steady rocking rhythm as his body rode hers, primitive and triumphant, then with a gentle nudge he lifted one thigh, curling it about his hip, tilting hers beneath him, opening her to a deeper, more intimate penetration, to a deeper, wholly glorious binding.

The golden candlelight washed over them as he guided her ever onward through a landscape that was familiar yet different, where the colors were stronger, the feelings more intense, sharper, where her senses were more alive, more hungry, more needy, more vulnerable. More open. He whispered guttural words of encouragement as, helpless, she writhed beneath him. As he introduced her to the mindless craving, to the blinding need to touch, to feel, to climb, to spin the sensual pleasure out and out and out, to find and reach that elusive peak of glory.

She gasped, eyes closed, fingers sinking into hard muscle as pleasure surged higher, as her nerves tightened and coiled. And still he pushed her on, steady, unwavering, relentless.

Deverell braced his arms and rose above her, looked down on her as the reins of passion slithered and slipped from his grasp, as, breath ragged, he thrust more deeply, then deeper still into her welcoming body, flushed and writhing beneath him, wantonly seeking both her pleasure and his.

Her hands clutched in desperation, then eased, released, drifted—only to clutch again as the next wave of passion caught her and lifted her higher.

And higher.

He was nearly blind with need, with sheer lust and wanting. Every long stroke into her scalding sheath, every instinctive clamping clasp of her slick flesh about him—the most evocative embrace a woman could bestow on a man—pushed him further, drove him harder, made it that much more difficult to cling to control.

Yet he fought and kept his pace slow, steady, unrelenting—the only way possible to spin the road out long enough to let her go at her own pace. To let her find her way up the mountain to the peak—rather than having him whip her up, use his expertise to harry and hurry her. In some detached corner of his mind he knew that was important, that in this she should never know—never would need to know—just how much power he wielded over her, how completely subject to his will she was. That she was so much less strong, not just weaker in body but in knowledge and expertise, that if he so chose, in this she could be his victim.

He wouldn’t so choose, and she wouldn’t be, but she didn’t need to know she could be.

So he fought to guide and not to drive, to let her find her own way….

To heaven. She came to it in a rush, in a glorious, mind-numbing crescendo of desperation; he watched her crest, watched her body rise beneath his, clinging, holding, then helplessly surrendering, letting go and releasing.

At the last moment, he bent his head and drank her cry, in a sudden surge of primal possessiveness ravaged her mouth—

And his reins snapped. Broke. Flew apart.

His body plundered hers, desperately seeking—and then he was there, joining with her, senses reaching and twining with hers, his body hers as hers was his and the glory fused them.

He was lost, in that instant blind, deaf and dumb, beyond
thought or words or reason. Held above her, his body shuddered, racked by pleasure one last time as he emptied himself into her yielded flesh, into the hot, indescribably soft haven her body had become.

His, all his.

With a groan, he surrendered, let himself down upon her, wrapped her in his arms and held her close.

Two hours later, Deverell lay back on Phoebe’s pillows and ruthlessly channeled his thoughts away from the soft, warm, too-tempting female body curled with her back against his side.

She fitted perfectly, heaven-made for him.

And his rapacious needs, but that was one of the realizations he was battling to block from his mind. Later would be soon enough to dwell on such matters. Now…now he needed distraction.

The candles had guttered, plunging the room into a comfortable dark. His eyes had adjusted; it was almost pitch black, but he could make out the furniture, enough to be able to rise, dress, and leave without noise.

Not that he had any intention of doing so just yet.

Once again he steered his mind away from the prospect of what might transpire between now and him leaving. Jaw setting, he refocused on other things—any other thing that might fill his mind; he had to at least give her a little more time to recover from what had, even to his jaded senses, been an engagement of significant and quite startling sensual dimensions.

Dwelling on elements of that engagement wasn’t going to help.

The only other thing engaging enough to distract him was his wider plans for her, and how they were progressing. All in all, he was pleased, indeed, smugly satisfied. The unexpected
chance to learn the secret of the agency wasn’t an opportunity he could have passed up; he’d had to grasp the moment to pressure her into telling him all…not that she had. She had carefully avoided any mention of what had moved her—a well-bred, wealthy young lady of the haut ton—to embark on such an esoteric career.

His eyes narrowed in the darkness; the reason wasn’t hard to guess. Some bastard—some marauding wolf in gentleman’s clothing—had tried to force her…. He cut off the thought, blocked the mental vision; his reacton to it was too violent and might disturb her, still slumped and slumbering by his side. Regardless, said ravening wolf had clearly not succeeded in raping her; his actions, however, had left scars.

He would never forget the fear he’d inadvertently triggered, more than once. He’d overcome it, worked his way around it, but that fear had been deeply etched. She was—as he’d known from the first moment of setting eyes on her—a sensual woman. Highly and richly so, the sort of woman made for men like him who could match and fully appreciate them. Yet that fear had blocked her path, had prevented her from enjoying her own nature, from developing and taking pleasure in it as she could and should, from being all she could be…but he was there now.

Tonight had been fated in more ways than one, a scheduled step in his plan to use her sensual nature to persuade her into matrimony, yet after learning the true nature of her agency and how she ran it, after guessing the connection to her fear—regardless of any plan, he would have made love to Phoebe tonight, compelled to demonstrate that her fear was only a hurdle, not a barrier, that all the pleasures a woman could enjoy could still be hers.

And on some other level entirely, after the dangers of the night he’d felt driven to capture and possess her, to make her finally, ineradicably, and indisputably his.

He shifted, seeking a more comfortable position, more in his mind than in the bed. The emotions she evoked in him were not entirely familiar; even the familiar urge to conquer and possess was edged with something deeper, more fundamental and powerful.

Those new and altered feelings made him uneasy, a trifle wary, but he had his goal before him, and that hadn’t changed. Not in the slightest.

He wanted Phoebe as his wife, was now beyond determined on that. Beyond committed. And on that path, he was progressing well.

This evening she had, albeit under duress, accepted him as her protector. An hour ago, entirely willingly, she’d accepted him as her lover. Of the three positions he’d so sapiently named, he had only one more to claim, but wisdom dictated he consolidate his hold on the two he’d claimed tonight before he made a bid for the last.

He glanced at her. Hair deliciously tousled—as it never otherwise was—she looked like the houri he’d told her she should train to become.

A niggle intruded, his imperative need to ask her about the man who had harmed her. He would one day, but instinct suggested now was not the time to raise that issue—their intimacy was too new, too fragile.

So…as there was nothing he could sensibly do to strengthen his position as her protector, wisdom dictated…

Turning toward her, he raised a hand, set his palm to the curve of her naked shoulder, then slid it slowly down.

Phoebe came awake to find her body had woken before her, that it was already heated, responding in wanton abandon to caresses so explicit she might have blushed if she hadn’t already been so flushed. So filled with sultry passion.

Lying on her side, sunk in her bed, with Deverell a hard,
hot male wall behind her, she closed her eyes and followed the intimate play of his fingers. Let her senses submerge beneath the tide of sensual longing.

Felt the tide catch her, felt desire swell and rise.

She murmured his name. Before she could turn to him, he leaned over her, raising her upper thigh, bending her knee, pressing it to the bed…he slid into her. Slowly, smoothly. Deep.

Until the hard hot length of him filled her.

Then he withdrew and pressed in again, stretching her sheath, filling her to the hilt, to the point where she felt he was nudging her heart when he thrust the last inch.

She heard a gasp as he repeated the slow, deliberate movement, realized that it was hers, that her fingers had tangled in the sheet, clutching spasmodically as he continued to ride her in this different way. Continued to pleasure her deeply, unhurriedly, languidly.

Over and over. The conflagration within her built, and built, the end approaching much more quickly this time—but then he slowed, eased back, penetrated her less deeply…and the firestorm, denied, retreated, shrank back.

Hovered. Then he returned to thrust hard and deep; the flames roared and greedily rushed in—only to be denied yet again…and the pleasure grew.

Burgeoned, filled her, sank to her bones.

Filled her mind, captured her senses.

She wanted to give the pleasure back to him, wanted, in an instant of startling clarity, to lavish on him the same sensual delights he was so assiduously giving her. But how?

His weight held her pinned, his chest to her back, one heavy arm snug over her waist, his hand cradling her breast, long fingers stroking, gently kneading in time with the rhythm of his loving.

She tried to twist to catch his eye but couldn’t, tried to
shift her hips against him, then realized and tightened about him as he pressed deep.

And was rewarded when he halted, buried deep within her, and hissed in a breath. He held it for an instant, then exhaled and picked up his rhythm again.

He leaned close; his lips traced the curve of her ear, then his breath brushed over it. “All you have to do is lie there and be ravished.”

Coming out of the dark behind her, his tone, deep and gravelly, was perfectly gauged to send a shiver down her spine.

His lips returned to her ear, lightly brushing, then he pressed a kiss to the sensitive skin beneath it, then trailed light kisses down the taut line of her throat. Then he spoke again. “Naked, in the dark of the night, in this bed…you’re mine, remember? My houri, my pleasure slave, to do with as I wish.”

He eased his shoulders back, released her breast, and sent his hand skating down, over her waist and around to evocatively stroke her bottom. “To possess as I wish. Like this, with your lovely arse to my groin, your body supple, soft and pliant, prone beneath me, helpless to prevent me taking all I want, as I want.”

Against the pillow, her lips curved. She didn’t think she was entirely helpless….

Lasciviously, seductively, she squirmed, flagrantly encouraging him to do his worst. To take her more aggressively, more definitely. To ride her more deeply.

Blatantly challenging him to forget about her pleasure and take his, to slake his lust in her very willing body.

He hissed in another breath. She tightened her inner muscles, simultaneously wriggling…

He swore. And the dam broke.

His hand clamped about her hip, ruthlessly held her down
as he shifted, adjusted, then did as she wished. Set aside his control and took her without restraint.

The fire howled through them both, harsh and hot, ravenous and greedy. It burned and consumed, cindered all constraint, left them both gasping, senses reeling, struggling to see, to know, to grasp.

The pinnacle of pleasure.

And the consequent bliss.

The first shattered them, ripped and shredded them, hurling their senses beyond the world.

The latter fell on them, doused the last flames, enfolded them in the cocooning arms of satiation, and healed them.

Wracked, exhausted, they lay slumped in the bed, wrapped together, unable to move, the thundering of their hearts one beat in their veins.

She couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t care. At the last he’d roared her name, and at the last she’d been there, with him, together, in no way apart.

Hours later, he rose. Phoebe sensed more than felt him leave the bed; she turned and watched as he gathered his clothes in the dark, then started to dress.

He glanced up, saw she was awake. “It’s nearly dawn—I have to go.”

She heard the reluctance—real, sincere—in his voice and was inwardly delighted. From him, she felt sure reluctance at this point qualified as a compliment of the highest order.

Recent events had, she decided, made decorum redundant; she let her gaze roam the planes and bulging muscles of his body, the long lines, the dips and hollows she’d gained a much better sense of, indeed, appreciation of, through the last hours. There was absolutely nothing there she didn’t like.

Settling back on the pillows, she let her gaze rest on him and let her mind explore the changes the hours had wrought.
In her, courtesy of him and his particular brand of loving.

She wasn’t such an innocent that she didn’t know that the way he approached her, the words he said, the fantasies he created in her mind and fed were deliberate, knowingly gauged to seduce and sensually ensnare her. And she wasn’t such a prude not to acknowledge that he was right, that all those things were not only necessary, needed to ease her past her old fear and into intimacy, but they also heightened and deepened her enjoyment of the act.