Kathryn Smith - [Friends 03] (24 page)

Tilting his head, Julian moved closer. She could smell him now, a warm, spicy sweetness that sent a tremor through her thighs and made her knees weak.

"We will do this together," he suggested. "First I will take off my shirt and then you can remove something."

Sophia nodded, her tongue dry and her head spinning from the wine.

Julian grasped the hem of his shirt with both hands and pulled. The soft linen slid up over his hips, baring the flat expanse of his stomach, then the hard, hairy width of his chest. Yanking the shirt over his head, he tossed it to the floor and faced her in nothing but his trousers.

Sophia stared at him. In the low, flickering candlelight his body was all smokey shadow and warm highlights. Her eyes drank in every detail— the knobby bones of his shoulders, the hard plains and valleys of his chest and abdomen, the shallow indentation of his navel— even the fine dusting of hair on his forearms. His skin was a natural warm, golden color— not pale and pasty like so many gentlemen of his class. The dusky candlelight only deepened the hue, and Sophia couldn't help but liken him to a bronze statue. But he wasn't bronze; he was flesh and blood and he was hers.

"Touch me."

He didn't have to ask— no,
command
— her twice. Hungrily, she stretched her hands toward him, settling the flat of her palm against the hard curve of his breast. She slid her palms up, over the warm, satiny smoothness of his shoulders, stroking those fascinating knobs of bone and the long stretch of firm muscle that bridged his shoulders and his neck. The pulse at the base of his throat beat against the pad of her thumb, its urgent pounding proof of his excitement.

He watched her silently as she touched him, as her greedy hands devoured him from the waist up. He made no move to touch her in return. She knew it wasn't because he didn't want to. It was because he wanted her to trust him. The realization was as humbling as it was arousing.

"Now it is your turn." Still he did not touch her. Something in his gaze told her what he wanted and compelled her to do it.

Fingers trembling, Sophia unfastened the bow that held her wrapper closed. Her heart beat a staccato rhythm in her chest as she shrugged the flimsy fabric off her shoulders. It slid down her arms, pooling at her feet. She knew how much of herself was revealed to him through the equally thin nightgown, and could only imagine how the candles behind her accentuated it. Shyly, she raised her eyes to Julian's face.

There was only heat and appreciation in his expression. She did not have to invite him to touch her.

"This is lovely," he murmured, his thumbs hooking around the straps of her gown. "But it is hardly fair. I am bare from the waist up and you are still quite covered."

Before Sophia could react, he slipped the straps off her shoulders. Without that support the entire top portion of her gown slithered down around her hips, baring her breasts and torso to his gaze.

Instinctively she lifted her arms to cover her breasts, her body pulsing. He had surprised her, but that wasn't what caused the low thrumming deep down below her waist. His bold action had aroused her.

He caught her wrists. "Do not hide yourself from me."

There was no anger in his voice, but it was a threat all the same. Sophia shivered at the warning, her skin prickling and her nipples tightening in response.

Julian lowered her arms to her sides, his gaze dropping to the flesh he had revealed. She did not want to watch as his hungry gaze assessed her nakedness, but she could not bring herself to look away. Did he think her breasts too heavy? Could he tell that one was slightly bigger than the other?

His fingers skimmed the tops of her shoulders, traced the faint ridge of her collarbones. The heat of his hands was a startling contrast to the anxious chill of her flesh. Her body tightened further, heightening the tingling low in her abdomen that spread downward into her loins and trembling thighs.

His topaz gaze, dark in the soft light, locked with hers as his hands slid slowly along the indent of her waist and drifted across her ribs.

"You are beautiful," he whispered. "Everything about you, your hair, your skin, your breasts— all of it."

She believed him. He wasn't that good of a liar, but even still, she couldn't seem to stop herself from refuting him. "My breasts are too big. They sag."

His attention fell to those heavy globes of flesh. Sophia held her breath. Part of her needed him to find her wanting. Maybe then she would stop feeling as though her entire life had led to this moment.

Smiling almost coyly, Julian cupped her breasts in his long, warm hands, lifting them. "Now they do not," he replied, brushing his thumbs across the hard, sensitive peaks of her nipples.

Sophia gasped, a bolt of sensual need spiking from her breasts to the wanton, wanting part between her legs. Staring down at the golden brown fingers wrapped around her flesh she realized dizzily that he was right. In his hands the only thing her breasts wanted was his touch.

Still stroking the puckered tips, Julian lowered his head to hers and kissed her, the wet velvet of his tongue invading her mouth. Sophia grasped his shoulders in an effort to keep herself upright as his lips and hands slowly turned her bones to jelly.

His teeth nipped, his fingers pinched, each movement ever so lightly, each drawing another gasp from deep within her. His lips left hers, brushing a tantalizing, shivering trail along her jaw and throat down to her chest. And when he lifted one of her breasts to his mouth, Sophia's gasps became moans.

Clinging to the hard curves of his biceps, Sophia arched her back, giving him full access to her body. The sight of his mouth on her breast was shockingly arousing. She could not look away, even when the suckling pressure of his mouth threatened to draw her lids closed in a lazy sigh of pleasure.

Every flick of his tongue drew her deeper and deeper under his spell. He knew just how much pressure to apply to keep the sensation that of pleasure and not pain. And when Sophia thought she had taken all she could, he transferred his attentions to her other breast.

Crying out, she released his shoulders, even though her knees threatened to buckle beneath her, and tangled her fingers in the thick, silky mass of his hair, pulling him closer as the sharp edge of his teeth closed delicately around her nipple. The throbbing below her waist was acute, almost painful in its intensity. She burned inside and most of that heat was centered between her thighs.

Julian lifted his head from her breasts, her fingers still caught in his hair. His hooded eyes were bright with sexual promise, his sensual mouth dark and moist.

"Shall I remove my trousers now?" he asked, his voice little more than a rasp.

Emboldened by the wine and her desire for him, Sophia reached for the tented fabric before her. "Allow me."

He said nothing. He just stood there, an expression of hungry expectation on his face as her fingers unfastened the falls of his trousers, and slid the soft, black fabric over his hips.

Kneeling before him, she removed his clothing and tossed it aside. He stood gloriously and unashamedly naked in front of her. As beautiful as she dreamed he'd be.

Her fingers started with his feet. They were long and slender just like the rest of him, the sharp bones of his ankles hard beneath her palms. She moved up to the firm, hairy curve of his calves, past his knees to the hard muscular length of his thighs and narrow hips. And then, wickedly, she slid her hands around to cup the high, tight curves of his buttocks and squeezed.

"Do I meet your approval?"

Sophia's gaze drifted to the one part of his anatomy she had yet to inspect. It jutted out from a thick crop of brown curls at the base of his abdomen, and seemed to grow even bigger under the awed weight of her stare.

"Yes," she whispered, running her fingers along the satiny length. Julian gasped as she closed her fist around the hot, hard flesh. Pumping gently, she brazenly raised her face to look at him. "Would it please you if I kissed it?"

A strangled sound seemed to tear itself from his throat. "Yes," he rasped. "That would please me very much."

Closing her eyes, Sophia moistened her lips and wrapped her mouth around Julian's rock-hard erection. He groaned above her. Sophia hadn't enjoyed pleasuring Edmund in this way, but she thrilled with every groan and sigh that Julian made. His fingers clutched at the back of her head, pulling her closer, pushing more of himself between her lips, and she readily took him in, running her eager tongue all over his slick stiffness.

Suddenly, he tugged on her hair, pulling back on her head and easing himself out of her mouth.

She lifted an anxious gaze to his. "What? Did I do something wrong?"

Julian chuckled hoarsely as he helped her to her feet. "Hell, no. You did everything right."

She stared at him dumbly. "Then why did you stop me?"

Bright, predatory eyes bore into hers with such intensity that for a moment Sophia thought he was going to toss her on the bed and thrust himself inside her at that very second.

"Because the first time I come with you, it is not going to be in your mouth," he growled. "Now I believe it is your turn."

With one flick of his hand, he sent her nightgown plummeting to the floor in a soft heap around her feet. Sweeping her up into his arms, he carried her around to the side of the bed, laying her on the counterpane as though she were some kind of exotic treasure.

"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen," he murmured, looming above her. "I have thought so since the first time I saw you."

Sophia stared at him, a hard lump in her throat. "Really?"

The gaze that met hers was painfully tender. "My God, Sophia. How could you doubt it?"

She couldn't think of an answer.

His fingers brushed the inside of her thigh and she stiffened, but only for a split second, because after that, she felt him part the hot, swollen lips of her sex and her bones turned to molten lava.

"Your body knows how much I want it," he told her, slowly sliding a finger deep within her. Sophia gasped, both at his words and at his heavenly invasion of her most private spot.

"Your body knows how desirous it is," he continued, his finger moving in and out, making her writhe in frustration and pleasure beneath him. "And this— " Sophia cried out as his thumb rubbed the hard, sweet spot further up the wet furrow of her sex. "— This knows how beautiful you are to me, because every time I touch it, the most exquisite expression of pleasure washes over your face. 'All the soft hills and hidden valleys of her vista formed a sweeter garden than Eden ever dreamed.'"

Sophia wanted to ask him what that was from, but words deserted her as Julian delved deeper into her smoldering flesh. She didn't care that she was spread naked before him. She didn't care that she was making the most unladylike sounds and she didn't care if he noticed that she was moving her hips in time with his manipulations. All she cared about was the pleasure he gave her.

"Oh! Julian, I…" She was close. So close. The pressure within her body was wound almost as tight as it could go.

"Do you want to come, Sophia?" he demanded, ruthlessly stroking her with his thumb.

"Yes!" And she was going to. Just a few more strokes and—

Julian withdrew his hand from between her legs. Frustrated and throbbing, Sophia opened her eyes and stared at him. He was smiling. A playful, sensuous smile that made her either want to hit him or molest him. She wasn't certain which.

"Then come take me." He climbed up onto the bed beside her, stretching himself out along the bedspread. His erection stood tall and thick from his groin, the tip glistening with arousal.

What? Had she heard him correctly? Her, take
him
?

"I do not know how," she whispered, her cheeks flaming as her body screamed silently for release.

Taking her hand, he drew her closer. "Yes you do. Climb on top of me. Put me inside you."

Hesitantly, Sophia did as he bid. She had never made love this way before, but she knew that men and women fit together only so many ways. This was just another position. A position that put her in control instead of Julian.

A flood of heat rushed between her legs at the realization that he was giving her power over him. He
wanted
her to have this power.

Reaching down between their bodies, Sophia grasped the heavy length of him and guided the blunt head to the opening of her body. He pushed, gasping as her body stretched to accommodate him. Instinct demanded that she take him all—
now
, but pleasure commanded that she savor each and every hard inch as she took Julian deeper and deeper inside her.

Slowly, even though her body hummed with impatience, she lowered herself down onto Julian's hips, spreading her thighs wide along his flanks, until her pubis pressed against the firm ridge of his pelvis. She kept her gaze fastened on his face as she took him into her body. His eyes fluttered closed, the dark fringe of his lashes soft against his cheeks. His lips parted, a soft gasp escaping them as she opened herself to him.

He was completely inside her. A shuddering sigh rippled through her body. They were one. The man she had tried so hard to forget and despise for so many years was part of her. Her body claimed a part of his.

She was still for a moment, letting her body adjust to having him inside her, and then she began to move. Bracing her hands on his ribs for support, she used the muscles of her thighs to push herself up and down on the delicious intruder that slid effortlessly in and out of her. With every thrust she felt her climax building, felt Julian tense beneath her. Neither one of them was going to last very long. They had the rest of their lives to take their time.

She quickened the pace, thrusting faster and faster, panting with exertion as she pushed herself closer and closer to release. The ache between her legs was so good— she wanted it to last forever and yet she couldn't wait for it to arrive at its inevitable conclusion.

Beneath her, Julian's breath came in labored gasps. His hips arched up against hers, pushing himself as deep within her as he could. He grasped her waist in his hands, holding her firmly to him, trying to set the rhythm of their mating.