Where The Heart Leads (23 page)

For the moment she was content to allow her senses time to grow used to the unexpected position, to the solid, muscled heat of him between her thighs, to the hardness against which the sensitive inner faces of her thighs were pressed.

Then she felt his fingers swiftly undoing the laces down her back.

Barnaby didn’t stop until the laces were all undone and the back of her gown lay open to her hips. He let his hands cruise beneath the material, easing it aside, once again finding the filmy silk of her chemise screening her body from his touch.

Impatience rose through him; he tamped it down. Drawing back from the kiss, he urged her up. Reaching down, he drew her knees higher, against his sides, so when she placed her hands on his chest and pushed up, she was straddling him.

Given he was lying against the pillows, propped high, not flat, that left her sitting across his waist, her breasts level with his face.

Exactly where he wanted them.

His lips curved in anticipation as he raised his hands and pushed the shoulders of her gown off and down.

As her sleeves slid down her arms, trapping them, Penelope looked down at his face. He wasn’t looking at hers, but at what he’d revealed. His expression was set but rather blank, as if he were holding a great deal within. Controlled. In control. Of himself as well as her. But then she glimpsed his eyes, and the heat—the lust—in them, firing the blue, shocked, delighted, and warmed her.

Some part of her was astonished she didn’t feel the slightest stirring of modesty. Quite the opposite. She wanted this, knew she did, and was determined to savor every moment, no matter how shocking.

As she drank in the qualities blazing in his gaze as it slid over the swells of her still partially screened breasts, over the dips, the hollows, the peaks, she felt a subtle sense of triumph grow.

She’d felt something similar before with him—a sense of power that she, her body, could so ensnare him. So capture and hold his attention to the exclusion of all else. Even when his hands shifted and he caught her wrist to slip loose the tiny buttons closing her sleeves, his gaze didn’t waver.

Swiftly, wordlessly, he completed the task, then drew the sleeves free of her hands. She drew them clear, then returned her palms once more to his shoulders. As her bodice subsided with a soft rustle in loose folds about her waist, she waited, pleasantly tense with anticipation, to see what next he would do.

She wasn’t entirely surprised when he reached for the trailing ends of the bow that held the gathered neckline of her fine chemise closed.

Barnaby tested the tiny cord of flattened silk, rolling it between his fingertips. He’d wondered what she wore beneath her gowns—had fantasized, and she hadn’t disappointed.

The chemise was severely simple in style, not a frill or furbelow in sight. But the material was the most fabulously fine, gossamer-weight silk he’d ever encountered; diaphanous, nearly translucent, it whispered over her skin like a lover’s caress, bold, wanton, seductive.

The innate sensuality he’d sensed in her from the first was clearly
real, no fantasy. The observation racked the tension in his muscles, already taut, one notch more, to a higher degree of readiness.

That was something he didn’t truly need; he was already battling impulses more intense, more carnally explicit, than he’d ever experienced. He assumed it was because she was a virgin, that he was the first to see her like this, the first to ever have her, that fueled such rampant, primitive desires.

He drew in a long breath, tightened his grip on a control that was more tenuous than he liked, then raised both hands to her breasts. In worship.

Neither large nor small, they seemed shaped for his palms, for him.

His hands stroked, slowly, over the silk, fondling, caressing. Lightly stroking, circling her peaked nipples until she closed her eyes and shifted, restless, upon him.

He took his time, and savored, noting the rising tension that bowed her spine, that fractured her breathing and had her pressing forward, seeking…just one more tantalizing touch.

Her eyes were closed, a line of concentration etched between her brows as she drank in every tiny sensation. Lips curving in a predatory smile, he leaned forward, and licked.

She gasped, swayed, but didn’t open her eyes.

The sound sank to his soul. He licked again, then laved the tight bud until her fingertips sank deep in desperation. Only then did he lean closer yet and take the throbbing flesh into his mouth, and suckle.

She moaned, the sound half trapped in her throat; again the simple sound drove him on, to both appease and heighten the ache he’d created. To drive her wild.

Gasping, mentally reeling, Penelope wasn’t sure how much more sensation she could bear. He continued feasting at her breasts; screened though they were by her chemise, the lancing pleasure his hot, wet mouth, his raspy tongue pressed on her struck deep, sending heat flaring through her, outward to her fingertips, down to pool low between her thighs.

Until she felt hot, damp, and swollen there, too, until the flesh between her thighs ached and throbbed.

Again, he seemed to know. His hands had left her breasts, fastening
about her waist to hold her steady as he gorged on the swollen peaks; now those steadying hands eased their grip, then one after the other pushed up her skirts and petticoats enough to slide beneath.

And grip her bare hips, then slide, slowly, down her naked thighs.

Then, even more slowly, back up.

Courtesy of her position, he could fondle as he wished. He continued to minister to her breasts, pressing unrelenting, distracting delight upon her, keeping her teetering on her knees so she had to grip his shoulders to remain steady.

Although her eyes were closed, as his caresses grew more explicit beneath her skirts, as his long, elegant, too-knowing fingers slipped between her thighs and stroked—and she quivered—she felt the touch of his gaze, burning and hot, searing over her face, then falling to her heaving breasts.

Then he took the peak of one breast into his mouth again, and suckled—more fiercely. She cried out, a short, sharp gasp of pleasure; head back, spine tight, she tried desperately to fill her lungs—failed as she felt his fingers slide through the slickness between her thighs, and slowly, inexorably, penetrate her body.

He eased one finger deep inside her, then stroked. Withdrew to caress again, to touch again, to cup again, then penetrate and stroke once more.

She gasped as sensation blossomed anew, on a wholly different plane. One where the heat expanded, yearning growing within it, tangled and twined, desire and passion seamlessly melding, the flames of one and the heat of the other building to a conflagration.

One he orchestrated.

He gave her just so much, stoking the fires high, only to ease her back from combustion. From the point beyond which she knew she would simply be consumed and die.

Again and again, he took her to the edge; each time the surge of heat increased and battered at her senses. At her mind.

At her will.

Forcing open her eyes, from beneath her heavy lids she glanced down—at him as he suckled at her breast. What she saw in his face was so stark, it shook her mind free for one brief moment of lucidity—to wonder if she knew what she was doing, if she truly understood what she’d invited.

That he wanted her, desired her, she had absolutely no doubt, but that he wanted her to desire him, to want him with the same raw urgency that she sensed building within him, was a revelation.

She suddenly understood the purpose behind his repetitive stimulation, each time taking her senses to new heights, opening her desires to new depths of need.

On the thought, his hand shifted between her thighs and he pressed, worked a second finger in alongside the first, stretching her—blatantly readying her.

She gasped, clung, eyes again shut tight as the world as she knew it grew brighter, tighter, edged by light—but then he drew his fingers from her.

Leaving her with the strangest sensation of hanging in midair.

Before she could return to reality and protest, his hands and mouth left her entirely, then she felt him bunching up her gown.

“Time to get this off.”

His voice was so gravelly it took a moment for her to make out the words. She wasn’t much help; it was all she could do to follow directions and let him draw the gown off over her head.

He swiftly undid the ties of her petticoats, then they followed her gown—disappearing somewhere off the bed, flung into darkness.

Leaving her on her knees, straddling his waist, clad only in the insubstantial film of her chemise.

The golden light of the candles washed over her; looking, ravenously drinking in every curve, every quintessentially feminine line, Barnaby set his jaw against the urge to rip the delicate material from her.

He wanted—
burned
with a want beyond anything he’d ever known. If he didn’t have her soon…but she was a virgin; he had to go slowly. Gently. Even if slow and gentle were no longer in his repertoire, not, apparently, when it came to her.

Greedy, rapacious, primitive need clawed his gut, filled his veins.

It was all he could do to, with one hand, reach out and grasp the silken tie he’d earlier fingered, and tug—not rip—just enough to unravel the bow.

“This goes, too.”

He could barely recognize his voice, it seemed to come from so deep within him. From the self he kept buried, that she drew forth.

Why she called so unerringly to that more primitive side of him he didn’t know; he only knew that she did, that he had to somehow cope with that more primal, raw-emotioned male presence that, ever since he’d got his hands on her, had slowly infused his body and brain.

Unexpectedly, her eyes locked with his. Dark, unfathomable, rich, her eyes promised and lured…then she shifted upon him, arms crossing, hands reaching for the hem of the chemise…

In one fluid movement, she drew it up, over her head, then, her eyes once more locking with his, she flung the garment away.

He felt more than heard a low growl, realized it was reverberating in his throat.

Moving without conscious thought, his hands grasped her waist, gripped.

It took a massive effort but he set his jaw, hauled back on the reins, and halted his headlong rush to completion. Cut off—denied—the impulse to lift her, slip the buttons on his trouser flap, and release his straining erection so he could pull her down and sink it deep between her thighs.

Later,
he promised his primitive self.

Without doubt,
that primitive self growled.

Seething, it subsided, once again under his control—allowing him to roll them back to where they’d started, with her on her back beneath him.

But this time she was naked.

Gloriously bare.

All of him—his sophisticated self in complete agreement with his more primitive side—rejoiced. Mentally licked his lips.

He bent his head and kissed her, deeply, thoroughly, reacquainting himself with the wonders of her mouth—ensuring on the way that she was acquiescent, unable to argue, even to talk.

Or so it should have been, but when he drew back and lifted his head, his next goal shining like a beacon through the sensual fog wreathing his mind, he realized she was wriggling, tugging…

He blinked and focused on her. She saw, and frowned. “Your shirt.”

“What about it?”

She nearly glared. “I’m naked—and you’re not. I want…you to be.”

He nearly glared back, but…he did want her to want precisely that. Biting off a muttered curse, he rolled off her; it took exactly ten seconds for him to rid himself of his shirt and trousers.

Then he rolled back, and pinned her.

He looked down into her eyes. “Satisfied?”

Her eyes had grown wide. He wasn’t sure how much she’d glimpsed, but that look suggested she’d seen enough. “Ah…” Her voice nearly failed. She cleared her throat. “I suppose…”

The throaty whisper sawed at his control.

“Don’t think about it,” he growled, and kissed her again. Deeper, more ravenously, letting his more forceful, ruthless instincts free enough to ensure that this time when he lifted his head, she was in no condition to distract him again.

He hadn’t counted on her hands. On her touch.

How such small, fragile feminine hands could exert such power over him he had no clue, but from gripping his sides, as he drew back they skated forward, over his chest—and all he could do was close his eyes and shudder.

And wait, suddenly caught on the sharp hook of expectation, as she spread her fingers and explored, pressing through the wiry hairs to trace the muscle bands, tentatively stroking the flat discs of his nipples before sliding lower, pressing over the ridges of his abdomen—as if she were enthralled.

He was in thrall, effortlessly held immobile as she delicately explored—and razed his control. Cindered it, until only a frazzled strand remained; desperate, he cracked open his lids and looked into her face—saw the fascination etched in her expression, the deepening glow in her eyes.

Fascination, enthrallment, sensual capture—they seemed to affect each other in the same way. To the same degree.

Very possibly in the same vein, to the same end, the same consuming, all-encompassing passion.

The realization shredded what little control he had left; as his more primitive instincts slipped past his guard and insidiously wreathed through him, he groaned, surrendered. Lowering his head, he kissed her again.

Voraciously, as his true nature desired.

Hungrily, as if she were his only succor, the only sweetness that would slake his desires.

He plunged into her mouth and took—and she gave. Far from retreating in the face of his too-aggressive engagement, she eagerly met him, ardently fed him, and—unbelievably—urged him on.

When he next raised his head, it was reeling, filled with the scent, the taste, of her.

Lips parted, she was panting when he edged lower in the bed to sample her breasts again. More aggressively, more fiercely. More possessively.

She permitted it, glorying even while fighting to master the sensations he pressed on her—fighting, he knew, for a degree of control he knew better than to let her seize.