What Price Love?

by Stephanie Laurens

  Then somehow he was leaning back against the sofa’s padded arm, his legs angled across the seat, with her poised over him, in his arms, straddling him, her warmth seeping through the cloth of his trousers as she settled over his hips.

  His mind, his wits, his senses reeled, struggling to assimilate every aspect, every contact.

  Her lips had never left his; now they firmed, and she brazenly engaged him, flagrantly incited, sirenlike, sinuously shifting over him…

  Was she really as innocent as he’d thought?

  Before he could accumulate sufficient wit to attempt an answer, she blew all chance of rational thought from his brain.

  At his waist, her small hands gripped his shirt, tugged it free of his waistband, then slid beneath.

  Her touch—the feel of her small, warm, intensely feminine hands pressing avidly, greedily to his already heated skin—seared like a brand.

  And incinerated every civilized safeguard he possessed, shredded his vaunted control, and blew the tattered remnants away.

  He reacted. Caught her head, palmed her nape, and ravenously kissed her back, but it was no longer the he who usually was, but a merged entity, a seamless melding of the dangerous predatory male and the cool, clever, experienced gentleman.

  The primitive and possessive, and the arrogant and demanding.

  He was lost, and so was she. Some distant, disconnected part of his mind knew it, but was helpless to act, to access sufficient will or strength to pull them both free.

  Of the completely ungovernable, totally irresistible tide of passion that roared into being and captured them both.

  Swept them into a sea of desire and hot, urgent yearning. Onto a plane where for both of them nothing mattered beyond the next heated touch, the next explicit caress.

  Her desperate fingers fumbled with his cravat; he groped blindly with one hand, trapped the swinging end of the braid that anchored her cape at her neck, and wrenched it free.

  The cape slid from her shoulders, down and away with a sibilant shush. His palm touched the silk of her gown, rose, and found her breast, cupped, then he closed his hand and kneaded. He was incapable of disguising the need in his touch, the possessiveness that drove him. Releasing the firm mound, he sought and found her laces, and quickly, expertly undid them.

  The instant her bodice loosened, he drew it down, slid his hand beneath, pressed the material farther away as his palm caressed hot silken skin. She shuddered. A prickling tide of sensual relief swept through him at the contact, not easing but flagrantly arousing, heightening his need, deepening his lust. The kiss turned incendiary; he held her head immobile as he plundered her mouth, soft, giving, intensely feminine. Intoxicating. His hand surrounded and seized; his fingers closed, possessed, then captured the tightly furled peak and tweaked, squeezed.

  On a gasp, she broke from the kiss. Desperate for air, she tilted her head back.

  Inwardly he smiled, and seized the moment. He released her nape, let that hand trace down the line of her spine to settle at the back of her waist, simultaneously took advantage of her instinctive offering; leaning forward, he set his lips to her vulnerable throat, pressed a heated knowing caress to the sensitive spot beneath her ear, then skated hot kisses down that tempting line.

  He paused to lave the pulse that beat wildly at the base of her throat, paused to taste, to savor the galloping desire that held her in its grip. Satisfied, he moved on, down, with his lips tracing a path over the swell of her breast to the tightly ruched bud his fingers had teased to aching, throbbing hardness.

  He closed his lips about it. She jerked in his arms.

  He soothed it with a wet lick, and she trembled.

  His mind took note, but the beast within him, aroused and needy, saw no reason to stop and consider. Instead, he bent to the task of teaching her all he could make her feel, all she could experience if she gave herself to him.

  With expertise aplenty on which to call, he quickly reduced her to a state of sobbing need. Fractured and ragged, her breathing rang with a sensual desperation that was music to his ears.

  His own need clawed and roared; anticipation wielded a sharpened spur. He drew back, leaning back against the sofa arm, surprised to find he needed to catch his own sensual breath, that he was breathing rapidly, too…

  Her gown had fallen to her waist, her chemise crushed with it. With his eyes he devoured the lush mounds revealed, the swollen, heated female flesh to which his hands and lips had already laid claim.

  The sight more than pleased, it delighted, sent a hot rush of passion surging through his loins, increasingly urgent, increasingly insistent. The sexual compulsion was beyond anything he’d felt before, stronger, more powerful, more real.

  Somehow more aligned with who he really was, with what he really was. Reckless and wild.

  One glance at her face, at the slivers of emerald bright with desire that glowed beneath her heavy lids, told him beyond doubt that she felt it, too—the ungovernable, irresistible craving, the desire that was simply impossible to deny.

  He could have her now. She was straddling him, her knees sunk in the cushions on either side of his hips. He could simply lift her skirts, release his staff, and sheathe himself in her softness, but the beast within wanted much more. Demanded much more, from her, of her.

  Nothing but complete surrender. Nothing less than sensual submission.

  The world had already fallen away. Only the two of them remained, cocooned in the moon-glimmered dark in the silence of the summer house. A silence broken only by their panting breaths, by the shush of fine material shifting.

  Pris had already dispensed with his cravat. She’d pushed his shirt up to gain access to his chest, but that wasn’t enough. She wanted to see as well as to feel. Wanted to know. Everything.

  From beneath her heavy lids, she captured his gaze, held it as she unbuttoned his shirt. In the shadowed dark, his eyes were impossible to read, yet his expression as he watched her still conveyed a sense of control, of knowing, of deliberation.

  But there was no longer any coolness in his gaze; it was hot, nearly scorching as it lowered and swept her breasts. As he examined, then raised a hand to lazily caress.

  Her nerves leapt, tightened; her senses exulted in the light, taunting touch even as her mind reeled. She closed her eyes, briefly savored. She was straddling him, naked to the waist, yet far from feeling shocked or hesitant, she wanted to be there, wanted to feel his eyes on her body, ached to feel that fleeting, teasingly promising brush of his long fingers across her sensitized skin.

  Her pulse beat strongly in her fingertips, under her skin, echoing the compulsion that thrummed through her, through every vein, down every nerve. How she could be addicted to something she hadn’t yet tasted was a mystery, but the effect was real. She simply wanted. And had to have.

  The last button slipped free; opening her eyes, she spread the halves of his shirt wide and looked down. Visually devoured as he had, then, shaking her fingers free of the material, she reached, touched, stroked. She traced the well-defined muscles banding his chest, let her fingers tangle in the crisp black hair that lay in a mat across the width, then arrowed down to disappear beneath his waistband. She found the flat discs of his nipples beneath the dark pelt, stroked, caressed, and felt them furl. Greatly daring, she leaned down and lipped, then nipped, and felt him catch his breath, felt him stir restlessly beneath her.

  Rising, she slid her hands, fingers splayed, down, over the hard ridges of his abdomen; sitting back, she followed the same path with her eyes and swallowed. He was strong, steely muscled, an altogether dangerous male in his prime.

  One she had half-naked beneath her.

  Her lips slowly curved. Lifting her eyes to his, she caught the dark glimmer beneath his long lashes, held it, then deliberately skated her hands slowly up his chest. Following them, she leaned in and, with reckless abandon, set her lips to his.

  Covered them, kissed wantonly, with lips and tongue boldly challenged, then retreated
, enticed.

  His hand skated up her back to once again cup her nape; he held her immobile, and blatantly, with an irresistible power, took control of the kiss. Blatantly, arrogantly, took all she offered.

  And then all he wished.

  A shiver shook her, a primitive recognition that here, now, he could have what ever he wished of her, that she wouldn’t resist, couldn’t resist.

  Didn’t want to resist.

  Here, now, this was what she wanted, what she had to have. Him.

  Certain, sure, emboldened, she answered his passion with her own, brazenly incited, convinced beyond all logical question that what ever she could have of him was what she craved. What she needed.

  The wild and reckless. The passionate male that lurked behind his cool façade.

  That was what she wanted. That was what she was determined to have.

  Regardless of the cost. What ever price he asked, she would gladly pay. With his body hot and hard beneath her hands, with his lips hard and urgent covering hers, his tongue a heated brand tangling with hers, she wasn’t in any mood to deny herself. Or him.

  Wasn’t in any mood to do anything other than catch her breath when his hand slid beneath her skirts. His hard palm curved about her stockinged calf, then glided slowly up, sending sensations spiraling upward. His hand continued its inexorable climb over her knee, tracing her bare thighs above her garters, pushing aside her gown and chemise to gain better access.

  His questing hand found her bottom. Her heart seemed to stop as he caressed, gently fondled, then lightly shaped. His grip about her nape eased, then slid away. His fingers trailed over her bare shoulder, delicately brushed one peaked and swollen breast, sending sensations cascading through her, sending heat and molten delight flowing down her veins to gather and pool low in her body.

  Those descending fingers continued on, tracing downward. He continued kissing her; she continued kissing him as he slid that hand, too, beneath her skirts. He cupped her bottom in both hands, kneaded, yet she knew he was biding his time, that his ardor was still leashed, that he was still in control and would remain so until she paid his price.

  She didn’t know how she knew; she simply did. The knowledge was there, inside her; she didn’t question its rightness.

  Hands lightly gripping, holding her, he drew back from the kiss. Caught her eyes as she raised her heavy lids, and murmured, his breath a hot promise across her lips, “I want to see all of you. Take off your gown.”

  She didn’t hesitate. Awash on a heady tide, faintly giddy, she sat up, bunched her skirts in her hands, and drew the garment up and over her head. Extending one hand, she let it fall to the floor, then looked down at him.

  But he wasn’t looking at her face.

  His gaze had locked on the apex of her thighs, on the dark curls her filmy chemise, in loose folds about her hips and upper thighs, veiled but didn’t hide. She wondered if he wished her to remove the chemise, too.

  As if he’d heard her thought, he said, “Leave the rest.”

  The words were little more than a low growl.

  One that sent sensual anticipation streaking through her.

  His hands left her bottom, slid forward around her thighs, slid down and closed around each above the knee. Slowly he eased his grip, slowly slid both hands upward, sliding beneath the insubstantial chemise, tracing the tense muscles, his thumbs cruising the quiveringly sensitive skin of her inner thighs.

  Her lungs seized, clenched tight.

  His hands paused in their upward sweep; he leaned back, shifted slightly beneath her as he settled back against the sofa’s arm.

  Distracted anew by the sight of his chest displayed before her, by tendrils of sensation as the light breeze played over her heated skin, by the strength in the hands so suggestively circling her bare thighs, it took a moment before she realized his gaze had risen to her face, that he was studying her.

  She raised her eyes and met his. What he read in her eyes, her expression, she couldn’t tell, but one dark brow slowly, almost insultingly arrogantly, arched.

  “Shouldn’t you be kissing me, Priscilla?”

  She had no idea, but wasn’t about to admit it. Not when he asked like that, as if she’d missed her turn in some game they were playing. She wished she could repay him with a look as contemptuous as his was arrogant; instead, she simply leaned down and did as he suggested. She kissed him—and poured every ounce of her determination to claim him, to engage with him—not the cool collected gentleman but the wild and reckless man—into the act.

  And felt his control quake. Felt it shake, felt the reins he held over that other self thin and fray.

  Immediately, she pressed harder, ever more blatant. She leaned closer, and her breasts brushed his chest. He shuddered, his hands instinctively flexing, fingers biting into her thighs.

  She exulted, and reached for him, that elusive male she longed to meet. And he came to her, rose at last to her lure and kissed her back, ravaged her mouth even as his hands flexed again, then swept higher.

  His touch was harder, more driven. More explicit as he boldly cupped the heated flesh between her thighs, then stroked, caressed. Parted the slick, swollen folds, traced her entrance.

  With lips and tongue he distracted her, made her fight to match him, to appease his demands. The body beneath her seemed different, too, more steely, more powerful.

  A predator unleashed.

  She sensed that as he fed from her mouth; beyond thought, she returned the plea sure, equally uninhibited, equally wild.

  Inciting more.

  His touch between her thighs became ever more intimate, ever more explicit, until she felt she would scream. Until she was aching for something more, until she felt on fire with a greedy ravenous need.

  Abruptly, one hard hand clamped over her hip, anchoring her. Between her thighs, his other hand pressed farther, then slowly, deliberately, he pushed one finger into her. Deep, then deeper still.

  Her heart stopped. Her lungs weren’t functioning.

  She tried to gasp, to pull back from the kiss.

  He released her hip, gripped her head instead, and held her lips to his. Refused to let her pull back as he withdrew that long finger, then thrust it into her again. And again, and again.

  And again.

  Sensations rippled through her, waves of sharp delight escalating, intensifying with every slick stroke, with every increasingly intimate penetration. Heat washed through her, rushed down to pool in a molten furnace that with every caress he stoked.

  Her body wasn’t her own, but his—his to command, to caress as he wished, to plea sure as he wished…

  Desperate, she pulled back from the kiss, this time succeeded in parting their lips by an inch.

  His grip on her head immediately tightened, but before he drew her back, his lashes rose, and he met her eyes. Held her gaze for an instant while their breaths mingled, hers panting and unsteady, his ragged but more even.

  “Keep kissing me, all the way. I want to be in your mouth when you come apart.”

  She didn’t understand anything more than his need. His wish, his desire. She dragged in a breath, started to close the distance, lost that breath completely as between her thighs he reached deep. Her lids fell on a moan of entreaty and surrender. His lips captured hers, his tongue invaded her mouth, and the hot tide of his kiss, of his claiming, rose and swept her away.

  When you come apart.

  She suddenly understood, suddenly found herself, her body, her senses, teetering on the edge of a sensual precipice, driven there by forceful, repetitive caresses, by the constant stimulation of nerves in her most intimate places, between her thighs, in her mouth, the sensitized peaks of her breasts as they rode against his chest.

  Her nerves coiled tight, then tighter; every sense seemed to swoon with plea sure.

  Then reality fractured, broke apart in glory, in heat and plea sure beyond imagining.

  A great wave of joy and pure delight swept through her, buoyed her u
p and carried her on and away, then slowly, gradually receded, and left her floating. As she drifted back to earth, and her senses reengaged, she felt him drinking from her mouth as if he could taste her plea sure, as if the delight she’d experienced at his hands was a nectar he could sup from her lips.

  She slumped against him; beneath her, she felt him move.

  Realized that while she was close to boneless, his body was not just tense but driven, a sculpted hardness edged with passion, gripped by a need even in her innocence she instinctively recognized.

  Inside, she quaked. She knew the moment of truth had arrived, but she couldn’t think—and she was no longer sure.

  She could no longer remember where she was, let alone where she’d been going.

  Dillon lifted her fractionally, reached between them, and flicked free the buttons at his waistband. Teeth gritted, he freed his aching erection, and breathed—shallowly—again.

  She was all hot, wet and welcoming, slumped in a wanton sprawl over him. The scent of her arousal rose and wreathed through him, made the animal in him flex its claws.

  All he need do was lift her a fraction, and slide his throbbing staff into the scalding haven he’d so explicitly prepared. He was large, but in her present state she would take him, and take him all.

  The blood pounded in his veins, an insistent tattoo driving him to action. He needed to be inside her more than he needed to breathe, but…there was something his more rational mind was frantically trying to tell him, battling the fogs of lust to remind him….

  She blew out a soft breath, a gentle exhalation against his cheek.

  Her head was beside his, nestled on his shoulder. He shot her a glance, and recollection returned.

  Her.

  That was what he needed to remember. That he wanted her. Not just for a day, for a week or even a month.

  For ever.

  Once the fogs were breached, memory flooded back.