his palm.
He did everything he’d said he would.
And more.
As he removed her clothes, his mouth touched every inch of exposed skin. His tongue flicked out to taste the pulse at the base of her throat before sweeping her collarbone and then lavishing her breasts. His lips and tongue forged a hot, moist trail down her stomach while the fabric of his coat scratched her sensitive skin. When she was completely naked before him, stretched out like some pagan sacrifice while he was still clothed, he knelt at the foot of the bed and his hands parted her thighs.
His head moved between her legs and he kissed her deeply, gently, right at her center. The tips of her breasts stung with pleasure, and an incessant ache throbbed in the intimate place he touched her. She felt a trickle of moisture, and she wanted to close her legs against him, but he held her too firmly. His tongue slid along her folds, pressed deep inside her.
At some point, her embarrassment flitted away and she couldn’t control the undulation of her hips to meet his mouth or the moans that came from her throat.
She watched hungrily as he stood and began to undress. She had a brief impression of a muscled abdomen and a path of hair that pointed down toward his cock before he moved closer again and stood between her still-parted legs.
She expected him to crawl back onto the bed. Instead, his hands touched her thighs and pushed her wider apart.
“Cale,” she whispered. Pleaded. She felt too exposed like this, with him looking down at her vulnerable body.
“I want to see you. Us,” he said, his voice raw and low. “Trust me.” The stark desire on his face was unmistakable. Charles might not have liked what he’d seen, but Cale certainly did.
She felt a blunt pressure at her entrance. He eased into her slowly, easily. He pushed all the way in, until she was filled with a delicious pressure.
“Touch yourself,” he murmured, grasping her hand and guiding it to where they were joined. “It will feel better if you do.”
No, she couldn’t. It wasn’t…proper. Charles had never— But then Cale pressed gently on her fingertips, guiding them in a slow, circular motion, and she gasped at the sensation. When he let her go, she kept her hand where it was, continuing the seductive rhythm he’d begun.
He tilted his hips, drew out slowly, and thrust back in. His hands were everywhere, grasping her waist, touching her breasts, stroking down her stomach. And his eyes…he drank her in, his intense gaze brushing from her face, down her body, and back to meet her eyes, and she felt it like he’d physically touched her.
Her fingers instinctively increased their tempo as Cale’s plunges quickened. Her back arched, wanting to draw him deeper. Their harsh breathing mingled. Their movements became more frantic as she climbed to some height she’d never reached.
And then, it was as if time slowed…and she shattered. Her whole body pulsed around him, and he grasped her hips, pushing himself deep inside her, holding fast as he poured his seed. As he claimed her . A frozen tableau of desire met in an endless thrum of pleasure, then collapsed, needs fulfilled.
Then the moment was gone, and time continued. He rolled down beside her. She turned into him and pressed her lips to his neck, tasting salt. She breathed deeply as her heartbeat gradually slowed to a normal pace.
And as conscious thought returned, it occurred, though she’d been as intimate with him as two people could be, she didn’t know anything about his life other than his occupation. But she wanted to know. Perhaps it was foolish when their arrangement was only temporary, but she wanted to know him. “Do you have a family, Cale?”
He brushed a tendril of hair back from her forehead. “I did a long time ago. When I was ten, my parents and my siblings died in a fire. I’d sneaked out one night because I wanted to see the fireworks at Vauxhall. When I returned, the house was in flames. We lived in
Learning to Kill: Stories