Page 59 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
He shook his head, an almost imperceptible action that punctuated the slow rise and fall of his chest. Something clever and quick was happening behind his eyes, and when he spoke, he did so without hesitation. “I will regret nothing. And I will give you everything.”
He laid her down then, slowly lowering her to the pelisse, positioning her head on his balled-up shirt. He kissed down her neck, down the length of one arm. He placed a kiss on her navel, then dipped a thumb inside and dragged that thumb down, down, to the place already needing him between her legs. Then he kissed some more, over the sharp point of one hip and down her thigh. He lingered at her knee before making his way down her shin and placing a long, slow, sweet kiss over the thin bones of her foot.
She shivered and arched, and now that he’d touched her to transformation twice, she suspected what was to come.
He dragged his lips back up the length of her body, taking an alternate route between her breasts, which he stopped to play with—puckered, licked, and teased—until she arched and moaned and tangled her hands in his hair. Then he moved on, not to her lips for another kiss, but to the shell of her ear to whisper, “I know you are a dragon and like to have things your way, but this once,this once, let me have mine. Let me show you gentle and slow. Let me show how to make the best of a hard floor and hurried night. Let me show you what I want for you, what you are worth.”
Hard floor? She’d not noticed. Not with him so hard above her. She grasped his hair at the nape of his neck and held him still, caught his gaze. “Only listen to me about what I want, only believe me that I want this, hard floor and all, only trust I am bright enough to understand what it is I am doing, risks and all, and that I choose to do it anyway.”
He ripped out of her hold and kissed her hard, his body pressing against her. “I know,” he said between stone-hard and coal-hot kisses, “I know. But still… I wish. Shall I show you what I wish?”
She bit his bottom lip.
“Close your eyes,” he said, “and let’s put that brilliant imagination to good use.”
She closed her eyes. In the darkness, every sensation magnified.
His voice, dark and deep near her ear, said, “Small home, cozy but lovely. A bed almost as big as the room.” His voice descended into silent darkness. “No. A small bed so you can’t roll too far away from me. Even in sleep. Then a fire roaring nearby, as now, so I can see every freckle. Did you know you have a constellation of them right here?” His lips soft on her shoulder pressing a kiss before returning to her ear. “God, they’re amazing. Where was I? Ah. Pillows to spread your pretty hair out against, curtains drawn tight against the world. Your paintings on the wall. Your designs in a sketchbook nearby. And you. Nothing on, of course.”
His hand appeared at her waist, and she felt it clench there, felt the thin material of her shift shimmy up her body, over her shoulders. Then off.
“Yes,” he breathed. “Like this. Nothing better thanthis.” His hands squeezed her waist. “Just you.” His voice took on a hypnotic lilt. “You need no adornment.” A soft chuckle. “He says to the jeweler’s daughter in a shop brimming with valuable jewelry. But if I could break into a case and put any of these baubles around your neck, your wrists, your ankles… if I could pool diamonds in your naval, sprinkle emeralds along your collarbone… I would not. What good would they do? You have all the beauty you need already. They would merely get in the way.”
Then his mouth disappeared from her ear, and a slight air blew between their bodies. “Do you want diamonds? And jewels?”
Something in his voice—unsure, wavering.
She opened her eyes, found him staring down at her, flames flickering shadows across his face.
“I can never give you diamonds.”
Silly man. She’d lived her life with shiny things, and they had never tempted her much. She shook her head and cupped his cheek. “I prefer broken buttons and discarded wire. I prefer you.”
She stroked her hands down his body as if he were the most precious of gems. Perhaps he was. To her. He hissed with the trailing touch, and she did what she’d not been able to do earlier, grasped him. A brazen thing for an innocent like her to do? Was she even supposed to touch him as she was doing? She almost laughed. If she’d listened tosupposed tos, she’d never have copied this man’s paintings, never have met him.
His hiss became a clenched jaw, his hips rolling against her.
“Should I… let go?”
“No.” His hand cupped the space between her legs, and she found herself rolling against him. He stroked her as he had before, and as before, the sensation built an ache within her. Mimicking him, she stroked his shaft, and he buried his head in the curve of her shoulder, seeming to hold so very still.
She did it again, and he slipped a finger inside her in response, letting his thumb move in magic circles around the sweet throbbing bit of her body.
“Slow,” he said, soft and low, as if to himself. “Slow, slow, slow.” One hand at her core, he let the other roam up and down her body, lingering in places that bloomed beneath his touch. Each pathway he stroked seemed a thing of high art, of genius, the Rubens of her pleasure.
In comparison, she felt like a clunky novice. She was a clunky novice, with no idea of what to do, only of what pleased her and, according to his little sounds and the rhythms of his body, what he liked as well. So she let her hands roam as his did, one growing a fire between them and the other becoming a wanderer, a pilgrim over the hills and valleys of Lord Lysander Bromley. Shoulder, spine, and—oh, yes—a lovely backside she could linger on. Thighs like rock. Lovely too.
Sunlight. She wanted to do this in sunlight so she could see what freckles he had, what scars from childhood, so she could see how life had painted him like a canvas. The touching, even lacking sunlight, made her body glow. Every time she made him hiss, made his fingers work faster in her, on her, her pleasure doubled until she was clawing at his shoulders, biting at his neck, pleading, “Lysander. Lysander.”
“Shh, my dragon,” he said, kissing her softly, trying to tame her, failing, “I will. I will. But it might hurt.”
“Lysander,” she said again, tugging at his shoulders, biting his bottom lip. She was about to fall apart as she had on the table, as she had in the alcove. “Please.”
Then he was between her legs, and his manhood replaced his hand, and poised above her, hands on either side of her body, he slid slowly into her.
“More,” she demanded. It felt tight, but still, she needed to know more.
So he showed her, gritting his teeth, closing his eyes.
