Page 16 of A Touch Wicked
Chapter 10
“Tell me what you imagined when you thought of me in the dark,” James said. His voice — the beauty of French on his tongue, so charmingly accented — had such an effect on her. As if it stroked her in the most intimate of places, and yet since he had lain her down on the bed, he hadn’t touched her once. “Were we here at the Masquerade?”
Emma shook her head. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t say the things she had thought of in her most private moments when she touched herself and pretended it was him. It was never enough.
“Then where?” His fingertips brushed her shoulder once — the barest hint of a touch. As if to say,Tell me or I’ll keep my distance.
She was powerless against his voice, against the dark, against the freedom anonymity afforded her. She wanted to tell him everything, every secret, as long as she kept her name to herself.
“In my home —”Not your home; nothing is yours. It’s all his— “there is a library. During my free time, I go there often to read; sometimes I sit at the window and watch the rain fall into the garden. When I imagine us, we’re there in the window seat, and the weather is allowed in.”
Emma thought she heard his breathing quicken. Then his lips were at her ear. “Tell me everything,” he whispered. “Show me how you touched yourself.”
“I’m so deep into one of my mythology books that I don’t notice you come in. Not until you take the book from me and set it aside.” Emma’s fingertips brushed over her collarbone and she shut her eyes. “At first I’m hesitant as you begin unbuttoning my dress—”
“Why are you hesitant?”
His voice reminded her that he was watching as she slid her hand between her breasts, imagining him undoing buttons there.
“Anyone could hear,” she said. “Anyone could come in. You don’t seem to mind, even when I’m naked and you begin disrobing yourself.” Emma flicked a thumb across her nipple. “You touch me here, first. So slow. The wind has picked up outside, and the rain mists us both. I lick the water off your skin.” Her hand slid down her stomach. “Then you touch me here.” Her fingertips were between her legs now. She thought she heard his breath catch. “And you discover how wet I am. How wet I always am around you.”
“Always?”
Emma should take care about revealing details, even minor ones like this. But it was dark and her hand was between her thighs as she stroked herself, and she was unbothered.
“Yes,” she said. “When you look at me, I want you. I’m ready every time. In my dreams, you enter me slowly.” Emma slid a finger inside herself, unable to suppress the moan that escaped her lips. “Again and again. So slowly that I urge you to go faster — reminding you again that someone might walk in — but you kiss away my protests.”
She heard a sound from James, something deep in his throat as he watched her work her finger in and out.
“How do I control myself with such a request? How do I resist?” He sounded far away, as if in another room.
“The point isn’t to resist; it’s to tease. Drive into me until you’re no longer kissing away my protests, but my words as I plead for you.” Emma added another finger, stroking. The release was building and building. “I leave no question about what I want.”
“What do you want?” From the catch in James’s words, Emma knew he was touching himself, too. The sheets rustled as he stroked himself. His breath quickened.
“For you to fuck me—” Another finger, faster — “so hard that I forget my words. And you do, once I’ve begged for it. You press your palm to my mouth so no one will hear me when I cry out your name. You areroughand I love it—”
Emma gasped when James shoved her hand away and came down on top of her. He slammed into her, as hard as she imagined.
“Yes.” She sounded breathless. “Godyes.”
“Say my name.” Was that his voice, that ragged French that was more animal than human? “Say it.”
“James.” His name was a prayer. “James.”
His name was a confession. It scorched her throat and held every secret she had hidden away. For years, she had imagined him doing exactly this: fucking her until the only thing she was capable of remembering was his name.
She screamed it to the ceiling as she climaxed.
James did, too. Only the name he repeated, laughing as he came, wasn’t hers. It was as much a lie as claiming his library was her own.
Chapter 11
As their breathing came down, James began to notice that even with Selene right beside him, she never felt real. As if, at any moment, she would disappear.
You lost control again,he thought to himself.
He’d directed her into bed, ordered her to tell him her dreams. And then, when she touched herself and described her thoughts . . .
