Page 11 of A Scoundrel Under the Mistletoe
The room was silent save for the crackling hearth and the whisper of their breaths mingling in the charged air. Joy’s fingers resumed their exploration, now with a halting hesitancy that soon gave way to determination. She leaned forward, her hair cascading over her shoulders.
Her lips parted, and she bestowed upon him a tentative kiss, a whisper of contact that made Moses’ heart thunder against his ribs. Emboldened, she allowed her tongue to trace the contours of his flesh, gently exploring his length.
“Ah,” Moses exhaled, a sound torn from the very core of him. He watched as she enveloped him, her mouth warm and inviting, the softness of her lips contrasting with the earnestness of her touch.
“God above,” he uttered, no more than a hoarse whisper as he watched the top of her head, the way her hair shimmered in the firelight, a halo around her face of focused concentration.
Joy paused for the briefest of moments, looking up at him through her lashes. The sight of her eyes, dark with burgeoning boldness, sent another jolt through his already quivering body. She seemed to draw strength from his undone state, her confidence blooming like a rose.
Her hands now commanded his flesh with a newfound assertiveness. They explored him, gentle yet firm, coaxing his passion to life with each stroke. “Like this?”
“Exactly like that.” Each word was punctuated by a sharp intake of breath as she applied her lessons with increasing fervor. Her strokes were bolder now, a rhythm that had his body strumming.
His world narrowed to the sensation of Joy’s mouth upon his flesh. He was adrift in an ocean of bliss, every wave of sensation crashing over him with more intensity than the last. A loner who found solace only in the silence of his craft, he now reveled in the sound of their interwoven breaths. His muscles tensed and relaxed in rhythm with Joy’s movements, and he felt himself growing closer to release.
“Joy,” he gasped.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide with wonder and a hint of concern. “Is this?—”
“Stop,” he cut in, the effort to form coherent thoughts nearly beyond him. He summoned every ounce of self-control to still her hand, though every fiber of his being screamed for continuation. “Is this how you wish me to be... for your sketch?”
She blinked at him, frowning for a moment before understanding dawned. She rose, and with a delicate grace that belied the erotic scene, Joy picked up her sketchbook, her gaze flitting between his taut form and the blank page before her.
Moses watched her, chest heaving from exertion and restraint, as she began to draw. The soft pout of her lips as she sketched him into eternity was enough to wrench sighs from deep within his chest. It was a scene plucked from the most licentious of novels, yet here it unfolded in the quiet sanctum of his drawing room. He lay back against the cushions of the chaise, the residual heat of Joy’s touch a lingering promise of what was yet to come.
His hand moved over himself languidly, a necessary rhythm to keep the flames of desire from extinguishing. The room seemed to shrink around them, filled with nothing but the sound of his ragged breaths and the faint whisper of pencil on paper. The intimacy of the act wrapped around him like a velvet cloak, heavy with the scent of anticipation and the softness of yearning.
But as the quiet moments lingered, doubt crept into the edges of his pleasure-soaked mind. The ghostly sensation of Joy’s previous touches haunted him, the memory alone insufficient to maintain the vigor required for her artistic endeavor. His strokes grew more fervent, yet his body threatened to betray the very passion he sought to convey.
It was at this precipice of frustration, where the brink of release seemed both imminent and impossibly distant, that Joy laid aside her sketchbook. Her eyes, dark with blossoming curiosity and cloaked in the demure charm of widowhood, met his own.
“May I…we?” The words were a delicate wisp of sound, yet they crashed over him like a wave.
Without awaiting his nod, she rose from her chair and stood, unabashed and gloriously unadorned, then in one fluid movement, she closed the space between them, straddling Moses with an elegance that belied the carnality of their actions as she guided his cock inside her. The sensation of her warmth encasing him obliterated all coherent thought, a deluge of ecstasy that blotted out everything else.
Their union was frenzied, as if she too were on the edge of bursting. His hands found purchase upon the gentle swell of her buttocks, guiding her in their fervent dance toward oblivion. Together, they chased the mounting wave of climax, her name a silent litany on his lips.
The crescendo broke inside him, fast and fierce as he found sweet release. His world narrowed to the exquisite pressure and the intoxicating heat of Joy’s body moving against his own. And as he surrendered to the quickening pulse of orgasm, there was a fleeting sense that they had captured something far more elusive than a mere climax. She had left a mark on his soul that no other woman had.
Chapter 8
Joy stood hesitating at the threshold of Moses’ bedroom, her heart fluttering against her ribs. The chaise, with its nearness to the fire and the coverlet draped over the back, was the sensible choice for where she’d spend the night. But Moses had suggested—no, insisted—that she take his bed. And she was certain he meant to join her there. The very idea sent tremors of both excitement and trepidation through her slender frame.
Her body still tingled from their activities, but she was tired. She didn’t feel up to more explorations of the joy two bodies could bring to each other.
“Joy,” Moses began, “please, make yourself comfortable.” His hand swept through the air in an arc, a silent invitation into the private sanctum. In that gesture, there was none of the surliness she’d noticed when she’d first arrived at his home. Instead, there was a gentleness, an understanding that reached across the room and wrapped around Joy like a warm shawl.
His eyes held hers with an intensity that spoke volumes of the unvoiced connection that had been steadily threading between them. There was no leering expectation in his gaze, no predatory gleam that she had seen in the eyes of so many others. Here was a kind man who recognized the fragility of a widowed heart still finding its way back to a world of vibrant colors after being steeped too long in the greys of mourning.
She took in a deep breath, the scent of linseed oil and turpentine mingling with the faintest hint of citrus that clung to him, grounding her. She shivered in the cold air and brushed her hands over her arms. “Thank you,” she replied. Her tone was lighthearted, attempting to brush off the significance of the moment, yet her voice trembled slightly, betraying her inner turmoil.
She’d never shared the bed of a man other than her husband.
With one small step forward, Joy crossed the invisible line separating Moses’ world from hers in the chamber brightened by the amber glow of the fire he’d just lit. Her gaze landed on the mahogany bed that seemed both an invitation and a precipice.
Moses moved to the bed and peeled back the covers.
Desperate for warmth, Joy climbed into the bed. The linens greeted her bare skin with a cool caress, making her shiver lightly. Beside her, the bed dipped gently as Moses settled himself, lying close enough that Joy could feel the warmth radiating from his body.
