Page 23 of The Spy Who Loved Her
Oh, yes. Any woman would follow him straight into Hell. Perhaps, in some far-off future, she would recover herself enough to feel shame for this. For what she was allowing him to do to her. But just now, there was no room inside her for anything but that magnificent swell of pleasure that spiraled from her belly outward, radiating brilliant sparks of flame along every nerve. She heard her breath sawing from her lungs, carving through the still air with each gasp, felt her back arch with a particularly devious flick of his tongue and the slow plunge of his fingers inside her. Something crashed to the floor—a pile of books, she thought—swept off the desk by the unconscious flail of her arm, which had scrabbled for purchase somewhere above her head. The edge of the desk bit into her palm as she curled her fingers around it, holding on for dear life.
His cheek rasped against the tender skin of her thigh, the abrasion of his stubble startling, maddening. She bit back a cry as the pleasure began to crest in tiny, intimate pulses, her private flesh contracting around the fullness of his fingers.
And then she whimpered as he withdrew. Too soon—her body clutched only upon emptiness, and that delicious rush of bliss abated like a kettle thathad been removed from the stove just shy of boiling. Frustration struck at the loss, and her fingers curled into claws, intent upon seizing him, yanking him back. “No,” she croaked. “I was so close!” Her fingers swiped at empty air, and he—helaughed.
He knew damn well what he had done. How he had left her.
His hands bracketed her hips, pulling until her bottom slid off the desk, until her feet touched the ground. And he held her up as her trembling knees failed to adequately support her, dodging the furious and pitiful strike of her hand as she lashed out at him in disgruntled ire. Her legs nearly tangled upon themselves as he turned her, and the firm pressure of his palm in the center of her back forced her down, bent once more over the desk.
“Emma,” he said. “Stop. I’m going to take care of you.” His fingers caught at the laces of her gown, holding her still with the constriction of her bodice. Her skirts rustled, cool air swirling up her legs once more, and she gasped as he palmed her naked bottom, squeezing her flesh in his fingers as if he might brand her with his touch. “Christ,” he said, in a rough, agonized voice. “So damned soft.”
His fingers swept between her thighs, finding the bead of her clitoris once more. Emma pressed her face into the curve of her elbow with a faint, pleading whimper. The sound of buttons tearing free of their closures burned in her ears, and then—then there was the hot, hard pressure of him between her thighs, fighting for entrance against the swollen, tender tissues that wanted to resist the invasion.
But she was embarrassingly wet, and he was determined; he used the moisture of her arousal against her, breaching her body in one smooth, sleek stroke. In, and in, andin, until she breathed in broken pants, stretching out her hands to grasp the sides of the desk. Until she could feel the hair that dusted his legs tickling her thighs. Until there was no part of her that did not feel occupied, filled,taken.
Something like a growl tore free of his throat, some feral and utterly atavistic sound that lifted the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. Not content with the space he had commanded within her body, he pressed deeper still, greedy and demanding. And her body, lulled into acquiescence by the slippery strokes of his fingers there at the apex of her thighs, accepted the domination of his. Softened. Yielded. Made space where she had been certain none existed.
A slow withdrawal. An insistent plunge, barely-leashed ferocity evident in the grip of one hard hand on her hip, as if he had some primal need tohold her still for his plundering. She couldn’t have moved if she had wished to; not with the edge of the desk biting into her belly, not with the solid weight of him at her back. Heat shimmered along her skin. Her breath misted the surface of the desk, a burst of fog blooming across the varnished wood surface. Lightning seethed beneath the surface of her skin, crackling through her veins.
Her heart pounded against the cage of her ribs. Her hips canted as much as they were able into the tender caress of his fingers, so at odds with his fierce thrusts. “Please,” she whispered, uncertain what, exactly, she was pleading for. For a culmination of the strongest climax she would ever know. For it never to end at all. “Please.”
Perhaps he had taken pity upon her. Perhaps he was simply at the edge of his own patience. Those teasing fingers redoubled their efforts, and her peak crashed toward her on a nearly-painful spiral. She fractured beneath him with a plaintive cry of completion, her nails scoring the underside of the desk, the sudden softness of her body absorbing the last few desperate lunges of his. She could feel the pulse of him inside her, feel the helpless shiver that wracked him. Feel the heat of his breath near her ear, the raggedness of it, as if it had been yanked free of his lungs.
“I didn’t know.” She murmured the words into the silence that had settled between them in the hazy aftermath. She was uncertain what, exactly, the words had been meant to convey to him. Perhaps they had not been meant for him at all, but for herself—a confessionof her own ignorance. That there existed depths of passion which she never could have conceived of; thathehad found them there within her.
His fingers toyed with the drape of her hair, gathering it up and tossing it over her shoulder. His lips touched the back of her neck just above the neckline of her gown in a kiss that seared her straight to her soul. “Now you do.”
∞∞∞
Rafe curled his hand around Emma’s hip, stilling the restive little movements she made. “Emma. For God’s sake, enough. You’ve drained me already.” Still, his groin made a valiant effort to rise to the occasion, stiffening against the luscious softness of her bottom.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” It was just a murmur, buried into the feather pillowtucked beneath her head. “It’s just…this isn’t exactly comfortable, is it?”
For him? Exceedingly. For a few minutes, with the smooth slope of her back pressed against his chest and her legs entangled with his own, he could pretend that she was his. That she always had been. That she always would be. A futile dream he could live within for a few minutes at a time, perhaps as much as an hour. If she could learn to cooperate.
She didn’t know how to share a bed with a man. It hadn’t been obvious that first night, when she had fallen into an exhausted sleep after several frenzied bouts of lovemaking. But now she was awake. Restless. Uncertain. She twitched when he ran his hand down her side, kicked the thick counterpane away from her feet, and kept making strange little wistful-sounding noises. Like a series of sighs had collected in her throat, dislodged one at a time with each fitful movement.
Clearly, Ambrose had never shared her bed for longer than required to copulate. He swiped one hand over his face to scrub away the traces of the frown that had gathered there, but she must have heard him make some sort of disapproving sound anyway.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, and there was a tinge of frosty distance injected into her voice this time. “You need not stay any longer. I’m certain you have got…other interests which require your attention.”
Bloody damned hell. “I’m not leaving,” he said. “You’re going to learn to do this properly.”
“I beg your pardon. Do what properly?”
“The afterbits.” He tugged the pillow out from beneath her head, and slid his arm into its place, tucking her cheek against his shoulder.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
That much was obvious—and a damned tragedy. He flattened his palm against the gentle slope of her belly, felt the tremble that slid through her. “Did your husband never share a bed with you? Not even once?”
“No.” She blew out a breath a fractious breath. “No, he just—he left. He always left.” Her leg slid against his, cold toes tucking themselves between his calves. “It’s not unusual. They’ve both passed, now, but while they lived my parents never shared a bedchamber.”
Nor had his. It wasn’t unusual, in fact. Too many couples wed for money, or position, or power. He’d seen remarkably few love matches in his life. “Did you want him to stay?”
“I don’t know. I suppose…I suppose I did, in the beginning of our marriage. When I thought—” An abbreviated sigh swallowed the words, puffing out against his skin.
“When you thought what?” he pressed.
