Page 10 of The Spy Who Loved Her
Those fingers curled at her nape like a brand, and for a long moment there was only stillness and silence at her back. “Because I wanted to,” he said at last, and the words were heavy, as if a great weight had settled in his chest. Like they constituted a truth he was reluctant to admit even to himself. “Because above everything else, I wantedto.”
There was the slight, prickly rasp of the beginnings of a beard against her shoulder, the heat of his breath at the curve of her neck. Her skin sizzled with the sensation; a touch unlike any she had known in the last ten years.
No. A touch unlike any she hadeverknown, she mused, as his lips touched the sensitive skin there just beneath her ear. Ambrose had kissed her, of course, but it had always been more or less perfunctory. As if he had been crossing an item off of a list, an obligation to be seen to without much enthusiasm.
This was nothing like that. She could almost believe he enjoyed it, this leisurely exploration of the skin revealed above the loosed neckline of her gown. Almost.
Her voice trembled, just a bit. “You needn’t…you needn’t go to all that bother,” she said, though some strange, aching part of her dearly wished he would.
A low laugh tickled her flesh. “Emma,” he said, and she was struck wordless at only the sound of her name on his lips. “I’ll make you a bargain. I won’t tell you how to raise the children in your care—and you won’t tell me how to do this. Are we agreed?”
“Yes.” Though she could hardly think with the delicate scrape of his cheek against her skin. If he did not wish to be relieved of such actions, well, then, she was hardly going to stop him. Not when every nerve sang at the sensations they evoked. “Yes,” she said again, though it had come out more like a sigh.
“Good.” The word was warm and approving, like praise. A moment later his hands found her hips, dragged her back across the couch, and tumbled her across his lap. Perhaps it was the brandy she’d imbibed, or perhaps it was the heat of his body, or even some unholy amalgamation of the two, but—every last bit of tension slipped free of her body. Limp and pliant as a child’s rag doll, she found herself nestled within the cage of his arms, the back of her head pressed against his right shoulder. Through the barriers of skirts and petticoats and chemise, still she could feel the evidence of his arousal prodding her bottom.
It surprised her. Probably it shouldn’t have, given the nature of thisassignation, but he worn such a carefully-contrived mask of civility in those moments when they had been idly chatting that thishad never occurred to her.
“Come now,” he said, his fingertips sliding along the delicate skin of her throat. “You knew what was meant to happen.”
“Yes.” Could he feel the frantic pounding of her heart there in the hollow of her throat where his fingers rested? “Yes, but I didn’t expect—”
A light laugh, trickling over her ears with the smoothness of brandy. “Emma, I’ve been hard as steel from the moment I entered this room.”
“I hadn’t noticed.” Those warm fingers followed a long swallow down her throat and dipped beneath the rumpled neckline of her dress.
“You weren’t meant to notice. In the event that you reconsidered.” His chin rasped against the smooth skin of her shoulder, and his fingers plucked at the tie at the neckline of her chemise, loosening the fabric. “No stays,” he murmured, and again it sounded approving. Something within her—that withered bloom of desire that had been starved these long years of touch, of affection—strained toward the sustaining sunlight of it. Toward those gentle fingers that meandered, too slowly, toward the swell of her breast. “You can still reconsider,” he said.
Even if she might, at some point, have entertained second—or eventhird—thoughts, still they would have been pushed from her head the moment that she had felt his bare fingers upon her skin. A sensation more intoxicating than brandy; more wicked than the lurid fantasies with which she had long shared her lonely bed.
Like a devil conjured up from her dreams. Sin and absolution both, blended with a velvety voice and hands that scorched her with tiny licks of flame. The sort of man who could drag a woman straight to Hell and make her relish every step of the journey.
“I’ve not reconsidered.” There was a queer, breathy quality to her voice, and she pursed her lips against a sigh as those wicked fingers dipped deeper within the loosed fabric of her bodice, finding the point of her nipple and massaging it to a taut peak. Her head fell back, cradled against the curve of his shoulder, eyes drifting closed.
“Good.” His lips brushed her temple with the words. “Put your arms around my neck,” he said, “and raise your right leg over mine.”
“Oh, but…” His erection still prodded her bottom. “Shouldn’t we—”
“Emma.” It was only her name, but it was a command in and of itself, given by a man who sounded accustomed to issuing orders and having themobeyed. She curled her arms around his neck, and the motion arched her spine and pressed her breast more firmly into the heated cup of his palm. Her skirts pulled as she separated her knees and she managed to slide her leg across his broad thigh.
“Good girl,” he murmured, but the brief flare of outrage she experienced at the perceived condescension was vanquished by the cool kiss of air against her calves. There was the rustle of silk, the brush of it against her stockings as his left hand fisted in her skirts, dragging them away from her legs, until the bulk of the fabric settled in her lap.
Her legs were bared. Or—mostly bared. She had her stockings still, and her garters. Warm fingers settled on her thigh, just above the top of her stocking, and traced odd, nonsensical patterns on a leisurely journey up.
And up.
Andup.
She felt more than heard the hitch of his breath in his chest as he found the cluster of curls between her thighs with just the tips of his fingers, ever so slowly sinking into the revealing dampness beneath. A muffled curse grazed her ear; a fitful, helpless tremor slid from his body to hers. Those wicked fingersdelved, in a purely proprietary manner.
“Do you touch yourself like this?” he asked, the smooth tenor of his voice belied by the harsh rasp of his breath against her temple. One finger plunged into her depths as if he could coax the answer from her with the motion, and she swallowed back a gasp.
“Yes. Sometimes, I—” Oh, God, her thighs were already trembling with the encroaching climax, muscles strung tight. It had just been so longsince she’d been touched by hands other than her own. “A woman has needs,” she managed to say, though the words tumbled together in an inelegant slur. Somehow, her right hand had grasped a fistful of his hair, almost as if to brace herself for the oncoming storm, and the thick strands were so cool, so silky in the clasp of her fingers.
“Christ. I would do murder to see that.” And since he was an associate of Kit’s, he might truly have meantit. His right hand kneaded the soft flesh of her breast as his left played between her thighs with a sort of urgency she couldn’t quite understand. Deep plunges of his fingers; a soft swirl of his thumb over the bead of her clitoris until she had to bite her lower lip against the odd little sounds that wanted to climb out of her throat.
He was a stranger. He could be anyone at all. A thief, a criminal. A murderer, even.
And yet she had never felt safer. Less inhibited.Freer.
