Page 60 of If the Slipper Fits
Caden continued. “But it’s not a good—”
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his.
***
He’d recognized her intent one second before she silenced him with her kiss. Thanks to their previous experimentations, the ensuing explosion of need coursing through him came as no surprise.
But Anna's outpouring of sweet, reckless passion left him reeling. She arched against him, wound her arms ‘round his neck, kneaded her fingers into his hair.
He felt as dumbstruck as a greenhorn lad, and at once the luckiest, most virile man alive.
He wanted her. Wanted to devour her whole in one swallow. He hadto stop this now—before he couldn’t stop at all.
With an agonized groan, he turned his head, breaking off the kiss. “Anna, you don’t know what you’re—”
“Shh.” She cupped either side of his face with damp palms and guided it back in her direction.
Then she angled her soft lips over his and he was well and truly lost.
She leaned into him, her body half draped over the side of the bed. Much too far away.
He scooped her up, dragged her across him, and, rolling, tumbled atop her onto the center of the bed.
He propped himself onto his elbows, arms bracketing her, eyes drinking in the sight of her—skin luminescent in the candlelight, lips softly parted. “Gods, you’re beautiful.”
Shaking with the effort it took to reign in his need, he kissed her mouth with a tenderness that cost him. He wanted to ravage, to plunder,to feast, but her lips, so soft, so sweet, begged to be nibbled, tasted, teased.
His tongue cruised over the seam of her lips ’til she opened for him on a delicate gasp that acted like a feather duster down his spine.
A low moan sounded in his throat as he sunk inside her warmth, deepening the kiss. His hand snaked up to cradle the warm nape of her neck, fingers tangling in the once neatly twisted knot of hair.
“This won’t do at all,” he murmured.
“Mmm?” came her dazed reply.
With a grunt of impatience, he set about removing her hair pins. Soon he had the majesty of her dark, chestnut hair fanned over the bedcovers. Looking at her almost hurt.
“You’re beyond anything, Anna. You intoxicate me, rob me of sense ’til I feel I’d rather cease breathing than stop kissing you.”
Her cheeks flushed a deep red and an uncharacteristically shy smile tugged at her ruby lips. “Then don’t.Please.”
Satisfaction roared through him, and his cock, already straining against his trousers, went painfully hard.
He had to calm his violent need for her or risk humiliating himself, and he had a decision to make.
He lowered his head to nibble at her delicate ear lobe and nuzzle the tender underside of her jaw, a war raging inside him. He wanted her, and she seemed to want him equally. He could make love to her here and now, but then what? Watch her walk out of his life, an impoverished, helpless servant? Impossible.
Trembling with the force of his desire, he pressed his forehead to her collar bone and resisted the urge to howl.
Her fingers toyed with the hair at his nape. A shiver rolled though him.
“Caden?” His name on her lips tore at his insides.
“I…can’t.”
“I see.” Her hands fell away from him.
Everything in him mourned the loss of her touch.
