Sweet as the Devil (21 page)

“You needn’t be so careful,” she whispered, her hands at the small of his back urging him on. “I won’t break.”

“I’m not taking any chances.” She was incredibly tight. Sliding his hands under her bottom, controlling his forward motion like a tightrope walker working without a net, he invaded her with painstaking deliberation, using all his considerable finesse to slowly drive his rigid cock deeper.

Unfortunately, his witless attempt at abstinence the past day was playing havoc with his normal control. Dragging in a breath through his teeth, calling on all his willpower, he curbed his rampaging libido.
Slowly, slowly, you can do it. There, like that.
And he glided into the tightest little pussy he’d ever encountered a deft fraction more with a tenderness that acknowledged Miss Eastleigh’s—he’d have to get used to calling her Sofia—fragility. He couldn’t banish the unnerving thought that she might suffer if he treated her too roughly. He’d noticed that first day—how small she was beside Bella, how slender.

She gasped.

Oh Christ.
He froze.

“No, no . . . it’s wonderful,” she acknowledged with a blissful sigh.

Every muscle in his body rebounded from its seizure; he exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “You must tell me when I’ve gone too far. Tell me and I’ll stop.”
Somehow.

“Don’t you
dare
stop!”

He was consoled by her imperious tone. “Is that an order?” But he was smiling.

“Yes, and for your information, I’m getting frustrated.”

That makes two of us.
“You’re almost too small,” he said, instead of being rude.

“Or you’re too big.”

“In any case, we have a problem.” Although in his present state of arousal, he was seriously considering alternatives to intercourse.

“We do not!” she said in a deeply aggrieved tone.

“You know that, do you?” He wasn’t so sure. His erection was only half submerged.

“What if I said I knew because of Dex? Would that irritate you enough to forget your damned caution?”

He looked down on her and frowned. “You said you didn’t know him.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t know him. I just said he wanted to have sex with me that night. I didn’t say it was the first time. There now, that’s better.” His cock had instantly swelled inside her.

“Bitch.” But his voice was velvet soft.

“A very hot, eager, impatient bitch,” she purred.

She was opening like a flower. He should have known. Some women liked discord with their sex. Dropping his head, he whispered in her ear, “I don’t want to hear any complaints afterward.”

“And I don’t want to hear any more caviling from you,” she replied, flippant and pert. “You’d think I was a virgin.”

He grinned. “I’d never think that. But I also didn’t want to have to call in a doctor.”

“Are we done with this conversation? I have other things I’d rather do.”

Christ, she could be a brat, as if it were his fault she was half his size. “You’re damned annoying.”

Her eyes flared wide.
“I’
m
annoying? I’ve never had to wait so long for an orgasm.”

An inexplicable resentment flooded his senses. “How long do you usually wait?” he asked, thin-skinned and edgy.

“Certainly not this long. I should find that dildo.”

“First you’d have to be able to move,” he drawled.

“Are you threatening me?”

“I suppose I am.” Her vaginal tissue was softly pliant now, her drenched cunt unfurling with gratuitous spontaneity.

“Do you often threaten women?”

“I’ve never had to before.” There—in a few inches more. The audacious little wanton liked confrontation.

“They all fall into your arms, I suppose.”

“More or less.” Almost there.

“And you pick and choose.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I accommodate them all.” Ah, finally. He was buried to the hilt. Apparently, she liked men who talked after all. “But you can be first tonight,” he added, driving in that infinitesimal distance more where the true essence of lurid pleasure is revealed.

“Oh God, oh God, oh
God
!” Her voice was no longer contentious but wispy, breathless, devoid of friction.

He smiled; the doors to paradise were open wide. “I can make it even better,” he whispered, having honed his skills to perfection, knowing a modicum more pressure incited an even more feverish response. “Like this.”

It took a moment before she found the breath to speak with a blissful soul-stirring glow pervading her senses, her body, the known universe. “I—can’t . . .
thank
you enough.”

“Nor I you.” A strange thought, but then he’d never gone so long without fucking a woman he wanted, he told himself. His cock was aching, his heart pounding against his ribs, the small lady impaled on his erection challenging previous notions of sexual nirvana. “Try a little more now,” he softly urged, withdrawing slightly before gliding in again with considerably more ease—what was tight, supple now, what was hot, hotter, what seemed impossible before, now indescribably sweet, heady, spine-tingling, and any number of other illusions he’d always considered sentimental nonsense.

When he came to rest again, buried deep inside her, held fast in her sleek, warm flesh, he no longer questioned the concept of bewitchment. Then her fingernails dug into his back, her climax suddenly commenced, and his thoughts turned to more prosaic matters like
Thank God—
he wasn’t sure how much longer he could have lasted.

He chivalrously waited, though, until her orgasm stilled, until her fingers unflexed, until she opened her eyes and complained, “That was too fast.”

He knew what she meant. “Better than climaxing without me,” he said.

“I suppose,” she grumbled.

“We have all night.”

Her expression brightened. “Forgive me. I can be selfish. About everything,” she added with a rueful smile.

“I’ll forgive you if you’ll do the same. I usually can wait, but I’ve been thinking of you, of this, for a very long time. Or what seemed like a long time. I can’t wait anymore.”

She laughed, and he felt it down to his toes.

He grinned. “At least we’ll have the introductions out of the way.”

“And very pleasantly. You must be invited everywhere.” Her gratified nerve endings were still humming with his glorious cock lodged inside her.

“This is the only invitation that interests me
now
.”

“Oh sorry, you’re waiting, aren’t you? You can’t come in me, though,” she added, a sudden seriousness in her voice.

“God no.”

Before she could decide whether his vehemence was an insult or a courtesy, he abruptly moved, slowly withdrawing, or almost withdrawing before plunging back into the deepest depths, and she gasped instead as an unspeakable ecstasy bombarded her senses. “Do that again,” she whispered, feeling as though she were blissfully dissolving in a golden cloud of rapture.

He understood that a degree of gentlemanly behavior was required, although he wasn’t quite sure he was capable of it. But he tried because he wasn’t a novice and he wished to please her. A startling thought at this point in his arousal. But there it was, so he
did it again
and then again, and several more times, drawing on his considerable experience to delay his orgasm and allow the lady to climax once more.

But it was a damn close call.

His eyes were shut tight in deterrent, his powerful back arched against the urgency of the rushing torrent about to explode, and a certain tension in the rhythm of his breathing was audible as he politely waited for the lady’s orgasmic ripples to wane. When
at last
he gauged her reasonably satisfied, he uttered a low guttural growl, set his teeth, and by sheer determination jerked out her enticing little cunt a mille-second before a pent-up flood of semen exploded in a shuddering ejaculation that laid waste every preconceived notion of sexual gratification in his canon of erotic sensation.

Already personally aware of the rule changes in terms of sexual gratification, Sofia lay docile beneath him, basking in the afterglow while the splendid man who’d radically altered her notions of pleasure climaxed. His broad shoulders were taut under the convulsive strain, his muscles starkly defined in extremis, his hands hard on her hips, restraining her, exerting his power.

That unequivocal display of authority was also tempering Sofia’s views on male domination—at least in the bedroom. And why not, she decided, when she was being serviced by the most sublime, blatantly virile lover she’d ever had.

She understood more fully as well why Jamie Blackwood was such a favorite of the countess. Not only was he hung like a bull, but he was both skilled and magnanimous in managing that valuable asset. A little flurry of anticipatory ferment raced up her spine at the prospect of enjoying his attentions again; he’d promised to keep her up all night.

How nice.

She’d have to be polite; she wasn’t always.

She must take pains to be agreeable, even though his seminal discharge currently pouring over her stomach was—she smiled—leaving a mess.

Seconds later, his green eyes flicked open, and pushing the counterpane aside with one hand, he smiled sideways at her. “That was very nice,” he said, well-mannered and flattering as he grabbed a corner of the sheet and, dropping back on his heels, wiped himself off. “Thank you.”

“I hope you’re not done!”

His hand froze for a moment, a fresh portion of sheet crumbled in his fist. “I’ll need a minute or two,” he said, his face devoid of expression, and dropping the crushed linen on her stomach, he began sopping up his semen.

“I’m sorry,” she said into the sudden oppressive silence. “My manners are atrocious.”

“It doesn’t matter. Manners aren’t high on my list of priorities right now.” He tossed the sheet aside, skidded her over on the silk counterpane with a shove of his hand, dropped onto his back beside her, and exhaled a long, unhurried breath.

His bluntness was provocative, a refreshing change after so many fawning men. More pertinent, his dismissive tone was flagrantly arousing, as if he viewed her as no more than an object of his lust. Ummmmm . . . pleasant thought. She could almost
feel
his huge cock gorging her full.

Tantalized by recent memory, she came up on one elbow to view the handsome, hard-bodied man who excited and provoked her desires, who made her greedy for sex when she’d never felt such urgency—when sex had never been about compulsion . . . until now.

His eyes were half-closed, his long lashes shadowing his gaze, his strong, lithe form motionless.

Dare I intrude?
Restive and uncertain when she never was, when she prided herself on a life of spontaneity, she softly sighed.

His head didn’t move, but his eyes swivelled her way. “Two minutes more and I’ll be with you.”

She flushed under his gaze and thought about offering demur.

He smiled. “I didn’t know you could blush.”

“I’m not blushing,” she said like a child caught in some obvious mischief. But treacherous longing carried her gaze downward to his upthrust penis, only marginally diminished with his orgasm.

He followed her gaze and, lazily lifting his hand, ran his finger up the length of his turgid cock. “He likes you.”

A wild impatience warmed her blood as his erection swelled larger before her eyes. “The feeling’s mutual,” she said on a caught breath, the veins of his penis prominent and pulsing, the prodigious increase in size breathtaking. “And I beg your pardon in advance,” she added with future gratification tantamount in her mind. “I can be outspoken at times.”

His lashes lifted marginally as though such understatement was enough to gain his attention. “You’re absolved in advance,” he smoothly replied, future gratification on his agenda as well. “Feel free to say what you like.”

She took exception to his careless drawl. “Because it doesn’t really matter what I say, does it?”

He finally opened his eyes fully, turned his head, and rather than respond to her tart comment, smiled faintly. “What I meant was—
nothing
matters when I’m focused on
this
,” he said, turning smoothly on his right hip, slipping his left hand between her legs, and shoving two of his fingers palm deep into her hot flesh. “But talk if you like,” he added, gently stroking her dew-wet tissue. “I’m listening.”

Suddenly she didn’t have enough air in her lungs to talk, to breathe, to bring a coherent thought to utterance. Resentment and umbrage vanished in a blaze of white-hot desire, and shutting her eyes, she fell on her back with a soft melting sigh.

Such ripe vulnerability
, Jamie pleasantly thought. The lady had an enticing proclivity for arousal, almost a frightening receptivity if he was inclined to question his sexual prowess. He wasn’t, though; in fact, he was debating whether to use his cock or his fingers this time. He supposed he knew the answer before he even asked the question, and climbing on top of her, he entered her slippery warmth without preliminaries or foreplay, without so much as a kiss.

They mated that time with a wild, reckless savagery—their frantic coupling an act of blind desire, of fiery, selfcentered lust, of a reluctance to give credence to their calamitous feelings—but feeling them nonetheless in every raw, exposed nerve and throbbing bit of flesh. Feet braced, he pounded into her, and she met his hard driving rhythm with equal fearlessness, crying out in an openmouthed frenzy at every violent downstroke, clutching at his arms each time to restrain his withdrawal, their bodies sleek with sweat, both selfishly taking, not giving, as if they might never have another chance to rut like beasts, as if the world might end in the next few seconds, as if there should be a bronze marker to commemorate the occasion.