Her chest tightened at his fervency, her corset becoming an unbearable restraint. Needing to be free of it, she went to him and presented her back. “Help me.”

The touch of his fingers was light, too light to quench her thirst for him. As the halves of her gown parted, Jess began to feel warm and slightly intoxicated. The scent of his skin, the exotic blend that was uniquely his, filled her nostrils with every inhalation. She knew he had to be as heated as she was, and she longed to touch his bare flesh, to press her nose and lips against it.

Alistair pushed her sleeves off her shoulders, and she wriggled out of her dress, allowing the garment to pool on the floor. He caught her stays next, loosening them with a dexterity born of experience. She’d enjoyed that skill firsthand, remembered it vividly, dreamed of it.

He helped her push the corset down past her hips, and she stepped out of the boning, feeling a novel sense of freedom and lack of inhibition.

“Jess,” he breathed, a moment before his arms came around her and he nuzzled against her back. His large hands cupped her breasts, kneading the aching flesh with a firm yet tender grip.

Her head fell back and her eyes closed, a sigh escaping her. The desire to give herself over to him was nearly irresistible, but she restrained herself. If she allowed him to, he would take over, and she didn’t want that. He’d had more than his share of women who wanted him to work in bed. She did not want to resemble those women, especially after her rash words the other evening. She wanted to give pleasure, and she wanted him to take it.

Turning carefully in his embrace, Jess filled the space between his spread thighs. She caught his face in her hands and pressed her lips to his, wanting the kisses that made her feel seductive and desirable. His hands encircled her waist, pulling her closer.

“Allow me to enjoy you,” she breathed into his mouth. “You refused me last time …”

“After seven years, you cannot be asking me for patience.”

She pushed her splayed fingers into the thick silk of his hair. “After seven years, what are a few moments more?”

Alistair’s head fell back on a low groan, his eyes staring up at her with a bold, heated passion. It amazed her that she could incite such a response in a voluptuary as beautiful and sensual as he was. She, a peeress known for her chilly deportment, while Alistair radiated a sexual heat that made her melt and soften.

Her fingertips stroked over his dark, winged brows. Their shape lent wickedness to his countenance, while framing his stunning eyes and thick lashes. Her thumbs caressed the sculpted line of his cheekbones, holding him still as she pressed her lips to the tip of his aristocratic nose.

“Christ, Jess,” he said gruffly. “If your aim is to kill me, be mercifully quick about it. Don’t torment me.”

Pulling back, she began to work on the knot of his cravat. “I’ve yet to do anything.”

“You drive me to madness.” He tugged on her hips, drawing her close enough to capture a hard, peaked nipple in the heat of his mouth. He made a rough sound of desire, and Jess sagged into his grip.

Even through the thin lawn of her chemise, the contact was scorching. She arched and gasped, her womb clenching in greedy hunger. Catching his shoulders, she steadied herself as her knees weakened. His tongue flicked over her with ruthless skill, reminding her of the last time his mouth had been on her. When her breast grew heavy with need, her nipple swollen and red, he moved to lavish similar attention on the other side. Jess felt the hot trickle of her own arousal, the flesh between her legs growing moist in welcome.

She moaned. “I want you naked. I want to feel you inside me.”

He released her with a low growl. “Oh, you will, love. You’ll feel every inch. I have never been so hard. I am going to cram you full, and you’ll come over and over and over again.”

Tackling the ivory buttons of his waistcoat, Alistair quickly divested himself of the garment. When he pushed to his feet in a powerfully graceful movement, she stepped back on shaky legs, her entire body feeling alien to her. She was a mass of sensation and wanting, her emotions so riotous she might’ve run in fear if her limbs hadn’t been weighted by longing.

Seven years. It felt as if her attraction to him had been simmering the whole of that time, waiting for his touch to free it. Now it spilled over her in heated waves, flushing her skin and making the ephemeral weight of her chemise and pantalettes a burden. But she dared not remove them. As it was, she was too vulnerable. Too bare. None of the shields she was used to erecting—her rigid deportment, biting rejoinders, and faultless manners—were available to her now. She didn’t know who she was beneath all that protection, which left her feeling so open and unprotected.

Blissfully unaware of Jess’s turmoil, Alistair finished unwinding his cravat and tossed it aside. The next moment his shirtsleeves were yanked over his head. He was reaching for the placket of his breeches when she stayed him.

“Stop,” she said, swallowing hard at the sight of him. As elegant as he was while dressed, he was pure unadulterated male beneath his clothes. The evenness of his sun-kissed skin color betrayed how often he went about without a shirt, while the thickness of his biceps and the taut roping of abdominal muscles told her how often he worked alongside the men he employed.

Her hand lifted to touch him, her feet moving her forward without volition. She pressed her palm to his warm skin, and a shiver moved through her. She felt his heart racing. There was so much power and strength in him. His anticipation was tangible and visible; his muscles were hard and delicious. She was searingly aroused by his virility, quivering with eagerness at the thought of that pure masculine energy focused on pleasuring her body.

Alistair caught her wrist. “I am aching with lust for you.”

“You are not alone,” she whispered, tugging free of his easy grip to touch his shoulders. Both of her hands stroked over the broad curves, then slid down his biceps, her fingers squeezing and finding no give to her applied pressure. He was like warm marble. She wanted to touch him all over, take her time, nuzzle her nose against him and breathe him deep into her lungs. She wanted him. In that moment, she wanted him more than anything else in the world. She felt as if her repressed hunger had overtaken her completely. Her need and longing for him was all that was left of her after he’d stripped the entirety of her defenses away.

His fists clenched at his sides as her hands drifted over the rock-hardness of his rippled abdomen. “Are you wet for me? Do you feel empty without my cock in you?”

Jess nodded, feeling her sex clench tight with greed.

“Let me fill you,” he purred, temptation incarnate. “Let me push inside you and make you come—”

“Not yet.” Wrapping her arms around him, she drew closer still, delaying her surrender because she desired his first. With the flat of her tongue, she licked across the hard disk of his nipple.

He hissed and gripped her hips with bruising strength. “In a moment, I will pin you to the bulkhead and take the choice from you.”

“Where is the laudable restraint you displayed the other night?”

“You were intoxicated; I knew before we began that I wouldn’t be having you. Now … There is no turning back. I know I am only moments away from having you as I’ve needed you for far too long.”

“Alistair.”

“Damnation, I am trying to be civilized.” He pressed his lips to her forehead in a quick, hard kiss. “I am trying to keep from pushing you to the deck and rutting atop you like a maddened beast. But I am only a man—a vastly flawed one—and I know damn well how good it will be between us. I’ll never want to stop; therefore I cannot wait to begin.”

Jess stilled, her breath panting across his skin, her chest constricted by the weight of his expectation. Disappointing him would crush her. She couldn’t allow it. He expected great pleasure, and she was determined that he should have it. She reached for the fastenings of his breeches, slipping the buttons from their holes.

Alistair reached for her coiffure, withdrawing the pins that secured her tresses. “I want to feel your hair brush all over my body. I want to fist it in my hands and hold you still while I ride you deep and long.”

Her hands shook as she reached into his smalls and wrapped her hands around him. He groaned and jerked in her grip.

“You are so hot,” she said, scorched by the heat of him. She shoved his clothing out of the way, releasing him. He made a low, animal sound as he fell heavily into her palms.

Jess sucked in a sharp breath, staring down at the magnificent penis thrusting so hungrily toward her. Perhaps she should have expected his body to be uniformly awe inspiring, but in this matter she was at a disadvantage. She had accustomed herself to one man and had never expected to become intimately familiar with any other.

Her fingers explored carefully, following her gaze. She traced the sinuous curving of the thick veins that coursed the rigid length. He was fully, ragingly aroused. His bollocks were drawn up tight, but they were no less impressive for their readiness. He was large there, too, giving proof of the virility promised by his confidence and arrogance. She wondered if her body could accommodate him. He was so thick and long, wide from the tip to the root.

“Say something,” he said gruffly. “Tell me you want it.”

“I shall show you instead.” Licking her lips, she dropped to her knees.

“Jessica.”

The serrated edge to his voice thrilled her, made her disregard the discomfort of the hardwood beneath her. Alistair stood still, his hands tangling in her hair. His chest heaved with labored breaths, and a slight sheen of perspiration glistened across his abdomen.

At least in this, she was assured of giving him pleasure. Her lips parted. Mouth watering, she engulfed the thick crest.

“Bloody hell,” he groaned, shuddering violently.

A slow, heated spurt of pre-ejaculate flowed over her tongue. She moaned at the taste of him, her cheeks hollowing on a drawing pull, seeking more of the rich flavor.

“Yes … Jess. Yes.” Alistair held her face in his hands, his thumbs stroking over her cheeks. “I have dreamed of this. Wanted you like this so fiercely I was certain I’d lose my mind.”

His hips moved, stroking his cock in and out of her working mouth. His beautiful features were harsh with lust, the skin stretched taut over his sculpted cheekbones, his sensual mouth twisted in a grimace of pained pleasure. The ferocity of his need might have frightened her if not for the fierce tenderness in his eyes and touch.

Sweat bloomed across her flushed skin, her mind reliving his ministrations to her the other night, remembering the feel of his tongue and fingers on her. In her. Remembering the unbearable ecstasy. She wanted to give him that ecstasy in kind, wanted to leave a similarly indelible memory with him.

Gripping his lean hip in one hand, Jess cupped his scrotum with the other. His curse was bitten out, his body jerking as she tested the heavy weight, her fingertips massaging the tightened sac with luring caresses. Her tongue was equally adventurous, swirling around the plush head of his cock, flickering along the tender underside.

“Dear God,” he gasped, the muscles of his stomach clenching and quivering. “Suck me, Jess … take me deeper … yes, like that …”

She gripped the thick base of his penis, fisting him just to feel him quake and hear him curse. He was riveting, so darkly erotic in his unrestrained abandonment. Her thighs clenched tightly together, her body’s attempt to ease the unbearable aching and swelling of her needy flesh. She was searingly aware of the slickness of her sex, the way she trembled in longing. But she wanted this more, wanted no distractions from witnessing his release, wanted to absorb every nuance of his expression when he succumbed to the climax she knew he was swiftly approaching. She felt like a different woman, a fiercely feminine creature who knew no boundaries or restraint, no rules or law, a force of nature wild and untamed.

Alistair’s callused thumbs rubbed along the edges of her straining lips. Her jaw stretched wide to accommodate him, the slight discomfort anchoring her to the moment. The act had never been this way with Benedict. Her husband had always been sweet and solicitous, their sexual relationship marked by tenderness and care. Alistair was raw and unguarded in his pleasure, creating a rich intimacy. She’d never felt as close to another person, never felt such a brilliant and binding sense of connection.

“I’m close,” he said hoarsely. “Ah, Christ … your mouth is divine …”

Alistair held her head still and took what he needed, the thrust of his hips accelerating until she could only grip his thighs and tighten her suction, her tongue stroking his cock-head with fevered desperation. The sounds he made, the mindless groans and gruffly voiced praise, brought her to the brink of orgasm.

“Yes!” he growled, swelling farther a moment before the first hard burst of semen poured over her tongue.

He climaxed with the same unmitigated intensity with which he did everything. The cords of his neck stood out in harsh relief as he threw his head back and flooded her mouth with a guttural cry. She worked him with her hands, milking his release, wanting the entirety of his lust and hunger, claiming it as her due with savage exultation.

His rigid tension had just barely begun to ease when he caught her beneath the arms and hauled her to her feet.

“Jessica.” He caught her up and carried her to the bed.

In the aftermath of an orgasm so powerful it weakened his knees, Alistair held Jessica tightly to his chest, consumed by the need to reduce her to the same base state she’d stripped him to. His skin felt too small and stretched too thin. Sweat soaked the roots of his hair and slid down his nape. His mouth was dry from hoarse mutterings.

He’d never imagined anything could feel so good. She’d sucked his aching cock as if starved for the taste of him, moaning and clutching him as if she would die if he denied her. As if he could. He doubted even the sinking of the ship could have pulled him away.