“Why?”

“You should burn as I have, as I do, every minute I’m not inside you.”

Tilting her head back, she kissed his tense jaw. Prickles of heat swept across her skin. “You want to punish me.”

He caught her face in his hands. “No. You’ve wedged sex between us. We have to put it back into its proper place.”

Jess tugged his shirttails free of his breeches and touched the scorching skin of his back. “You are forgetting I deliberately lured you here to ravish you.”

“While you seem to think I’m exceptionally obtuse.”

“I do not!” she protested. “In fact, I think you have an exceptionally fine mind.”

“Oh?” The pad of his thumb stroked along the curve of her lower lip, the chaste touch igniting a raging hunger to feel his hands everywhere. “You’ve been teaching me how to make love for weeks, yet you do not believe I’ve learned the lesson.”

Her fingers clenched into the rigid muscles bracketing his spine.

“The very first time I had you,” Alistair whispered, leaning his forehead against hers, “I understood the difference between what I thought I knew about sex and what I had yet to grasp. Now, I cannot remember how I ever managed the act before you or how I could ever possibly attempt it without you.”

Pushing onto her tiptoes, Jess surged into him, hugging him tightly in an effort to expend the surfeit of emotion rushing through her.

“I need you.” Her face pressed into his throat. “You’ve made me need you.”

“I cannot believe I ever thought of an orgasm as anything other than deeply personal.” Alistair withdrew his thigh from between her legs.

She made a small sound of protest, the aching of her sex unrelieved without the pressure he’d exerted. “Please …”

He caught up fistfuls of her skirts until he bared her pantalettes. He gripped her buttocks firmly, squeezing hard enough to be almost painful. While there were times when he was playful or tender in bed, she was most violently aroused when he was ferociously lustful.

Her fingers fumbled with the hidden buttons securing the placket of his breeches. She eventually released his straining erection, her breath catching as he fell heavily into her palms. She stroked the thickly veined length with eager hands, her desire stoked to a fevered pitch by his words and his drawings and the haste with which he’d followed her from the deck. He had the ability to make her feel special and emminently desirable, as well as safe and secure. He enabled the freedom she needed to be whoever she wanted to be. As wild and unrestrained and overly bold as she chose.

Alistair watched her from beneath his lush, inky lashes. His hips rocked, thrusting his cock in and out of her greedy grip. Her sex grew slick and swollen, jealous of her hands.

As if he knew, he reached between her legs from behind, piercing the slit of her pantalettes to part her. “You’re wet for me.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Nor do I want you to.” Without warning, he clutched the backs of her thighs and lifted her. He was pulled from her hands, eliciting a soft cry of protest.

She felt the silky heat of his erection brush across her opened sex, and she whimpered in longing. Her arms encircled his broad shoulders, her mouth seeking the sensitive spot behind his ear to goad his passion.

“Pay attention,” he ordered grimly as he began to push inside her.

Jess’s head fell back against the bulkhead with a helpless moan. He lowered her onto his rigid penis with excruciating slowness, making certain she felt the stretch of every incredible inch.

“God,” she gasped, writhing in his unyielding grip. She could barely accommodate him in this position. And still he impaled her relentlessly, stuffing her full until she fought for every breath. When he was finally in her to the root, she was sobbing with the need to pump and grind and take her pleasure. The fact that they were both fully dressed except for the place where they were joined was searingly erotic. Her façade was no impediment to Alistair. It never had been.

He kept her immobile and pinned to the bulkhead with his weight. Encircling her wrist, he pulled her hand up and pressed it over his heart. It thundered beneath her palm. His chest lifted and fell in a markedly elevated rhythm. “I have exerted myself not at all. You weigh little more than a feather. Tell me, Jess, why does my heart race? For the strenuous sex we’ve yet to begin? Or because it beats for you?”

The fingers of her free hand threaded into his hair; her hot cheek nuzzled against his. She wanted to say something, anything, but her throat was too tight.

“If I could,” he went on, “I would remain like this indefinitely—clasped by you, held inside you, a part of you—without moving at all. When we make love, I fight climax with everything I have. I don’t want to come; I do not want it to end. No matter how long I make it last, it isn’t nearly long enough. I am furious when I cannot hold back any longer. Why, Jess? If all I seek is the physical relief of natural lust, just as I would seek sleep or food, why would I deny myself?”

She turned her head and caught his mouth with hers, kissing him desperately.

“Tell me you understand,” he demanded, his lips moving beneath hers. “Tell me you feel it, too.”

“I feel you,” she breathed, as intoxicated by his ardency as she was by the finest claret. “You have become everything to me.”

Clasping her tightly, he pivoted toward the bed.

Chapter 17

Jess sank into the mattress with Alistair directly following on top of her. The descent jolted them both, his cock piercing deep as he pinned her to the bed. She moaned, perspiration blooming across her skin. He growled, fisting the counterpane on either side of her head and lunging again. The thrust was powerful, pushing her across the slippery velvet only to be stopped by his steely forearms at her shoulders.

“No,” she gasped, on the verge of climax. If she let him, he’d hurtle her into her first of many orgasms within moments. He would ride her relentlessly, delaying his own release until she was witless with pleasure and trembling. He would undress her and himself while she was too satiated to move; then he would continue for hours, stripping her defenses with merciless determination.

He paused, staring down at her with a gaze so hot it flushed her skin. “No?”

She pushed up onto her elbows. “Let me have you.”

Alistair straightened. He made swift work of removing his waistcoat, cravat, and shirtsleeves, all without leaving her body. He was forced to withdraw to remove his lower garments, his breath leaving him in a harsh rush as her tender tissues clung greedily to his length as he stepped back.

She took a long moment to admire the perfection of his naked body. It was a sight she would never tire of. He was long and lean, so fit that every sinewy length of tight, hard muscle was rendered in stark relief beneath his smooth skin. Her gaze traveled from his shoulders to his feet and back up again, lovingly caressing him—every virile inch. He moved not at all, unabashedly affording her the pleasure of looking at him. By the time their eyes aligned, she was breathless with infatuation and potent desire.

“You are exquisite,” she whispered, sliding her feet to the hardwood sole. She approached him and wrapped her arms around his trim hips, her lips pressing a kiss over his heart. “And priceless.”

His returning embrace was so fierce it nearly crushed the air from her. “And yours, Jess. Never doubt it.”

“I’m glad, because I am madly besotted with you.” She laid her cheek against his chest, breathing in the purely masculine scent that cloaked him. His heartbeat quickened at her words, proving what she’d begun to suspect—her fears were affecting him, making him anxious to cling to her as if she might drift away at any moment. An impossible notion to anyone who knew how anchored to him she was. But he didn’t know.

“I wish you would say such things to me more often,” he said gruffly, as ever so brutally, vulnerably honest that he shamed her for being so reticent.

“I don’t know how.” She leaned her head to the side as he began to unfasten the buttons securing the back of her gown.

“You cannot do it wrong.” Alistair kissed the top of her shoulder, then bit her, his teeth sinking deep enough to border on painful. The feral act startled and aroused her. “Did you never discuss your affection for Tarley?”

“The subject wasn’t one that came up in conversation. It was just there, between us, understood and comfortable.”

He turned her away from him to loosen her stays. “That isn’t enough for me.”

“I am falling so far, so fast,” she confessed in a low, shaken tone. “I cannot stop it or moderate it. I’m dizzy with it. My feelings for you frighten me, and so I expect their intensity will frighten you as well.”

“Give voice to your fears, as I do.”

Jess closed her eyes, knowing there was still so much to learn about him. It was her fault she knew so little about the events that had shaped him; she didn’t question him as he questioned her. She’d been trained not to pry, but she would have to break that training if she hoped to make Alistair truly happy.

“I will try. You vocalize your affection without hesitation.” Her gown puddled around her feet. “I envy you that ease.”

He divested her of her corset, chemise, and pantalettes with now-familiar expertise.

“Have you—” Jess cleared her throat. “There must have been someone you cared for?”

“Must there have been?” He stepped back.

She looked at him over her shoulder. He waited, and she finally collected that he waited for her, anticipating the vocalization of why she’d stayed him earlier. “Lie on the bed.”

He moved to do her bidding with sleek and graceful fluidity. He arranged himself in a half-reclined position against the pillows, his long legs stretched out before him, supremely comfortable in his nakedness. She reached the side of the bed and debated where to begin. His erection was an irresistible lure—thick and hard, curving up toward his navel—but she adored all of him.

“Who was she?” she asked, suddenly jealous of the phantom woman—or few—from his past who’d seen him thusly.

“You are so certain.”

“You did not begin your sexual experience as Lucien, so I cannot be the only woman you’ve known carnally as Alistair.”

He fisted his penis in his hand and stroked slowly, his heavy-lidded eyes unable to hide the look that said he was deliberately testing her.

“You’re shameless,” she said in a husky voice, climbing onto the bed.

“You’re naked. My cock aches for you.”

And she was hot and wet for him, no longer on the sharp precipice of orgasm, but it would take him only a moment to arouse her back to that edge.

When he reached for her, she shook her head. “I want you to lie still and take what I give you.”

“Lie still? Are you mad?”

“I shall tie you up, if I must.”

“Jess … Damnation.” He glowered. “It has been seven days. Play your games later, when I’ll be more receptive.”

She wrapped her hand around him, her breath leaving her at the heat and hardness of him. The tendons of his neck stood out in harsh relief, his teeth grinding as she caressed him far more gently than he did himself. She licked her lips.

“No,” he bit out. “I’m too close to coming to enjoy your mouth properly.”

“Fine.” She mounted him, tossing one leg over his hips to position her sex above his erection. She hummed a chastising sound when he grabbed her waist. “No touching.”

“Bloody hell. How can I see to your pleasure if I can’t touch you?”

She smiled. “That’s the point.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but the words were strangled when she sank onto the broad, flared head of his cock. An unbidden whimper escaped her. The muscles of her thighs weakened, and she lowered, her slick sex sliding down his full, throbbing length. The entry was slow and inexorable, a fine tremor spreading across her limbs. Alistair bowed upward, grabbing her and burying his damp face between her breasts.

His hips were already moving, circling, his arms holding her still as he screwed deep into her, seeking and finding the tender spot inside her that drove her insane.

“Lie back,” she gasped, fighting her selfish desire to succumb to his skill.

“Let me make you come,” he whispered starkly. “Let me …”

“Not yet.” She shivered as he rocked her pelvis against his, applying pressure to her clitoris. “Stop. You promised!”

He cursed and went still, his large body so hot it burned her skin. “Christ, Jess. What are you doing to me?”

“I want to make you come,” she said, unwrapping his arms from around her. “I want to watch you when you do.”

Alistair sank back into the pillows with a groan. With his eyes closed, he shoved his hands through his hair. He had beautiful arms. The bunching and flexing of his biceps made her sex flutter with appreciation around his rigid penis. He cursed, his abdominal muscles lacing tight with strain.

Jess bent over him and pressed her parted lips to his. As personal as he claimed his orgasms with her were, he didn’t share them. Not truly. He ensured she was exhausted from pleasure and barely lucid first, then he climaxed with his face pressed into her neck and hair, clutching her tightly even as he hid from her. Even when she brought him pleasure with her mouth, he tilted his face up and back, hindering her view.

He caught her head in his hands and angled it, taking her mouth the way he needed to, breathing in her quick exhalations as he stroked his tongue across hers. Her toes curled. Her nipples tightened in a silent plea for similar attention. His kisses were indescribable, the emotion behind them enough to break her heart. He kissed her with such passion, his lips clinging to hers, his tongue licking erotically.