“Like this?” she asked, her skin tight, burning for his hands.
“Tell me where you’d like me to touch you first. I can still taste you, and I want to bury my tongue inside you again.”
“Dios mío,” Marena whispered, the Spanish coming to her when she had no words left in English to voice what she was feeling. She had not taken many lovers. She’d had two, to be exact––Jean-Pierre, a Haitian poet who she’d met here when she was studying under Madame Lemba, and Lily, who had left England looking for a place where she could be who she was more openly.
Marena knew what she liked. She’d learned from both Lily and Jean-Pierre the places where she liked to be touched and the parts of her lovers’ bodies she most enjoyed. She appreciated a woman’s softness and delighted in the rough planes and angles of a man’s body. But she’d always been able to keep her head; she’d been the one in control, the one who beckoned. With Arlo Kenworthy, she felt like prey. And more concerning was the fact that she ached to be caught.
He moved closer, taking her into his arms. His touch at once gentle and rough on her body. “Did you know that most of peerage hates me?” he asked as he slowly slid his big hands down her back to her bottom. “They think I’m too common. That I’m too stoic. But really what they hate is they can’t find a weakness to exploit. I’ve seen firsthand what happens to men who let their passions dictate their actions.”
Perhaps this was when he’d let her know that this was just a convenient tryst, that he, too, had a life where none of this could fit. Except it seemed to Marena that with every graze of his hands, every brush of his lips, it became less clear why they should ever stop.
“But,” he said before kneeling in front of her, his hands already searching for that little engorged peak of pleasure that he seemed to know so well. “You’ve turned my head and I can’t stay away. It should feel like weakness, but all I feel when you’re in my arms is powerful.” He licked at her then, his tongue circling her clitoris until her entire existence became the pleasure radiating from her core. “I could spend the rest of my days right here.” He pointed the words by using to fingers to spread her folds, opening her to his eyes, to his mouth. And yet she was the one who felt consumed by hunger. “Lost to making you scream my name.”
His hands, she thought, would be why she finally succumbed. Working with the earth, Marena had learned to appreciate a person who had good instinct for touch, and Arlo had the gift. She pressed herself to him, showing him without words where she needed him most, and instantly his thumb was right where she ached. She circled her hips, looking for that perfect friction, and he tightened his fingers on her thighs exactly where she needed to feel him.
She could get lost in him. She already was.
“Más,” she demanded, and he obliged. He ate at her, flattening his tongue so that he could lap her up. She felt her climax coming at the very moment he inserted two fingers, which felt like too much and not nearly enough, because what she wanted, what she needed, was all of him.
She’d barely come back to herself when he was on his feet, picking her up. “I am afraid we’ve arrived at the moment when I thoroughly ravage you on this bed.”
For all his rough talk, he laid her on the mattress like she was made of spun sugar, his hands quickly looking for her heat again. If he started that, she’d be begging him to take her within seconds, and she needed her cervical cap. “Arlo, wait.”
The reaction was immediate. He pulled back, his hair adorably ruffled. It gave his almost masculine face a boyish demeanor. That paired with a not-quite petulant wrinkle on his nose tugged at something in her.
“Is something wrong?”
She shook her head at his question, her lips quirking up of their own volition.
“Nothing’s wrong.” She ran hands up his powerful shoulders, marveling at the way looking at his body made her feel. But she’d always loved to look at beautiful things, and this man was certainly that.
“How did this happen?” she asked, pressing her fingers into hard muscles. She softly raked her nails over his hard chest, coaxing out a hiss of pleasure. He closed his eyes as she continued to touch. “I thought the peerage spent their days lounging around White’s, eating bland food and sipping brandy.”
He threw his head back to laugh, his blue eyes glinting with humor. “That is not an inaccurate assessment.” He grabbed one of the hands she was running over his chest, and playfully bit the tip of one of her fingers. “Idleness is a virtue for many in the ton. But not for me. I fence, I ride, I swim.” She lifted an eyebrow when he mentioned swimming. “Linley House has an indoor pool. We keep it heated so I can use it year-round.”
“An indoor pool,” she said, unable to hide the wonder from her voice.
“I had it put in for my grandmother,” he said, bending to kiss her. “I hired the architect who builds them for the Cambridge Swimming Club.”
“Swimming in warm water,” Marena marveled. She hadn’t done that since she’d left the Caribbean at fifteen. Growing up, she’d gone early in the mornings with Lluvia, and they’d swim at a little private beach a mile or so from their family’s house. There were swimming clubs in London and public pools, but decent ladies would never appear in public in any attire fit for swimming.
“There are days when I feel stifled by this title, but the idea of you naked in my pool may have made it all worth it.” He ran his big, warm hands on the insides of her thighs as his eyes singed her. “I would like to see that.”
She was about to tell him that could never happen, that there would be no swimming or anything else between them once they were back in London, but the words died in her throat when he covered her with his body. His chest hovered above her, hands on either side of her head until all she could see was him.
“I’d sit you on the ledge, spread your legs and lick you. Then I’d fuck you so thoroughly.” He licked his lips as if the taste of her were the most sinful delicacy. “Mm, for days I’d do nothing else.” Before her brain could produce a response he came in for a kiss, licking in to her in that way he did. His tongue gentle but his every move focused and determined. By the time he pulled back, she had her thighs bracketing his waist and was ready to move on from conversation.
“I want to have you.” he said, his mouth hot as he spoke next to her ear, hips thrusting against her. “I want to be deep inside, feel you clenching against me.” Her head was swimming with need, her legs scissoring against the ache there. Her core pulsed with the echo of those words, I want to have you. She’d never thought possessive demands would evoke such yearning in her, but she wanted to be his.
“I need to do something first,” she said, pushing him off her and climbing out of the bed.
Once she’d reached it, she held up the cervical cap, almost certain she was about to ruin the moment. But this was something she would not compromise on. She had everything to lose if she did not keep her head. And she would finally see what kind of man Arlo Kenworthy was. If he was the type who spoke about women’s rights as long as it never hindered his ability to indulge himself. She raised her gaze as she spoke. “Contraception.”