It was his turn to stop breathing—just for an instant—then his eyes flared dark, and he reached for her as she swept her hands wide and ducked her head and pressed her lips to the center of his chest.
His arms still closed about her, but gently—as if he wanted to seize but didn’t want to distract her. As she continued, with touch and the trail of her lips and subtle licks and flicks of her tongue, to pay homage to what was, in truth, a most devotion-worthy expanse, he stilled, then gradually leaned against the door, tipped his head back, and—when she suckled one flat nipple—clenched his jaw in a vain attempt to stifle a groan.
She took the sound as encouragement and increased the intensity—the intimacy—of her sensual ministrations.
She’d always known that beneath his fashionable and quietly elegant clothes, he was the Adonis of most women’s dreams. The truth had rung clearly in the effortless yet harnessed strength he commanded, in the ineffable grace with which he moved.
In all she’d uncovered and explored on their wedding night.
Finally, she raised her head, stretched up against him, and when he tipped his head down to look at her, pressed her lips to his again, while with her hands, she wrestled coat, waistcoat, and cravat from him. Successively letting each piece drop to the floor, she pushed the shirt off his shoulders; while continuing to fully participate in the kiss, he reached around her to free his hands from the shirt’s cuffs, then allowed her to strip the garment away.
Blindly, she flung it aside, reached for the waistband of his trousers, and flicked the buttons undone.
After five years, she was achingly familiar with every contour of his body, but there was one appendage that continued to fascinate; she reached within his loosened trousers, slid her fingers through the slit in his underdrawers, and the hot, rigid rod all but leapt to her hand.
She closed her fingers lovingly, and he drew back from the kiss on a muted groan. She heard a soft thunk as the back of his head met the door, and she would have smiled, but her attention had fallen to the thick, corded, velvet-soft member in her hand. Enthralled as ever by his reactions, she stroked, then ran her thumb over the flaring bulbous head, encased in what was, quite definitely, the softest skin she’d ever felt, even softer and finer than a baby’s.
Her hand was too small to fully encircle him, but she knew how to employ her nails to best effect. When he groaned again, she decided not to linger overlong, or she might push him into prematurely taking charge.
She suspected that, like most gentlemen of his kind, he assumed that, when comparing notes with other married ladies, she shied from sharing the details of what transpired in their marriage bed. While such discussions might be limited to a small and trusted circle, like most of the assumptions men made about their wives, that one, too, was untrue; she’d learned quite a lot—sought and received clarification and ideas—from her female cousins and her male cousins’ wives.
Of course, when she’d experimented and, afterward, Devlin had asked where she’d learned of the variation, she’d told him she’d come across it in some book.
What she had in mind for her performance tonight was an act she’d employed several times before, always with excellent results. She’d experimented and learned and was entirely confident in her ability to pleasure him to the very edge of surrender—which was as far as he ever allowed her to push him, but she was perfectly happy with that outcome, and the resulting engagement was inevitably stunningly satisfying for them both.
Letting her other hand slide to his hip, she edged back—and he realized her intention.
He lifted his head and looked at her as one of his hands closed on her wrist. “Therese—”
He never stopped her, but he always questioned—always gave her a chance to change her mind—even though she knew just how much he enjoyed the act; she’d accepted long ago that he needed to be reassured. As some of her coterie of confidantes had explained, some gentlemen seemed to think that their wives wouldn’t truly want to pander to their desires in such a way.
She was already salivating.
She swallowed, looked up, met his eyes, then licked her heated lips. “I want…” Where were her wits when she needed them?
“What?”
The words appeared on her tongue. “I want to give you as much pleasure as the music—the opera—gave me.”
His face taut, he searched her eyes, then he eased his grip and growled, “In that case, consider me and my poor body at your disposal.”
She laughed, then leaned in and pressed a quick, hard, hungry kiss to his lips. “Thank you,” she breathed, then kicking her skirts out of the way, she sank to her knees.
It was the work of an instant to push aside his clothing and take his straining erection between her hands.
She planted a kiss on the flushed tip, then ran her tongue around the edge, then from nearer the base, slowly licked upward and heard his breathing hitch.
Then she parted her lips and took him in, deep, then deeper. Then she suckled and felt his fingers blindly slide through her hair and tighten on her head. Not in any way to discourage her.
She smiled and set to work to reduce him to that mindless state of wanting to which he so often pushed her. This was her moment to give him pleasure, and she seized it for all she was worth.
Devlin felt as if a vise was locked about his chest and steadily cranking tighter; he could barely breathe as Therese suckled, licked, stroked, and with her fingers, knowingly squeezed. Over the years, she’d paid attention and knew all too well what most weakened his knees; he was grateful for the solid panel at his back as with her customary single-minded determination, she lavished pleasure upon pleasure on him.
She was thorough and talented. Even while he closed his eyes and clenched his jaw and strove to hold back his raging libido—adamantly denying the impulse to grip her head between both hands and thrust into the scalding haven of her mouth—she pressed sensual delight on already overstimulated nerves.
Then she angled her head and took him deeper yet, and he saw stars.
His hands convulsed on her head, then he hauled in a massive breath, seized every rein he could find in a death grip, and forced himself to slide a thumb past the corner of her lips and withdraw his now agonizingly throbbing member from her mouth.
She blinked somewhat dazedly up at him. “Already?”
He would have sworn disappointment tinged the word. In reply, he closed his hands about her shoulders, lifted her to her feet, then swept her into his arms and, after pausing only to free his feet from his trousers, underdrawers, and shoes and kick the tangling garments aside, carried her across the room to her bed.
She obligingly toed her high-heeled evening slippers off along the way, and each clattered to the polished boards.
“I don’t know about you”—he halted by the side of the bed and tossed her onto the lilac counterpane—“but I’m definitely more than ready.”
On a delighted laugh, she landed in a froth of silk skirts and ruffled petticoats.
Like a ravening beast, he fell on her and, with her help, wrestled her out of her gown and petticoats, then efficiently dealt with her corset, chemise, and drawers. But when it came to her garters and stockings, he paused.
He raised his gaze and met her eyes, then slowly smiled. “Lie back,” he murmured, “and close your eyes.”