His brow wrinkled. “Yes.”
“But when you kissed me on the terrace last week, it woke something in me. Something I thought I could not have. A desire that I believed would never exist for me. So it is you, and it is me. We’re here. And I…I don’t want to walk away.”
“Then what do you want?” he whispered, lowering his mouth back toward hers. She felt the brush of it to her lips and shivered with pleasure that seemed to pulse in every single sensitive part of her body.
“I want something that is mine, only mine, for even the briefest moment.”
“God’s teeth,” he murmured as his lips found hers again. This time the pressure of him was less gentle. She felt a shift in him, a drive that called to her in a primal way. A focused way that was unlike anything she’d ever felt before.
He backed her toward the settee and they sank down on the cushions together. She was pressed against the arm of the couch, him leaning over her, his mouth seeking and driving and tasting her like he could do just that simple act forever.
But no kiss had ever been so complicated as this one. When he kissed her, it was like he was lighting every inch of her body on fire. Like he was somehow touching her everywhere, because she felt the tug of him everywhere. His kiss was in her veins, it made her fingertips tingle, it hardened her nipples and it made her stomach feel fluttery. It made her thighs shake and her toes curl and between her legs she felt the beginnings of a specific kind of pleasure she had only ever found with her own hand.
There was a moan in the air around them and she realized with a start that it had come from her. She was lifting against him, her hands clenching at his forearms like she was some cat arching in heat.
He lifted his head and looked down at her. She waited for the judgment. The censure for wanting like she clearly was. But instead he smiled, a very wicked expression on what she had only ever seen as a rather serious face. But right now he looked like a rake who would well-pleasure a woman.
Which was exactly what she wanted in this fog of need.
“I want to give you so much pleasure, Valaria. I don’t want to take anything at all. Just give you so, so much pleasure. May I?”
She blinked, utterly confused at the idea of a man giving pleasure without demanding something in return. Did that exist? Her experience had been entirely the opposite, honestly.
“Yes,” she whispered, almost without realizing she was doing it. “Please.”
His pupils dilated when she said please and he claimed her lips again with a little moan. But before she could lose herself all over again, he dragged his mouth lower, down the side of her throat, across her cloth-covered collarbone, down over her breast. He cupped the opposite one, squeezing oh-so-gently, strumming a thumb over her nipple as she gasped out in unexpected pleasure.
He made another sound of desire that was muffled against the fabric of her dress. He continued to massage her suddenly very sensitive breasts as he slid from the settee to his knees on the floor before her. He let his mouth trace over the satin of her gown, across her hip as he slid her to the edge of the settee and wedged himself between her trembling knees.
There he stopped, sliding his hands down to settle on her thighs before him. “If you don’t want me to do this, you can tell me no at any time. I want to make that clear before we begin. No will always mean no.”
She stared down at him, this duke who was on his knees before her, watching her every move as if he could glean some truth about her from it. And he probably could. She could see that now in his eyes. See that he could pluck her secrets as easily as he plucked an apple from a tree in autumn.
That should have been enough to make her push away and run, but she couldn’t. Not now when she was shaking with desire.
“Yes,” she said instead, and placed her hands against his. She let her fingers glide across his knuckles, never moving her gaze from him, no matter how much she wanted to.
His breath hitched and suddenly the pressure of his fingers on her thighs increased. He pushed and her legs fell open, providing him a space to wedge his shoulders into.
He continued to watch her carefully as he slid his hands away from hers and down her to her knees, her calves, until he caught the hem of her skirt. With a deep breath, he began to lift the soft fabric, bunching it in his fist and lifting it to gather around her waist.
He was baring her, revealing her. It took everything in her not to push the dress back down, not to let him see. Not to be vulnerable with him. Vulnerability had never led to much good in her history.
“You are lovely,” he whispered, almost like he could read her mind. He stroked the back of his hand against her stocking-clad knee and she sucked in a breath through her teeth at the shock of sensation.
When had that place become so sensitive?
She didn’t have a chance to answer her own internal question because he cupped her inner thigh, stroking his thumb along the top, where her garter was tied.
“Callum,” she murmured, captivated by the swish of his touch against the stocking, then her bare thigh.
“I want to take those off,” he said, motioning toward her drawers.
Here they were at another place where she could say no. Where she could stop this madness and probably make enough of a fuss that this man never darkened her door again out of respect for her.
But she didn’t take the opportunity. Instead she pushed her hands past the pile of black gown gathered at her stomach and untied the drawers. His gaze glittered as he watched her do that, watched her loop her fingers around the edge of the silky fabric and push. When they cleared her hips, he took them and tugged them down her legs the rest of the way.
And now she was truly exposed. Naked from the waist down as he stared at her with an almost worshipful expression. Why, she couldn’t say. But he was intent in his focus and licked his lips like he was looking at a feast spread out before him.
He bent his head and stroked his cheek against the inside of her knee. He had shaved before coming to her, the touch was smooth and soft. When he turned his head into her and kissed the same spot, she moaned with unexpected pleasure.
What in the world was this man doing to her?
“You’re already trembling,” he whispered as he trailed his lips a little higher.
She was shocked to realize he was right. Her legs shook around him, her fingers clenching against the edge of the settee.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped.
He glanced up at her and met her gaze evenly. He was all heat and promise, pleasure and danger and beauty all wrapped up in one.
“Oh no, I only meant that I intend to make you shake all the more before I’m finished. I’m going to make you twist and moan and beg and oh, yes, shake for me, Valaria. I’m going to do all of that right now.”
CHAPTER 10
Before Valaria could respond to Callum’s wicked promise of pleasures to come, he brushed his lips between her legs. He placed gentle pressure against her as she lifted into him with something between a gasp and a cry. Sensation spiraled through her as he used his thumbs to spread her open farther and then repeated the kiss, this time licking her.
“Oh God,” she gasped, and her hand came down into the thick mass of his hair, fingers tangling in the soft locks, tugging him closer as he licked her again. “Please.”