Morley swallowed twice before he could bring himself to cede defeat.
Of all the injustices and indignities he’d encountered in his long, lonely life, the one chewing at his soul was the idea that either of them would live one more night without knowing what it felt like for her to orgasm against his tongue.
And then again against his cock.
Though he cradled her as one would an invalid or a child, his fingers curled around her limbs as the hunger tore through him, spilling hot and victorious through his veins.
Sweet Christ but he was going to devour her.
And she knew it as well as he did.
He saw it in the slight widening of her eyes, in the parting of her lips. In the way her body stiffened a little, and then slackened, settling into his arms with a sigh of submission.
That sigh was his ultimate undoing.
He lowered his head, lifting her to meet him. He didn’t so much kiss her as consumed her, his searching, burning mouth parting the pliant pillows of her lips, delving into the honeyed depths he found there.
If this was Elysium, then she was ambrosia. And with her in his arms, he felt like a god.
He broke the kiss before long to cast about for a place for them to go.
“The fountain,” she panted, sliding her hands to lock behind his neck so she could pull him back down to her mouth, her eyes homed in on his lips.
“You’ll be exposed,” he pointed out, realizing how ridiculous he sounded even as he said it. But now that he’d decided to have her, he was jealous that even the stars would have the chance to see her beauty, let alone anyone who should happen by.
“Only to you,” she whispered, sliding out of his grasp and lifting herself to perch on the wide stone ledge.
The path with the row of dim lamps ended at the far side of the Italian style stone, leaving their side of the fountain cast in shadow. He could barely make out her features, but she must have been able to see him plainly enough.
She might have been a sea goddess commanding the stone deities behind her to spout her element into the night, anointing her wealth of carefully arranged dark hair with little gems of mist.
“I’m… I don’t know if I can bring myself to disrobe,” she said in a small voice.
“I’ll do it.” He lifted onto his knees and reached for her, but she intercepted his hands with hers, lacing thin fingers with his own.
“I mean to say, I’m too reticent to do this in the altogether.”
She wanted to keep her fine silk dress on… and he’d be goddamned if he didn’t find that oddly arousing.
And helpful. His lust had teeth, and something told him that if he were to unwrap this woman, he wouldn’t last long enough to fuck her well.
She was too beautiful, her scent too alluring, and that look on her face. That coy mix of vulnerable vixen was going to drive him beyond all control.
God help him, he was doing this. With her. To her. A part of him knew he’d live to regret it, and he couldn’t bring himself to care.
A hard life had turned him into a hard man. Harder and colder with every lonely year that passed. And all he did was work and fight. Work to keep the hard man from becoming an evil one, and fight the evil he recognized in others. Fight to keep it from devouring his city, as it had his family.
And here was someone soft. Soft and…beleaguered by a familiar loneliness. Asking for him to share a few moments of pleasure.
He was too soul-weary to resist such an enticing bargain.
Releasing his hands, she curled her fingers in her lap, bunching her skirts and lifting the powder blue hem to uncover lace boots and stark white stockings.
It was an invitation not to be denied.
Morley plunged his hands beneath the folds and frills, drawing them up shapely, silk-covered calves until he reached her knees. He parted them, filling the space he made with his body.
With her sitting up on the ledge, and him on his knees, their faces aligned. He claimed her lips once again, marveling that there was a mouth on this earth that tasted like hers.
He delved into the warmth, a velvet intrusion. A parody of what he would do to her elsewhere. Her little, warm tongue made gentle slides against his, tentatively testing his restraint.
Finding the edge of it.
A fire of anticipation immolated in his loins, and he suddenly ached to taste every part of her. To rip her dress open and see if she was as pale as the night suggested. If iridescent veins adorned her breasts and the thin, tender skin on the inside of her thighs. He wanted to mark her with little bites of his teeth, to show the man who had never pleased her that someone was able and oh so willing.
He hitched her skirts higher, hands venturing from her knees up her thighs, finding curious frills, silk garters bedecked with lace and little bows attached with delicate stitches.
His hands played there, plucking at things and testing textures while he savored her mouth for as long as his inflamed body would allow.
Her hands didn’t remain idle.
They rested on the buttons of his coat, releasing them with jerky, uncertain motions until she could wrench it open and slide her hands inside. She explored the width and breadth of him until her arms locked around him.
The uncertain tenderness in the embrace was too much for him to bear.
Morley broke the kiss, pulling back to assess her. To watch her widening eyes as his fingers threaded higher, following the silken expanse of flesh until he met the barrier of her thin cotton drawers.
She tucked her lips between her teeth and trembled, but didn’t look away.
“Tell me again what you want.” He hardly recognized his voice, the dark, growling street accent, the insolence and lust.
She gave a delicate swallow before answering. “I-I can’t say it.”
“You want me to kiss you?” he prodded, covering her mound. “Here?”
She gave a little jump, and her knees clamped his hips, as if they might have closed had his body not impeded it.
“Yes,” she replied with a bashful whisper.
Feminine heat radiated from beneath the thin barrier of her undergarment, and Morley leaned in to lift her hips and draw it down to her ankles.
He wanted to kiss her again. He never wanted to stop kissing her, and because of that, he didn’t allow himself to do so.
Kissing her was dangerous. As was the sweet detention of her arms.
A man could find himself a willing prisoner of such shackles, and he hadn’t the inclination. He hadn’t expected such sweetness. Hadn’t been prepared for the answering emotion evoked in his body.
Best he keep this carnal.
Lowering himself down, he ducked his head beneath her skirts. His shoulders widened her legs and she leaned back, giving him the sense she’d rested her hands on the stone.
In the pure black beneath her skirts, he used his other senses to guide him.
He breathed in the scent of her. Fresh floral soap, feminine musk, and something that reminded him of ripe, summer berries.
He stilled for a moment, just feeling the sensation of what he’d cupped in his hand. The slight tickle of soft hair. Warm, pliant flesh, which parted in a seam of liquid heat.
He separated her folds with a slow slide of his finger, and she clenched around him with surprisingly strong legs.
“Already so wet,” he murmured, delighted.
“Er—should I—?”
“Should has nothing to do with this.” He pressed his shoulders forward, fighting the reflexive tightening of her trembling thighs. “Relax.”