“Perhaps I don’t wish them to see my eyes.”
“Why?”
“Perhaps I don’t want them to see the black at the center of my soul.”
She stared into his amazing blue eyes a moment, and he let her as if he was telling her something silently.
Then she looked away.
“You don’t tie me.” She felt her pulse speed. She wanted to take off his shirt, but then again, she had no wish to cause him pain. She smoothed her hands over the linen, feeling his warm muscles beneath. He had a lovely chest, broad and fine, the mounds of his shoulders flowing smoothly into the bunched muscles of his arms.
“No, I don’t.”
“Is it because I’m more important than those others or less?”
“More. Most definitely.”
She nodded, watching her hands on him. The thought that she was important to him made tears prick in her eyes.
“Am I more important to you?” he asked softly.
Of course he was. But she brushed aside the question. She was interested in his vulnerabilities, not her own. “Does this pain you? If I touch you through the cloth?”
“No.”
She leaned forward and softly kissed his shoulder. “I’m glad.”
“I answer your questions, but you don’t answer mine.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. Not yet. Don’t push.”
“What—” His question was cut off as she leaned forward and delicately licked one nipple through his shirt.
He inhaled. “I’ll need to know someday.”
“Perhaps.” She traced around his nipple with her tongue. The wet fabric was nearly transparent, and she could see the brown nipple beneath his shirt.
“Ahh.”
She smiled against his shirt.
“Temperance.”
“Don’t push.” She held the shirt flat against his chest to more clearly see him. His puckered nipple made a tiny peak.
“As you push me?”
“Am I pushing you?”
“Most assuredly.”
She tugged on a strand of his hair in reprimand.
He grunted. “Do you ask yourself why you have a need to push me?”
“No.” She traced downward to lay her hands flat against his belly. It felt firm and hot.
“Maybe you should.”
“Hmm.” She was distracted for a moment by the waistband of his breeches and the fall beneath.
“Temperance…”
“No.” She slid off his lap and to her knees between his legs. She flicked open the buttons of his breeches. “Do you feel pain now?”
“Hmm?” he murmured. He seemed enthralled by the sight of her fingers working at the opening to his breeches. Beneath, his erection strained at the cloth. Her mouth was dry, anticipating the sight.
But she wasn’t going to let him go that easily. “Lazarus? Am I hurting you?”
“If you are, it is exquisite.”
“Good,” she said as she laid his breeches open. His cock was tenting the front of his smallclothes. “Lazarus…”
“Yes?” he answered. “Ah…”
She wrapped her hands about his penis inside his smallclothes. She glanced up at him under her eyelashes. “Would you like to tie me sometime?”
He blinked as if awakening from a daze, his eyes growing wary. “No. No, of course not.”
“Now who lies?” she murmured as she gently squeezed, testing his hardness. “Would it hurt you if I took this out and touched it?”
He inhaled. “I think I could bear it.”
“Could you?”
“Please.”
His husky plea decided her. Carefully, delicately, she unbuttoned his smallclothes and pulled back the flaps. And then she simply looked.
He was truly magnificent, sitting in her worn armchair, his legs spread, his penis enormously erect. The fact that he still wore his shirt and breeches, hose and shoes, made the sight of his black pubic hair and ruddy cock all the more arousing. The sight was shockingly intimate. He looked like a king, arrogant and sure of his power.
“I love to look at you,” she said.
“Indeed?” he whispered, his voice a deep male purr.
She glanced up at him and at the same time wrapped her hand about his cock. “You’re sure you wouldn’t want me spread upon your bed? Powerless, helpless to your desire?”
His eyes had half closed, his cheeks flushed with sexual hunger. “I… I… perhaps.”
“Perhaps?” she murmured, her attention drawn back to the prize in her hands. Truth be told, her interest in the game had waned. “I’ve never known you to be uncertain as to your wants. Your desires.”
She squeezed very carefully, feeling the softness of his skin, the iron hardness underneath.
He gasped, arching his hips so that his cock thrust into her hands. “Damn it. Put it in your mouth.”
She bit her lip, a little shocked. She’d never done such a thing before. She stroked her finger over the tip of his penis, where a tiny slit leaked liquid. What would that liquid taste like in her mouth?
“Temperance,” he said, his voice very deep and very clear in the quiet room. “Suck me.”
She bent her head and stuck out her tongue hesitantly. And licked. She wrinkled her nose. It was salt and musk, not unpleasant, but not what she’d expected either.
Above her, he moaned. “Please.”
Oh, to hear him beg. There was something in her, something wicked and base that lapped up that plea in his voice. She opened her mouth and placed the head of his cock inside.
Sucked.
His hips jerked, jamming his cock farther into her mouth. She almost backed off, but then she held him more firmly and flattened her tongue against him, sucking gently. His hands came up, stroking her head. She felt him take the pins from her hair, wrapping his hands in the locks, pulling gently. She wasn’t sure he even knew what he did. She leaned back a little, letting him slide from her mouth so she could look up at him.
He was watching her.
The knowledge made her wet. She laid her tongue against him and, locking her eyes with his, licked all the way around the head of his cock.
“Jesus.” His jaw gritted, flexing in the firelight.
She stroked down on his penis and opened her lips about him, sucking gently on the very tip.
His face was strained, the muscles standing out on his arms. “Take it deeper.”
And she did, swallowing as much of him as she could, her eyes still on his even as his hips moved under her. He covered her hand with his own to help her stroke faster.