Savored the strength of him, borne in his touch as his arms closed, and his hands, large and so male, spread over her back and held her.

Held, but didn’t urge, didn’t guide; he waited, his breath shallower than usual, to see what she would do.

Inwardly smiling, she set herself to fulfill her self-appointed task. Slowly, on a long, caressing stroke, she drew her hand from the hot rod of his erection; she needed both hands to properly worship the width of his chest, the wide muscles that spanned it, the flat discs of his nipples curtained by wiry dark hair, to properly appreciate the heavy, solid bones of his shoulders, the warm resilience of the heavier muscles that framed his upper back.

Spreading the halves of his shirt wide, she pushed the linen off his shoulders, then paid due homage to all she’d uncovered with her lips, her tongue, her teeth, with the hot wetness of her mouth.

All the while shifting, sensuously sliding, her silk-encased form against his rock-hard frame.

She sensed his fascination, his indulgence, felt him shift as, drawing his hands from her he reached behind his back and stripped the shirt free, let the garment fall.

His hands returned to cradle her back, shifting over the silk of her robe.

She nipped lightly at one nipple. Heard his breath hitch, felt the spike of reaction that flashed through his muscles.

Felt the heat spread beneath his skin.

“What are you doing?”

She looked up, met his gaze, darker now, passion smoldering behind the bright hazel. “I’m doing as I wish, what I want — what I need to do.”

Heat was steadily rising, in him, in her, between them; she should have felt the night’s chill but instead felt only the building glow of desire, the slow burn of encroaching passion.

Raising one hand to his cheek, she drew his lips to hers, kissed him again, openly demanding, taking his mouth rather than giving hers. . surprised that he allowed it, she was enthralled enough to ask for yet more. To take more.

When she drew back and their lips parted, they were both breathing quickly, and the heat had flared to a nascent conflagration.

Eyes on his, sensing, all but seeing the steely control he was exerting, their breaths mingling, she murmured, “You’re being very good.”

His reply was a dark rumble. “For now.”

She took note of the implied warning and gave him no chance to retake the reins; pushing back against his hold, she slid her hands, palms to his warm, deliciously heated skin, down from his upper chest, over the rock-hard ridges of his abdomen, down and wide to either side of his waist, then skimmed her hands lower, down his lean hips, catching his trousers, sliding them down.

Her hands reached his upper thighs, and the garment slid of its own accord down his long legs to pool about his feet.

She followed it down, sliding from his hold and sinking to a sideways crouch. Saw the powerful muscles in his flanks, his upper thighs, lock. Ignoring the sudden grip of his hand on her shoulder, she drew down one stocking, with a nudge of her arm got him to lift his foot so she could free it of stocking, shoe, and trouser leg. After repeating the actions with his other foot, she pushed shoes, stockings, and trousers back and away across the floor, then, swiveling to him, her hands sliding up the back of his bare calves, gripping the wide muscle for balance, she looked up — all the way up to his eyes.

Legs braced, fingers trailing her shoulders, his spectacular body naked, the powerful contours limned by faint moonlight, he looked down at her; in that moment he appeared more beautiful, more powerful, than any god.

Before he could move, she ran her palms upward, over the backs of his knees, then further still, tracing the backs of his thighs up, up to the curve of his buttocks.

Through the dimness she saw his jaw clench. Felt his fingers shift, his hands start to reach for her.

Smoothly shifting to her knees, she drew her gaze down his body, down to where his erection jutted proudly, just below her face. Drew her hands in, closed both about the hot, heavy length.

Heard the rush of his indrawn breath, heard its tightness. Sensed the sudden leap of tension in his body, the steeling of muscles already taut.

She could all but taste his flaring expectation; bending her head, touching her lips to the exquisitely soft, broad head of his erection, she gave herself over to meeting it.

To fulfilling every desire he might have, to, with her mouth, her lips, her tongue, her teeth, lavish pleasure upon pleasure on him.

She took him deep into her mouth, lightly sucked, then used her tongue to slowly stroke. Felt his entire body lock, felt his hands drift, sightless it seemed, until they found her head. Until his fingers could tangle in her hair, and grip.

Hold on.

As she pleasured him.

As she devoted every iota of will she possessed to impressing on him her intent. Her message. Her wordless declaration.

She knew they were in his room, by the foot of his bed, but her senses drew in and she lost touch with the world as she set herself to this — to loving him.

To this sensual demonstration that she did.

Breckenridge stifled a groan, a moan of sheer pleasure, when she took him deeper yet, drawing him further into the hot haven of her mouth, then using her wicked tongue to torture him with delight.

With sensual pleasures he’d rarely known, rarely allowed any other woman to give him. Why he’d never understood; her mouth on him there was nothing less than paradise — a slice of heaven in the mortal world.

Head high the better to breathe, to haul breath into lungs that had seized, he glanced down through his lashes and watched her — and felt something inside him shift. Expand, then grow stronger. More definite.

Take larger, sharper, more indisputable shape.

Through his hands on her skull, his fingers locked in the silky strands of her hair, he felt her deliberation, her unswerving will.

In the suction of her mouth, in the strong, rasping, strokes of her tongue, read her driving purpose.

This was not a bid to try something new.

This was no exploration but deliberate worship.

This was passion leashed and channeled. Wielded with intent. An intent to. .

She drew him deeper yet, until the muscles of her throat caressed the sensitive head of his erection. All thought fractured, irreversibly fragmented as she suckled hard, then stroked with her tongue.

As her fingers stroked his scrotum, then one hand closed about his balls and she played. .

He hauled in a tortured breath, ground out, “Enough.” The word was rough, gravelly, barely decipherable, his customary sangfroid, his usual detachment, long gone.

She responded with a tortuously slow, deliciously rasping, stroke of her tongue.

His control quaked; his balls started to tighten.

Barely stifling a curse, he slid a thumb between her luscious lips, eased his throbbing member from the wet suction of her mouth, drew free. Grasped her shoulders and pulled her up — into his arms, up onto her toes, into an embrace that was just this side of desperate.

Into a kiss that burned and scorched and tasted of passion run wild. .

He was out of control, or so close to it as made no odds. For an instant, blatantly, flagrantly feeding from her yielded mouth, feeling her small hands spread on his chest, he teetered on the cusp of simply giving in — for the first time in more than fifteen years letting his inner self free, letting the primal male have his way and simply gorge.

Simply take her, own her, possess her, with no thought to shields or guile or protection.

No thought of concealment, of deploying any veil or screen.

He couldn’t. Too dangerous.

Even in this extremity, his mind still grasped the need for self-protection.

Sunk in her mouth, his arms wrapped about her, crushing her silk-encased body to his, he fought — and found strength in the subtle perfume that was her, that rose from her flushed skin and wreathed through his brain, and somehow anchored him.

Found even more strength in the touch of her palm against his cheek. In the way she responded — fully, openly, with her own flaring desires and heightened passions — to the rapacious demands of the kiss.

She was a steady flame, a beacon, guiding him back to sanity. To his customary control.

To the ways and means he’d intended to employ.

To his purpose.

Heather kissed him back and waited to see what direction he would take. When he’d wrenched control back, so driven and absolute, she’d hoped he would drop his shields and let her see. . But then he’d steadied.

For one fleeting instant she’d considered challenging him, but she knew she didn’t have that power. Accepted instead that at that point she had to yield the reins fully, that if he needed them, needed her this way, then she had to meet that need.

A need that was hot, molten, passion in the night.

That he communicated effortlessly in the heavy stroke of his hand over her breast, knowing and possessive.

Openly so. If he had any message for her in what followed, possession was his theme.

His clearly communicated motive.

His fingers found the rose quartz pendant, for fleeting seconds toyed, but then his attention refocused.

His lips remained on hers, his kiss devastating and demanding. Commanding as his hands roved her body, as through the silk he sculpted, weighed, and assessed, then he stripped the silk away, let it fall to the floor, and set his palms, fingers, mouth, lips, and tongue to her naked skin, to her aching flesh, and branded.