Page 93 of The Defiant One
"It's what not being able to wait feels like."
His hand, so warm against her flesh, so delicious, stroked up her inner thigh, his fingers searching, searching . . . and finding.
Finding her already hot and wet for him.
Finding her slick and ready and eager and wanting.
"Oh, God," he said hoarsely, and with one quick movement, he tossed the heavy fall of her skirts fully up and over her stomach, exposing her long, white legs — one bare, the other still wearing its garter and stocking — and her naked femininity to the pale, late afternoon sun.
To his smoldering, intent gaze.
He stared; Celsie saw his chest rising and falling, his long lashes coming down to veil eyes that had gone suddenly dark. His knee pressed uncomfortably into her outer thigh; his arousal was fully evident beneath the flap of his breeches. She felt exposed and naked and shameless and wanton as he stared down at her, not saying a word, just looking. Just admiring. And then he lifted his gaze and in his eyes she saw desire burning so hot that it nearly scalded her with its intensity.
"Damnation," he swore, on a little laugh.
"Damnation?"
"How the hell am I ever going to find the time, to find the incentive, to find the will to pursue my science when I have you around to constantly tempt me?"
"I guess you're just going to have to practice a little restraint." She smiled up at him. "Though I certainly hope you won't."
"Damn right I won't. By God, Celsie, you're going to be the death of me, I swear it."
She giggled. "Where's that potion, Andrew? I thought we were going to try it topically."
"Don't know . . . don't care."
"Oh, get it. Get it, and let's see what it does."
He got up, opened his coat, fumbled in the pocket and found the tiny vial. Celsie lay draped over the sofa, bathed in the glow of the sun coming in from the window above, her long legs framed by white underpetticoats and wool overpetticoats and the rich red damask of the settee. She could feel her body temperature rising. She could feel an empty ache in her arms, in her belly, in that spot between her legs where desire throbbed hot and moist, aching to be fulfilled.
She began to tremble with need.
To breathe a little heavier.
He returned with the vial, forcing a space for himself on the seat beside her, his hand stroking the velvety skin of her inner thigh, coming near to but never quite touching the part of her that needed him more than any other. He held the vial up to the light, examining it, prolonging the ecstatic inevitable.
"Shall we try it on me or on you?" he asked, his hand skimming back up her thigh and now gently pushing the leg that hung off the seat, further away from the other.
"You choose."
"All right, then."
He pushed her thighs even further apart.
"Andrew, you're going to split me right in half," she gasped, a little breathlessly.
"I want to see you. I want to see all of you." His fingers were playing with the silky hair of her mound now, gently stroking the hidden folds within, making her entire body thrum with sensation. He looked intently down at her, watching everything his fingers were doing. "And I want to see just what happens when I put a drop or two of this solution right here between these pretty pink folds — and touch it to this hard little nub."
His erotic suggestion caused Celsie to melt yet further into the cushion. Just the thought of that fervently potent aphrodisiac against her most intimate flesh was enough to double her already pounding pulse.
"Well, then . . . go ahead," she managed, stretching an arm over her head and gazing up at his handsome, intent face.
He slowly uncapped the vial, the deliberate delay in his movements causing the anticipation to build all the more. Celsie felt the room's cool, unheated air drifting around her exposed thighs . . . her knees . . . kissing her shamelessly exposed cleft. Trembling, she curled her right toe into the floor rug and pressed the other leg, still bent at the knee, to the red damask that covered the back of the settee.
"You're not cold, are you?"
"No — just incredibly impatient to have you inside of me."
