Page 22 of Taming the Beast (Fairy Tales of New York)

He felt so good, hot and hard against her. And his kisses… Lord, she could drown in them. Was drowning in them, so much so that she barely registered that he’d released her head until he slid his hand down her side, beneath her jacket and up to cup her breast. She nearly went up in flames. He rubbed his thumb over her nipple and she tore her mouth from his to gasp because she could hardly breathe for the excitement.

Her head fell back and Seb kissed his way along her jaw, to her ear and that sensitive spot just beneath it, all the while tormenting her with his caresses.

“This what you’ve been thinking about?” he muttered against her neck as his hand, his fingers, his thumb, wreaked havoc on her senses.

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

“And more.”

“You’ll have it.”

He nudged her back and she hit the edge of the desk. She leant against it, much as she had maybe ten minutes ago, only this time she was sandwiched between the desk and Seb and she couldn’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be. Or be doing. Apart from touching him properly, the way he was doing to her, because suddenly his hands were all over her.

He pulled her off the edge of the desk, then lifted her skirt and palmed her buttocks, pressing her hips tighter against him and grinding. He shifted her onto his desk. She parted her legs and he stepped between them and as he started kissing her again she thought he was right where she wanted him.

Drumming with an urgent need to feel his skin beneath her hands, she slipped her arms from his neck. She reached down, tugged his shirt out of the waist band of his trousers and yanked it open, buttons flying and popping everywhere and then finally she had her hands on him.

He felt just as she remembered. Hot. Hard. Smooth. Except for the thin jagged scar that started from just below his ribcage at his back and swept round to his hip, the scar that she’d kissed at length and now traced before moving her hand round to the hard flat muscles of his abdomen and the rough hair that arrowed down.

She felt him shudder, tense, and so with her heart beating like a hammer and her breathing all ragged and shallow and not at all fit for purpose she traced that too, grappling with the button of his pants with her other hand, unzipping his fly and slipping them both inside his shorts to feel him.

She wrapped her fingers round his cock, so hot and velvety and hard, and her mouth watered because she wanted to taste him so badly. But she barely got to stroke him because with a rough curse, Seb stopped her, gripping her wrists and still

ing her movements. His jaw tight, he pulled her hands out, away from him and up, and then further, until they were above her head and she was looking right into his eyes, so close she could see the flecks of black in the dark brown.

“What’s the matter?” she breathed, thrills running through her at the hint of wildness, of danger, she could detect in him. “Too much?”

“Too close. I promised you more.”

“Control slipping, Seb?”

“Of course not,” he growled, as if the very idea of it was risible. “But five years, Mercy.”

“What of it?”

“I should take my time.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Too bad.”

And then, eyes dark and glittering and glazed with desire, he was leaning over her and bending her back and down and Mercy went willingly. He released one of her wrists to reach behind her and sweep his arm across his desk, and away flew papers, pens, mouse, keyboard, clattering to the floor as he pushed her the rest of the way.

He straightened, leaving her like that, lying back wantonly, excitement thundering through her and her heart racing and then he looked her over, slowly and thoroughly and wordlessly, as if wondering quite where to start, as if proving to her as well as himself that his grip on his control was as strong as it had ever been.

Beneath his heavy-lidded gaze Mercy felt as if she was about to burst into flames. She wanted to squirm, writhe, beg, and unable to stand any of it much longer she was just about to tell him exactly where to stuff his bloody challenge when he pulled off her boots, dropped them to the floor, then wrapped his hands around her ankles.

He began slowly sliding them up her calves, her knees, her thighs, and her breath caught at the feel of his rough palms on her bare skin. The friction made her shiver. Made heat pool and desire coil low in her abdomen. Made her head swim with need.

Seb stroked his hands higher, over her hips, lifting the skirt of her dress and pushing it up to her waist, then slipped his fingers beneath her panties and in one smooth, clearly very practiced movement, slid them down and off.

He splayed his hand over her abdomen and Mercy gasped, her muscles there tensing, quivering, as her hands clutched uselessly at the leather surface of the desk. And then he moved his hand down, over her, his fingers slipping through her soft curls, sliding over her heated flesh, and then into her, so deep and sure that she groaned and her back bowed off the desk.

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