Page 42 of A Convenient Ring to Claim Her

“I like that,” he said, wrapping his arm around her stomach to draw her back into the rough-soft textures of his tuxedo. “I live for the way we react to each other.”

“Be careful of the gown,” she said, aware of it piled around their shoes, but he slid his hand into the front of her underpants and she lost her voice.

She held still, afraid of trampling the gown, erotically trapped in the cage of his arms. Trapped between the wall of his clothed body and the blatant caress of his fingertip teasing her lips apart, seeking moisture and spreading it. As he lazily tantalized the knot of nerves, she shivered and turned her head, searching for his mouth.

He only teased her with a kiss on her cheek and the corner of her lips. “Tell me what you want,” he said in that wicked grate of a voice. “Tell me when you’re close.”

“I am,” she moaned, lifting her hips into his touch, then rocking back to grind into the erection prodding through his trousers at her backside. “Harder. Don’t stop,” she pleaded.

His arm around her shifted. He avoided her sling and slid his touch to cup her breast. While his thumb pressed her nipple through her bra, his other hand continued to circle and delicately torture her until she lost her ability to breathe. Lovely shudders washed over her, weakening her knees.

He held her in strong arms, mouth pinned to her neck where he left a sting and a rueful curse a moment later.

“I’ve just added to your bruises.” He kissed the damp spot. “I thought I was going over with you.”

She was dizzy and blinking herself back to reality, barely tracking as he released her bra and dropped her underwear, then guided her to the bed where he sat her on the edge to remove her shoes.

He stayed there on his knees while he kissed her a long time, until she was clinging her good arm around his shoulders and nearly off the bed and into his lap, she was so eager to be close to him. She wanted the hair of his chest on her breasts, the hot shape of his sex against her mound. She wanted their mouths sealed and their legs intertwined.

She couldn’t touch enough of him, couldn’t get close enough, darn this wretched sling!

“Don’t do that,” he admonished, misconstruing her noise of anguish. “I said I’d be careful with you and I will.” He nuzzled against the strap of her sling where it sat above her breast, then flashed her a look of lusty amusement. “I kind of like this bondage situation that forces you to be still while I have my way with you.”

“It turns you on?” She tried to sound disparaging, but wicked excitement tightened her nipples and sent a fresh wash of heat into the juncture of her thighs.

“It really does.” He reached for a couple of pillows and stacked them behind her, urging her to recline on them while he stayed on the floor and ran his free hand over her stomach and thighs, then up to her breast. He cupped one and leaned to give her nipple a lascivious lick. “I’m going to kiss every inch of you and you’re going to lie there and take it.”

For some reason, that scared the hell out of her. Not that she felt genuinely helpless. She knew he would stop if she told him to, but the way he picked up her hand and set his lips on the inside of her wrist, then trailed kisses to her elbow made her shake. It was too tender. Too sweet. It made her feel special and cherished and shewasn’t.

But she wanted to be. She wanted this shower of care and attention. She drank it in like a desert cactus soaked up rain after a hundred years’ drought.

“Micah.” She tried to caress his erection and tease him into the same blind lust that was gripping her, but he shifted, leaving her breasts and collarbone for the tremulous territory of her navel. “I really want you inside me.”

“I want that, too.” He nipped the point of her hip. “I can’t wait to feel you gripping and shattering around me. But look how pretty you are.” His one hand plumped her breast and he rose to suck her nipple again.

Lightning shot between her legs. She tried to press her thighs together, but he was in the way. There was no relief.

He sent her a knowing look and dipped a little lower, touching his mouth to her loosely curled hand where it stuck out of the sling. His tongue prodded at the seam of her fingers, right below her knuckle, and another wave of heat washed through her.

“You’re being...” She couldn’t think words.

“Thorough?” He moved to touch kisses all across her quivering abdomen, then rubbed one side of his face and the other like a giant cat who seemed to be affectionate, but was actually leaving his scent on her skin. Such a possessive male.

With casual strength, he lifted her knee, tipping her more fully into the pillows behind her as he parted her legs so he could kiss the inside of one thigh.

She had never felt so much his.Claimed. Her loins pulsed with longing, but he teased his attention all the way down her calf before kissing and caressing his way up her other leg, driving her mad with want.

Only when her legs were shaking and she thought she would die if he didn’t penetrate her did he hiss in a breath of tested control. He left her weak and sprawled on the pillows while he rose to shed his own clothes without ceremony, revealing his muscled chest and the hair bisecting his tense abdomen. The pale skin behind his boxer briefs appeared along with the steely thrust of his erection.

“I could—”

“I would kill for that, I really would, but I need to be inside you, Quinn.” He slid onto the bed and drew a pillow close, inviting her to spoon in front of him so her injured shoulder could sit on the pillow, elevated and protected.

“I want to touch you,” she sobbed even as she maneuvered into a position that should have felt awkward, but was actually really comfortable.

“Poor you,” he crooned without any mercy whatsoever. “I get to touch you however I want.” He slid his splayed hand across her hip and down her thigh, adjusting her leg as he settled closer in behind her. Then he guided his tip between her thighs, searching out her aching core. “This is how I want you to hold me. When you’re tight around me, I think I’m going to die from how good it feels.”

“Yes.” Her voice throbbed. “Do it.”

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