Chapter 21

Lauren watched almost spellbound as Dimitri wrapped his large hands into the waistband of her linen trousers and pulled them down over her hips. He seemed to wrestle with himself over the scrap of her panties, but in the end hooked them as well, his face rapt with attention as he bared her body to his gaze.

Her heart thumped heavily in her chest, her skin both hot and cold under Dimitri’s stare. A curious mix of nerves and confidence surged through her—she knew she had a decent body, she knew she was attractive, she knew these things. And yet this man was different from anyone she’d ever been with before. This was no college guy still figuring out who he was or what he wanted. This was a man—or a demigod?—who looked like he would happily eat her alive.

Oh God, don’t think about any part of that.

It was too late, however. As if spurred by her thoughts, Dimitri finished pulling her pants off completely, her panties with them, and tossed them aside in a heap. Then his hands were once more on her hips, and somehow he was kneeling between her legs now, his body bent down, his lips on the inside of her knee. He moved up the interior of her thigh as if he was exploring foreign territory, and she couldn’t stop herself from trembling in his grasp as his mouth moved closer—closer?—

He stopped, and she almost cried out, but he slid up her body, bracing his arms on the floor to stare at her. His heavy shaft pressed against her belly, and his eyes were dark, searching. “Are you cold? Is this still what you want?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She pushed her fingers beneath his soft shorts. She wrapped her fingers around him, squeezing as his face contorted in a mix of lust and pleasure, then outright need as she ran her fingers over the head of his shaft. “I want you inside me now.” Without waiting for him to agree, she latched on to either side of his waistband and pushed down his shorts, over his heavy cock, and along his thighs.

Dimitri swiped with one hand and yanked them off the rest of the way, giving her a glimpse of his rugged body, ridged with muscle, sunbaked to a dark bronze, the narrow strip of hair in the center of his abs arrowing straight down.

“I want all of you,” she practically moaned. “Every inch.”

“Good,” he growled, claiming her mouth with his own. He pulled his body away from her hands again and settled between her legs, the intense pressure of him so close, so nearly perfect that she almost cried out. Then he slid away, skimming her body, leaving her wanting as his mouth traced a fiery path along her neck and over her collarbone. He took one breast in his mouth, his left hand capturing the other, and suckled hard enough to make her arch off the floor. Then he moved away quickly, too quickly, licking a line down her stomach until he paused right over the center of her, his breath hot and moist, but not enough, not nearly enough.

She arched up toward him and he met her with his tongue, the shocking contact turning her inside out as she gasped his name. She twined her hands in his hair and held him there, though whether to brace him or herself she couldn’t say. But he didn’t seem to notice her. Instead, his attention was solely on exploring, tasting, pressing in, somehow knowing how to tease and excite every one of her nerve endings, kiss by lick by?—

“Ohhhh.” Lauren froze as a new pressure assaulted her, Dimitri never stopping his sensual exploration with his mouth, but now eased into her with a finger, testing her channel as she trembled beneath him, willing him to go farther and deeper. Pinwheels of light exploded through her brain, and she slipped her hands to his shoulders, her right hand pressing into muscles rippling under the ocean of ink.

“You’re so good,” he murmured, and the vibration of his words against her clit made her catch her breath. She gripped his shoulders then, her fingers digging in, need spiraling up within her as Dimitri continued the rhythmic thrust of his fingers in time with the teasing lave of his tongue—so right, so good, so exactly where she needed him to be. He pulled back for half a moment, his breath a cool balm against her overheated skin, but she nearly cried out anyway in frustration when he leaned down and flicked his tongue against her one last time.

She shattered against his mouth, panic and need filling her to bursting, then flowing over as she convulsed. He may have cursed, she certainly did, but he didn’t leave her, didn’t roll away and up, the box checked, the mission accomplished. If anything, he reveled in her climax, his mouth leaving her to kiss her thighs, her hipbone, the curve of her belly, then returning as she was settling to stoke her into a new wave of convulsions, until she didn’t know which was ending and which was beginning, and her words had devolved into inarticulate moans.

She was quivering now, practically helpless, and he shifted again, heavily and with purpose, dragging himself up her body until he hovered above her face again. His eyes seemed almost wild, his expression brutally fierce, and his shaft throbbed against her belly, causing her legs to fall open in mute desire. His gaze raked her face, and though he didn’t ask the question, she nodded, gripping his arms. “Now,” she whispered, and she didn’t recognize her own voice. “I want you now.”

Dimitri growled and rolled to the side, up on his feet so quickly, she could only marvel at the tight urgency of his body. He strode out of the room and was back before she could reach for the throw blanket, and then he was over her again, warming her body instantly with his, surrounding her with his heat. He kissed her thoroughly, hungrily, and the cycle of desire ratcheted up once more inside her, full and hot, demanding to be sated. But when he would have moved off her again to sheathe himself with the condom he’d brought in from the other room, a new sort of urgency gripped her, impossible to ignore.

She followed him up when he moved to the side, pressing against him until he willingly relaxed and allowed her to push him over onto his back. There was no question that he had “allowed” this too. She wouldn’t be able to move this man an inch without his permission, no matter how many cardio kick classes she’d taken or how much iron she’d pumped. But she moved up onto Dimitri’s thick body with ease, straddling his hips. He stared at her with a curious mix of intensity and desperation, but he didn’t stop her. It was almost as if he couldn’t stop her, and the intensity of her power filled her as she took in his face, his eyes, his hands half raised from the floor, the foil packet clenched in one fist, the other clenched around nothing but air.

She slid up the length of his shaft and farther, until her knees were on either side of his torso and her hands were braced on his chest. Slowly, deliberately, she lifted her hands to skim her own belly, drawing them up her body to cup her breasts. She lifted the heavy tips toward him like an offering, then dropped one of her hands to her sex again, involuntarily shuddering as she pressed her fingers against her own swollen skin.

Dimitri looked stricken, and another surge of power curled within her, certain and true.

“You mind if I play for a while?”