Страница 35

He laughed and climbed up onto the bed, sitting near her feet. He seemed completely unselfconscious of his nakedness, although sitting tailor fashion left his goodies in plain sight. Holding her heel in the palm of his hand, he met her eyes and raised her foot toward his mouth.

Emma laughed nervously and covered her eyes with her hands. Her toes curled in anticipation, and she was embarrassingly aware that with her leg raised and her panties off, she was giving him just as big a display as he was giving her.

He kissed the side of her foot where the arch began its curve, then darted his tongue out in a quick flick.

It tickled more than anything. "Harder," she said, peering between her fingers.

He ran the point of his tongue against her arch, apparently as hard as he could. Emma flinched and laughed. "No, that tickles!"

He did it again and again, and she tried to get away, her hands coming down to push against the mattress. She tugged her foot, but he held tight and licked.

"No, not like that!" Laughter made her weak, helpless under his torture.

Russ relented and did as he knew she wanted, using the flat of his tongue to stroke her arch. He'd only tickled her to get her to relax, just as he'd deliberately fumbled the striptease.

He had thought, given Emma's bold sexual adventuring, that she'd deliberately kept from opening up to him. Instead, she was just as shy in her way as he was in his. Maybe even more so; at least he had ten years' more experience with expressing his wants in bed, however hesitant those expressions might be.

That she was trying to open up to him now meant a lot to him; he did not underestimate the fragility of the trust she was offering him. Whatever she wanted, he would do it and be grateful she had shared it with him.

At the end of this night, she would have no physical secrets left. The thought of feeling her contractions around him as he thrust deep inside; of seeing her face lost in passion he had created; of knowing she had given herself over to him completely: it made him hard, and he knew he would stay that way through any length of toe sucking.

Before Emma, he hadn't spared more than a passing thought for what went on below the surface of a woman's mind. He hadn't cared enough to ask, and hadn't understood how much it could mean to him.

In his youth, he hadn't even suspected that a woman might hold part of herself separate, that what he saw wasn't all there was to get.

He licked the arch of her foot again and she squirmed, her hands fisting at her sides. She had closed her eyes, and despite the fact that she was dictating his actions, he felt more in control than he ever had with her. It was hard to beat the thrill of a woman writhing in pleasure under his touch.

He looked at her pristine toes and did as she had asked, one toe at a time. He dipped his tongue between each one as he sucked, rubbing against the tender skin. Emma bared her teeth as if in pain and her whole body tensed. She held perfectly still, as if afraid that moving would stop what he was doing.

He would never have guessed her toes were an erogenous zone.

He did the last of her toes and set her foot down.

She rolled onto her stomach and he admired her rounded behind before she twisted and sat up, her back still to him. She peered over her shoulder at him. "Finish undressing me."

He put his hands on her hips and slid his palms up her sides, her T-shirt and hoody coming with them. She raised her arms as he moved upward, then detoured to her breasts, brushing his palms over the mounds pressing into the silky stretch material of her bra. He circled there until he felt her nipples hardening, making pebbles beneath the material.

He pulled her tops off and tossed them onto the floor, then turned his attention to her one remaining garment.

He cupped her breasts in his hands, thumbs stroking over their peaks, then slid his hands back toward her sides and forward again, this time his fingers inside the material. He ran her nipples between his fingers, pinching them gently, and leaned forward until his lips were just above the nape of her neck.