the kiss began; open and silken, sensual and intimate. His head moved and she counter moved, tongues caressing and laving and sliding with a sluggish eroticism. She felt his hand move lower, his palm at her buttock, but Illara experienced no panic or fear, her body was too alive and the new sensations, too pleasurable to stop.
Pagan’s breathing was sharper when he lifted an inch. They were once more bathing damp lips with sultry breath. Illara could feel the hard heat of his skin through the linen shirt. She had an urge to feel his skin. However, she also reminded herself of his desire to stay shrouded.
Pagan straightened.
Illara’s hand slid to his breastbone, the other on his round muscled arm.
Gazing down at her, Pagan eased his hand from her nape, around to touch her jaw and then smooth it over her shoulder, back up again, to skim over her hair.
“Are you chilled?”
“Nay.” She was almost feverish.
His gaze seemed to search hers before he murmured, “Will you be fearful if I remove your gown?”
“Nay.” She would, only a little.
Illara was still as Pagan stepped back enough to unlace the ties and then began sliding the gown from her shoulders. She stared at his chest while it reached her nipples, the feel of the slow peeling away somehow arousing. Lips parted and breathing shallow, she lowered her arms. It took nothing for the fabric to fall into a pool at the floor. Illara trembled slightly.
His hands returned to her skin, smoothing from her throat downward. Pagan reached her wrists, he touched her sides, palming up from her waist until his thumbs were resting on the sides of her breasts.
She risked a glance up.
He lifted his gaze from her breasts before catching her under the arms, moving her to sit once more on the bed. The fur felt somehow wicked and arousing against her skin, but he was bending and kissing her, thus Illara was besieged with sensations, and not able to separate one pleasure from the other.
His nudge forced her to lie back. Her hands were held aside while he skimmed his lips from her mouth to her chin, then her cheek and temple. His breath stirred on her skin. The leather mask chaffed lightly as he slid his lips down her throat.
Pagan released her hands and kissed her upper chest, leisurely working his way down. Those lips and the moist play of his tongue mapped around the globe of her breast, one and then the other. By the time Pagan was finished, she could feel the tight skin, the turgid nipples, a tingling kind of burn that seemed like hunger, and was in fact craving when his lips covered her nipple.
“Uhh.” She flinched, arched, and spread her hands on the covers as the pull of his suckling began. The tremor in her body increased, as did the places that suddenly felt that desire for—something—as yet illusive.
Illara heard her own dicey breathing, felt every minute flick of his tongue over her nipples. He went from one to the other and suckled rhythmically until she was biting down on her lip.
Pagan lifted and forced her mouth to part for him, kissing her thicker and deeper, more intimate.
Panting when he left her, she managed, “I do not know… I don’t know if I like this.” Her whole body shivered. “It feels…”
Pagan rested his palm on her stomach. The muscles quivered. He stroked there, brushing gently from her ribs to her lower belly. “Your breasts are beautiful. Your kisses more potent than wine.”
She enjoyed that stroking as much as she liked everything else. “Your kisses are certainly not without that too.” Her hand moved to touch her breast. “Everything you touched still tingles.”
His eyes shimmered with heat and his hand came to cover hers on that mound, fingers flexing before he rubbed her own palm over her nipple. Illara’s eyes widened. She was hard pressed to say which was more arousing, his hand over hers guiding it, or the look in his eyes as he did so. Pagan let her hand rest over one and moved his to the other, his thumb