Slightly Wicked by Mary Balogh

hooked length of his nose—a family legacy that he shared with most of his brothers and sisters—and then very lightly over his lips, and set her palms on his shoulders while she lowered her head and kissed him on the mouth. Curtained by her red hair, he felt her tongue move across his lips, and when he opened his mouth she stretched her tongue inside. He resisted the desire to suck on it. His role was a passive one for some time to come—for a long time, he hoped. He did not know what she was about, but he was liking it very well so far. Perhaps she was doing to him what he had done to her—slowly seducing him. And succeeding. His toes curled with pleasure.
    Her hands and her mouth—and her tongue and her teeth—moved slowly down his body, pausing whenever he gave the slightest indication of pleasure. The witch! As if she did not know very well every one of a man’s pleasure spots. She suckled his nipples, rubbing her tongue lightly over them as she did so until he almost reared up and ended her game before it had even approached the climax she must intend. He lay still, concentrating on his breathing.
    She covered every inch of his body with her light, cool, erotic touch except for the part that had stirred into life again and stiffened into its full hard length well before she was finished. She skirted all around it, the tease. He was finding it more difficult to breathe quietly.
    And then she did touch him there, taking him in her two cool hands, at first so lightly that he almost exploded, and then with more assurance, closing her hands about him, stroking him, rubbing her thumb over the sensitive tip.
    “Does that feel good?” she asked him in a low, throaty voice that just about hurtled him over the edge.
    “Too damned good,” he said.
    She turned her head and smiled at him and kneeled upright and pushed her hair behind her shoulders with both hands. She stayed that way for a long time, looking down into his eyes.
    “I do not want to do the rest of it alone,” she said.
    Released from the rules of the game, he reached for her with both hands, closing them about her waist and lifting her over him, to straddle him. He held her there, smoothing his hands lightly over her shapely hips while she continued to kneel upright, her legs wide now.
    “Come, then,” he said. “Put me inside and we will ride together. A good long ride this time, I promise. You like to ride?”
    Her expression was strangely, arousingly grave. “I like to ride with
you,
” she said after a few moments of silence.
    The witch! As if he were someone special to her. But her words had their desired effect.
    She was a consummate tease. Or perhaps she knew that pauses could have as much erotic effect as movement. Several more seconds passed before she took him lightly in one hand, brought herself into position, removed her hand, and pressed firmly down until she was fully impaled on him. He watched and heard her draw a deep breath. With any lesser woman he might have suspected a deliberate intent to compliment him on his size. With her he suspected genuine pleasure.
    She leaned over him then, supporting herself on her hands, curtaining him with her hair once more. She gazed into his eyes, and he spread his hands more firmly over her hips.
    “Ride me, then,” he said. “I will be the obedient steed beneath you. I will ride to your rhythm and at your pace. You may set the destination and the distance before we arrive. Let it be a long distance.”
    “A hundred miles,” she said.
    “A thousand.”
    “More.”
    She rode him slowly at first, feeling him, adjusting her position in the saddle, tightening her inner muscles about him to create just the right angle. And then she rode more steadily, her rhythm less shallow, more assured. He had never encountered such apparently artless expertise in any other woman. She might well spoil him for all others, he thought, reading her pace, matching it, thrusting into her descent, withdrawing to her