"Is this where you want me, Anna?"
His mouth moved across her skin with the question, lingering behind with a lick and a nip when the words were done.
Knowing how close he was to her br**sts--and yet so damn, frustratingly far--she said,
"My br**sts. Please, Cole. Touch my br**sts."
"Sweet Anna," he said, that surprising thread of humor lacing his response, "you should have just asked."
But he'd known she couldn't, that she didn't have the words, the sexual experience to play the kind of games he probably played every single night with beautiful women.
And then, just as it had before, humor turned to instant heat as his mouth came down over one breast, his tongue laving her nipple beneath her bra in hot and heavy strokes.
It was good, so good, better than anything she'd ever felt before. But she wanted more.
Oh God, she wanted more.
Cool air rushed over her when he lifted his head. "Am I doing it right?"
His question would have been funny if she weren't lying there burning up, wanting things that had her all but squirming with embarrassment. Not the sexual act itself, which she'd done before, but the verbal element of their sexual interaction, something he was clearly insistent that she try.
Anna was surprised to realize that putting voice to her desire was almost more scary than being tied up and vulnerable to his every touch.
So many times in one short night, Cole had asked her to be brave. To take a chance by dancing with him. To marry him. To let him tie her up. And, now, to tell him what gave her pleasure.
He was the first person who had ever looked at her and seen someone who might have guts.
A woman who might be willing to take a risk.
She'd been so afraid of falling her whole life that she hadn't ever known the feeling of leaping and not knowing where she'd land.
But Cole had taken her hand and given her the opportunity to jump.
The chance to take a free fall and feel the wind in her hair.
Sucking in a breath, she told him something she'd never thought to say to anyone. "My br**sts are really sensitive. Good sensitive."
She felt the air go still in the room, realized neither of them were breathing. And then, his fingers found the clasp at the front of her bra and cool air was rushing over the heated tips of her br**sts.
"Anna." Her name was almost a prayer on his lips. "Sweet Anna, no one should be this beautiful."
She thought--prayed--that he was going to drop his head down to her br**sts, especially when she felt the soft ends of his hair brushing against the super-sensitive flesh.
"Tell me what you want me to do to your perfect br**sts, sweetheart."
Before she could say a word, his hands came around the undersides of her br**sts and cupped them together.
"Lick them."
His hair brushed against the outside of one breast, his tongue laving between her soft flesh and her rib cage. "Like this?"
She couldn't believe she was smiling, but it was such a surprise that the big, hard man she'd married loved to tease.
And, oh, was he good at it.
"What if I said yes?" she found herself teasing back.
After a bit of a pause that only served to ratchet up her anticipation, his tongue came down over her again, laving small but intensely sweet circles of pleasure against the side of her breast. And then, after a quick sweep of his soft hair over her chest, he found the mirror-image spot on the other breast.
She knew what he was doing, that he wasn't going to take another step on his own without forcing her all the way to the edge, but not off. Jumping was all her own responsibility.
She knew that now, understanding it for the first time ever.
"My ni**les, Cole." She felt him lift his head slightly, pressing a soft kiss to her skin before moving away completely. "Lick my ni**les."
She was instantly rewarded for her bravery by the wet flick of the tip of his tongue against the rigid points. His hands were wonderfully rough on her as he pushed her br**sts close enough together that he could lick first one hard tip and then the other, again and again in such rapid succession that she never had a chance to recover.
Just Cole's tongue on her skin was better than any other sexual encounter she'd ever had.
And still, it wasn't enough.
Not nearly enough to satisfy the need he'd made her feel.
And, oh God, the things she was feeling, white-hot flames rippling across her skin, pulling her into a maelstrom of heat...and boundless pleasure.
"Suck them."
Again, her request was instantly granted, and she couldn't possibly contain her cry of deep, dark delight as Cole's strong lips pressed around a nipple, as his tongue flattened against the underside so that it dragged along the roof of his mouth.
She'd heard women say they could come like this, but she'd never believed it, not for a second. None of her previous lovers--it wasn't even fair to put the men she'd slept with in that category, she suddenly thought--had given her what she needed. No amount of foreplay had taken her to this place where Cole had so effortlessly brought her.
While his mouth found sweet purchase on one nipple, his hands and fingers didn't neglect her other breast, rolling the sensitive peak between his thumb and forefinger so that she wasn't able to focus on just one spot, not when it felt like her entire body was on fire, her cells molten heat beneath Cole's talented fingers and mouth.
She sucked in one breath and then another around her moans of pleasure and just when she thought she was getting a handle on the incredible sensations coursing through her veins, he surprised her with something she wouldn't have been able to ask for, simply because she didn't know that lovers could touch each other in such a way.
The scrape of teeth against sensitive flesh had moisture flooding at her core, her stomach tightening down when she was unable to push her thighs together to try and drive herself over the edge. She couldn't control the arch of her back into his mouth or the sounds coming from her throat, a cry of wonder as she rode the edge of pain and came back around to the most incredible ecstasy.
And then, he was moving to her other nipple, and she was saying, "Do that again, Cole,"
but he was already there, already scraping against the tight tip with his teeth before laving the small hurt away with the tip of his warm, wet tongue.
Her limbs yanked against her binds as she tried to press herself up, higher, harder against his mouth. But then, her br**sts were free, his mouth and hands moving down her torso as she opened her mouth to complain, his tongue dipping into her belly button and stealing away any words that might have been on her lips.