Birthright

he told her and assaulted her throat with his teeth.
    She smelled fresh, and utterly female. The fast spike of her pulse under his lips was a brutal thrill.
    Her arms were pinned and her flesh exposed. There was something dark and erotic about that quick change of control, about surrendering that moment of power to him. She let herself ride on it, and on the giddy panic when his mouth came back to claim hers.
    He rose in a move so smooth and fluid her breath snagged. There was a strength here she hadn’t anticipated, and one that had her pulse skipping as he carried her, as his mouth continued its assault.
    Then she was under him on the bed, her arms tangled in her jacket, her body captive and wonderfully helpless. He tugged, and her arms were free. Before she could reach for him, he rolled, then flipped her onto her stomach.
    “Nothing against Brooks Brothers,” he said as he slowly slid down the zipper of her skirt. “But it’s a little too crowded with them here. We’ll just get rid of them.”
    She looked back over her shoulder, and a wing of hair fell over her eye. “I could say the same about the Levi’s.”
    “We’ll give them a minute.” He slid the shirt off, trailed a fingertip down her spine. “Nice back, counselor.”
    He drew the skirt over her hips, down and away. She wore stockings that stopped at the thigh with little bands of lace, and a white satin thong he seriously doubted had come from the dignified brothers Brooks.
    “The rest of you holds up, too.”
    She laughed, started to say something quick and smart. And only moaned when his lips made that same trail down her spine. His fingers brushed up from the back of her knee to the edge of the stocking, and hers dug into the bedspread.
    “You know, I’m never going to be able to see you in one of those lawyer suits again without thinking about what’s going on under it.”
    His mouth was at the small of her back, and working down. “Okay by me.”
    He was nudging her along a plateau of pleasure so that her muscles went lax, her limbs limp. It was like sliding through a soft gray mist, sinking into it without a thought to destination.
    Who needed power, she wondered as those mists closed in, when you could just . . . sink.
    He heard her sigh, felt her go boneless. Her body was his to explore, to sample, to savor. The narrow waist, the long thighs, that fragrance that clung to her skin at the shoulder blades. He flicked open her bra, rubbed his lips over her skin.
    She all but purred.
    He turned her over slowly, tasted her lips, her throat, then her breasts.
    Soft, scented, silky, and with a heat just beginning to flush along that lovely skin. Her hands stroked over him—his hair, his shoulders, his back. As she sighed into him, she tugged his shirt up, drew it over his head, tossed it aside.
    And the slide of flesh to flesh made her tremble.
    Patient, she thought dreamily, and oh so thorough. Here was a man who sought to give as much as he took, to please as well as to take pleasure. One who could make her body quiver and her heart stand still.
    And because of it, she arched to offer him more. Moaned his name when his lips, his hands grew more impatient. Faster now, just a little faster, stoking the firesalready simmering, teasing patience to urgency and dreamy to demanding.
    He pressed his hand against her, tormenting them both until he slid a finger under the satin and into her.
    Her nails dug into his shoulders. He watched her eyes go opaque, and that beautiful flush rush out on her skin. He caught her cry with his mouth, feasting on her lips as she came.
    Sensations tumbled through her, too quickly now to separate, too huge to hold. She fought with the button of his jeans. God, she wanted all of him, wanted that mindless plunge. Her hips moved restlessly as she freed him, as she closed her hand over him.
    “Doug. Douglas,” she repeated, and guided him to her.
    Pleasure shot through him like a missile, the sheer glory of filling her, of having the wet heat of her surround him. He fought back the urge to plunder and moved slowly, savoring each trembling rise, each shuddering fall of their bodies.
    The light was going. The last quiet streaks of it shimmered through the open window, over her face. He watched her lashes flutter, and the pulse beat in her throat as her head arched back. As the pleasure built stroke by slow, deep stroke.
    He knew she clung, as he did, to that last slippery edge of reason. When he felt her clutch