Burning Up

me.”
    “Yes.” His right fingers smoothed into the crease of her thigh and followed it up to her hip. Gasping, Ivy rocked toward him. His hand flattened over her lower belly, holding her in place as his thumb slid through red curls. Gently, he began to circle the slick bud at the apex of her sex. “I’ll kiss these pretty pink lips, Ivy. And I’ll spread them with my tongue and lick inside you, tasting you all over.”
    Ivy couldn’t form a coherent reply. Only panting breaths as his thumb stroked harder, the tip wet now, slippery over her flesh. The maddening circles were both bliss and torment, wringing a moan from deep in her throat.
    “Then I’ll suck on your clit until you come for me.” His voice roughened in response to another tortured moan. “But I’ll tell you what I won’t do—look at me, Ivy.”
    Her fingers clenching on the arms of the chair, her thighs trembling, she lifted her gaze. Need had hardened his face, his eyelids heavy as he watched her. His left hand rose, tugging down the neckline of her gown, baring her right breast and tightly budded nipple. Yearning for his touch, she arched into his palm.
    He drew his hand away, pinning her right knee against the chair arm. “I won’t suckle your sweet tits.” His thumb circled faster. “I won’t lick every inch of your skin. I won’t push your thighs together and guide my cock through your wet slit, pumping my shaft across your clit, making you scream for me to come inside you. I won’t fuck you with my fingers and my tongue until you’re riding my hand and my mouth. And you won’t be touching me, either.”
    “Eben, please.” She didn’t know what she wanted. Only that she wanted all of that, and that the tension winding tighter and tighter inside her needed to break. Helplessly, she rolled her hips against his hand. “Please. Please .”
    “Not until you return to Vesuvius .”
    His words barely penetrated the fever clouding her mind. Until she returned . . . ?
    The shadows on his face deepened. “I won’t be with you as you begin building the kraken, Ivy. So I want you to wait for me. Just three weeks. Then I’ll join you at Trahaearn’s estate—and I’ll give you everything you want while you finish your work there, and again on your way back home.”
    Back home. And before that, almost a month without him. A sharp pain speared through her chest, stealing her breath.
    When she didn’t reply, his expression darkened. “You’ll wait for me.” Not a request now, but a harsh command. His thumb stroked harder. Long fingers pushed between her slick folds to press against her opening. Ivy turned her face into her shoulder, gasping. “You’ll wait.”
    “Damn you, Mad Machen. Yes!” she burst out. “Now kiss me like you promis—”
    He swooped down. Ivy’s demand melted into a moan as his hot mouth covered her, tongue sliding over swollen flesh. She cried out, her back arching, her shoulders jammed against the seat back.
    “You taste . . . so good.” His voice was a growl between licks that ravaged her senses. His fingers tightened on her thighs. “Won’t . . . let you go.”
    Ivy didn’t want him to. She reached for him, burying her fingers in his thick hair. His stiffened tongue delved through her folds. His big hands wedged beneath her bottom, lifting her for a deeper kiss.
    Blue, blue, blue. Almost sobbing with pleasure, Ivy heard his answering groan. Her hips swiveled of their own accord, and his mouth moved with her, lapping at her clitoris before suckling the tender bud between his lips. His tongue flicked as he drew on her, and Ivy’s muscles suddenly locked as she strained toward that shattering precipice. Eben didn’t stop, each lick painful now, too much, too intense. Then he suckled again and she broke, crying out as she bucked against his mouth.
    His tongue softened. He gently licked her as she came down, then pressed a kiss to her quivering belly. He lifted his head and his gaze ran over her, from her flushed sex to her perspiring face.
    “My God, Ivy. You’re beautiful.”
    Did he truly think so? He looked at her as if he did—he was the only person who’d ever looked at her like that. She blinked away the stinging in her eyes. “You’re suffering from a loss of blood to your brain, Eben.”
    “So I am.” He laughed and dropped another kiss to the inside of her knee. Lifting her still-shaking legs from the arms of the chair, he helped Ivy to her feet. She swayed against him, her