her down near the bottom of the bed. His voice was deep, rumbling in the silence. ‘You can let your dress go.’
Lia looked down and saw her almost white-knuckled grip on her dress. She uncurled her fingers, undid the tie and let it go. It swung open, catching on the slopes of her breasts.
She heard a sharp intake of breath and looked up to see Ben’s eyes on her.
‘So beautiful,’ he muttered as he brought his hands to her shoulders and pulled her dress off them and down over her arms, until it fell to the floor in a sibilant whoosh of silk. Her undone bra followed.
Now she was naked, the ends of her hair tickling the bare skin of her shoulders. Ben’s eyes had darkened and Lia gritted her jaw to kill the instinct to cover herself with her arms; she didn’t want him to see how vulnerable she really felt. No doubt he was used to women parading themselves in front of him.
Instead, just to do something to break the almost overwhelming tension, she reached out and touched his chest tentatively. It was muscled perfection, broad and strong. Defined pectorals with a dusting of dark curling hair led down to the ridges of a six-pack and his flat belly, with its single line of dark hair dissecting the muscles and disappearing under his trousers.
Ben sucked in a breath and, emboldened, Lia explored further, spreading her hands across his chest. They looked tiny and pale next to that burnished skin. She could feel his heart thumping solidly, and some nameless emotion gripped her tight. But she ignored it. Now was not the time for emotion.
She raked her nails over him experimentally, catching a nipple, making him take another sharp intake of breath. He caught the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair. She looked up and felt drugged.
Not taking her gaze off his, she let her hands feel their way to his lean waist and found where his belt was buckled. She looked down and undid it, and then her hands were on his button and the zip. She could feel the insistent thrust of his erection through his clothes, and a wave of heat scorched her from the inside out and between her legs, where she felt damp again. Hot.
She pushed his trousers down over his hips and he stepped out of them, letting her go momentarily. Then he pulled down his briefs until he too was gloriously naked. She’d never been more aware of herself as a woman. There was something very elemental about this moment, with everything stripped away.
Unable to resist, and not even recognising herself any more, Lia reached out and encircled his hard flesh with her hand, stroking him up and down, mesmerised by the vulnerability of his erection and also the steely strength. The velvet texture of his skin. She touched the bead of moisture at its head and spread it with her thumb.
At that Ben took her hand from him and she looked up.
‘I won’t last if you keep touching me like that.’
He caught her hand and brought her around the side of the bed, urged her down onto it, following her. He looked massive from where she lay, all wide shoulders and chest and long, lean body.
Every nerve in her body was tingling. She could feel Ben’s erection against her thigh, hard and heavy. Big. She felt a shiver of trepidation, remembering the discomfort she’d felt with her fiancé and how she’d failed to excite him, but again, as if reading her mind, Ben distracted her by moving between her legs, spreading them wide.
With his elbows trapping her, he cupped both her breasts and teased her tingling nipples with his thumbs, before lowering his head and sucking first one and then the other into his hot mouth, torturing her with his wicked tongue.
As the flames of lust licked higher and higher Lia moaned softly. She wanted to squirm, to arch her back, but her movements were restricted by Ben’s big body holding hers down. It was an exquisite form of torture, and as he lavished attention on her breasts he moved subtly against her, notching his hips higher, until she could feel the blunt head of his erection move against her where she was slick with desire.
She widened her legs even more and tried to move her hips up, wanting him to fill the part of her that ached. Then she heard a muttered curse and Ben suddenly rolled away.
Lia lifted her head. She realised she was panting. ‘What’s wrong?’
For an awful second she went cold, imagining that he’d realised she wasn’t enough for him... But then she saw him extract something from a drawer beside the bed, heard foil tear, and then he was rolling protection onto his thick length.
Relief flooded her and she lay back. Ben knelt between her legs. Lia was all but splayed before him, like some kind of offering. But then, instead of coming over her again as she’d expected—as she wanted—he reached out a hand and touched her where she ached most. Where she was embarrassingly wet for him.
He circled her with his thumb, ratcheting up the tension inside her. Dipping inside, and out again, lubricating her with her own juices.
‘You want me.’
She wondered how on earth he could doubt it. Then she gasped and her back arched as he slid two fingers into her. She said jerkily, ‘I told you I did.’
Lia could feel her muscles tighten around his fingers. Heard him curse softly. She felt too exposed. She didn’t want him to make her come like this, while he watched.
She reached out and wrapped her hands around his arms. ‘Please... Ben, I need...’ Her back arched again as he thrust his fingers deeper, playing her like a violin. She lifted her head, hating the power he had over her right now, and said fiercely, ‘I need you.’
Ben finally took his hand away, and then he loomed over her, his thighs pushing hers apart, and she slid her hands up to his shoulders.
‘Look at me,’ he said roughly. ‘Don’t ever doubt that you are a very desirable woman, Lia.’
She looked down and saw him take himself in his hand as he guided himself towards her, and then he fed himself into her body, slowly, inch by inch, making her draw her breath in on one long inhale as he impaled her...utterly.
He was big...bringing her almost to the edge of discomfort. But he held himself still for a long moment, letting her body adjust to him. And then, when she took another breath, he started to move, and everything in Lia’s world was reduced to the here and now. This moment. This man. And the exquisite sensations rushing through her body.
She’d never felt anything like it as a wholly new tension built inside her with every movement of Ben’s body in and out of hers. She wrapped her legs around his back, heels digging into his taut muscles. His hand gripped her thigh and his movements became less careful, a little rougher.
He came closer, moved down over her, making his chest hair abrade her still sensitive nipples. She reached up and found his mouth, and as everything inside her coiled to a point of excruciating pleasure/pain she pressed a desperate kiss to his mouth until finally she was broken apart into a million shattering pieces.
She was barely aware of Ben’s own shout as his body tensed over hers for a long moment, muscles locked and taut as a paroxysm of pleasure held him in its grip too.
* * *
When Lia woke she felt completely disorientated, recognising that she wasn’t in her own bed, or room. And then she felt the unfamiliar aches in her body and memory came rushing back.
Dawn was breaking outside, bathing Ben’s room in a pink pearlescent hue that didn’t diminish the masculine tones one bit. Gingerly, Lia moved her head, and sucked in a breath when she saw the unashamedly male and indolent sprawl of a very naked Benjamin Carter beside her.
Even like this, in repose, he was magnificent... Dark stubble lined his jaw, making him look rakish. Long lashes should have prettified the stark and strong lines of his face but they didn’t. He looked marginally less fierce, especially when those blue eyes weren’t watching her and gauging her reaction to every little thing. She might hate him for that if she wasn’t feeling so...sated.
Her gaze travelled down over hard muscles and her face grew hot when she saw that most masculine