Reverence - Book 2

- 36 -

There was something tantric about the way he loosened his tie.

The way his fingers bent and moved like water, turning the dark silk free. It slithered from his collar like a snake through softly swaying grass.

The same way his fingers pulled down the zipper of my dress fluidly, in one silent but sensuous motion.

We had started as we awaited the valet to bring around the car, when my fingers brushed against his own and he glanced down at me, and I met those eyes. Full of fire.

The same brush of my fingers had come again when I reached across the console, this time over the taught fabric of his trousers, my nails testing the firmness of his thigh muscle.

It was my favorite game, to touch him. Watch his eyes dart at the dancing of my fingers like he was anticipating the next fall of my fingerprint.

And lastly, when those fingers clasped around the end of that tie, pulling him into the darkness of our bedroom.

Now this time, his fingers were on me, not touching as lightly as mine but with more possessive yearning than I could stomach.

I let the dress fall around my feet, the burgundy satin sliding down the patent heel of my platforms.

His gaze engulfed me, the tip of his tongue running deliciously slow across the plane of his lip that was being pulled between his teeth.

"You are so..."

He breathed, his hands working at the tiny buttons of his shirt. I swallowed down the shiver that erupted at the base of my spine.

His shirt hung open, revealing hard marbled muscle and feverish tan skin. Those hands clasped around my hips, gently guiding me until the back of my thighs kissed the smoothness of our sheets.

I watched the careful flutter of the material beneath my skin. He stood above me, the tails of his shirt rippling like swaying fronds on midnight wind.

"So incredible."

He sighed, fingers brushing my flushed cheek. He withdrew his hand, shirking the shirt from his shoulders. I watched the fabric cling to the fullness of his biceps.

"I've dreamt about your body."

He breathed, coming closer to me.

"The way it moves, the way it feels beneath my own. The way it tastes."

I felt the pins of excitement tingle in my fingertips. He was so close now, I could reach out and run my excited hands over the broad expanse of him.

But before I could fathom the movement, he fell to his knees before me.

Carefully his hand grasped my calf, raising it so that the sole of my platform rest against his hard chest. I met his eyes as they slithered across the vulnerable plane of my leg. As if spreading the wings of a butterfly, his fingers unclasped the buckle around my ankle, removing it from my foot like it were made of brittle shell.

He pressed a tender kiss on the inside of my ankle. Instinctively I winced at the phantom of pain that once caressed it.

He repeated this, almost methodically, as if unclothing me was his religion. His hands traveled slowly, each finger searching and touching every exposed inch of my skin like they were reciting it to memory.

His right index finger ran inquisitively over a waxen scar on my knee, and I felt the pallor rush into my face. Those fire eyes were eclipsed by the furrowing of his brow.

"I don't remember this."

He said softly, almost to himself.

"Dancing has transposed me."