Page 145 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

She swallowed. “No.”

Rather than look annoyed—which was how she had felt when he had teased her earlier—he smiled. “You are a cruel mistress,” he murmured. “Would you like me to beg?”

Her jaw dropped, her breathing so rough she could hear it. “Yes.”

His nostrils flared. “Please let me stroke myself, Stacia.”

Stacia swore the room rocked around her at his plea. Yet again she gaped like a landed fish before collecting scrambled wits.

“You may. But s-slowly.”

The muscles in his abdomen and chest tensed as he stroked himself all the way from crown to root, his hips lifting off the bed as he thrust, his erection appearing obscenely huge.

“Again,” she commanded.

He repeated his caress, but only as much as she allowed him.

Power and desire warred inside her, the eroticism of having such a body at her control…intoxicating.

Stacia tormented him as long as she could bear it—until they were both tense with need—and then said, “M-make yourself—” her voice broke. “Do it,” she ordered gruffly, her tongue refusing to form the naughty words he’d used earlier.

He did not hesitate to comply, his hips pumping savagely, his slick length slamming into his fist. It took scarcely a half dozen thrusts before his muscles grew taut beneath his sheened skin. He reached out blindly with his free hand and when Stacia grasped it his hips rose off the bed, and she watched in wonder as his release came. Jet after jet after jet, crisscrossing as far as his chest, his grip on her hand crushing as each wave rolled through his big body.

His back arched until every striation and sinew must be visible. And then, suddenly, he sagged into a boneless heap, still gasping for breath as he reached up and flicked the blindfold from his head, glanced down at himself, and then used the expensive linen to wipe up his chest and belly.

He tossed the cloth aside when he was finished and offered her a heavy-eyed smile, looking as contented as a sleek cat lounging in a patch of warm sunshine. “Mmm, I liked having you watch me.”

Her face scalded under his sated gaze.

“Now I have embarrassed you,” he said as she disentangled their laced fingers.

“No, I just need—”

He caught her wrist when she would have slid off the bed. “Come and lie with me—it is late, and I am no danger to your virtue in this condition.” He grinned sleepily. “Not for some time, at least.”

“But…the candles?”

“Let them burn.” He released her long enough to pull the blankets from beneath their bodies and cover them. And then he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him, once again holding her with his front to her back. “There. Just like that.” He yawned. “I should have asked if you needed anything—food? Something to drink?”

“No,” she said faintly, her belly churning at the thought of trying to choke anything down at this point.

“Mmmm,” he rumbled, pulling her tighter and molding his body to hers. “Are you traumatized?”

She gave a startled laugh. “What?”

“Have you ever seen a naked, aroused man?”

“When would I have had a chance to see such a thing?” she demanded in a high, unnatural voice.

Predictably, he chuckled. “You mean you’ve never been locked into a priest hole with a strange man at any of the house parties you’ve attended? I thought it was all the rage.”

“I once saw the bare backside of my friend’s brother when I was visiting her during the summer,” she blurted.

“Oh?” he said, sounding slightly more awake. “And how was that experience?”

She snorted. “How do you think it was? I screamed and ran.”

His big body shook with mirth as he kissed her temple, ear, and neck. “Poor Stacia. How old were you?”