“I can’t.” She breathed in and out rapidly. “I hadn’t realized that my… that they could be so—”
“Sensitive? You have no idea, my Valkyrie.” He pulled her forward, ignoring the warmth of her rump on his groin, and lifted her breast through the vee of her neckline. Cradling it between his hands, he lowered his head.
Her amazed cry was all he could have wished for. He curled his tongue around her nipple, wetting it thoroughly, and then began to suckle. She arched up against him. When he’d had his way with one breast, he gave equal attention to the other. By then Johanna was hardly breathing at all.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“This is what they were made for, Johanna,” he said, pressing his face between her breasts. “To be pleasured and to give pleasure.”
If she meant to protest his dismissal of their biological function, she hadn’t enough presence of mind to do so.
“You… enjoy—”
“Indubitably.” To prove it, he caressed her again.
“Quentin?”
“Yes…”
“I have read about the experience of orgasm—” She kept her eyes firmly closed, as if to protect herself from embarrassment. “But I do not know what it’s like. Can you explain it to me?”
He pulled back and muffled a laugh. “It’s not something one can explain… especially from a man to a woman.”
“Is it possible to achieve without actual intercourse?”
“Why?”
“Because I think… I think…” She opened her mouth and shuddered, rising up on her knees and falling back again. The impact on his erection was astonishing. Stars danced in front of his eyes.
“No,” she said. “No, I… must have been mistaken. For a moment, I thought—”
Filled with an inexpressible tenderness, Quentin drew her close. “You’ll know, Johanna,” he said. He caught her face between his hands and kissed the tip of her nose. “And we aren’t nearly finished yet.”
Johanna was finally compelled to confess her ignorance. She hadn’t had the slightest notion, for all her reading and observation, how wonderful sex could be. And Quentin had just begun.
It wasn’t only the physical sensations, which of themselves were startling and indescribable. It was also the closeness—physical and emotional—that was so much more than the proximity of bodies.
She was eager to continue, but she contained herself. She was no wild wanton to lose every last vestige of common sense, forget where she was and why. She wanted to fully absorb every experience.
In case it never happened again.
“What is next?” she asked in a voice she hoped didn’t betray her enthusiasm.
“I’ll show you.” He set his hands at her waist and lifted her easily, placing her on the bed beside him. He rolled over to cover her with his body.
Johanna tensed. His position reminded her too much of Fenris, and the feeling of helplessness she so despised. But Quentin made no move to constrain her. He leaned on one elbow and drew his fingers through her hair with his other hand, working the braids loose.
“Trust me, Johanna,” he said.
“I do.” She allowed him to separate the strands of her hair and spread it out across the pillow.
“Beautiful,” he said.
“A very ordinary brown,” she corrected.
“Let me be the judge of that.” He kissed her, lightly at first, and then with greater passion. Her arms moved of their own accord to pull him down. He demonstrated the amazing variations possible in a simple kiss, from agile use of the tongue to subtle movements of strong, masculine lips.
And then he showed her all the other places on her body that could also be kissed.
He began with the other parts of her face: brow, cheeks, chin, jawline. He suckled the lobe of her ear, provoking waves of delicious shivers. She hadn’t suspected how incredibly sensitive the flesh of her neck and its junction with her shoulder could be, especially when he grazed it with his teeth and salved it with his tongue afterward.
Inch by meticulous inch he worked his way down her body. She almost cried out in anticipation as he reached her breasts and repeated his previous caresses. His mouth closed over her nipple, sucking and tugging in a way that sent lances of sensation shooting directly into her womb.