Cheryl Holt by Total Surrender

corner, and she stiffened at the sudden contact. His hands fell to her waist, and the muscles across his back tensed and bulged as he pulled her against him. She unfastened the clasp, and he dictated, “Push it off your shoulders.”
    She complied, but the hood stayed on, so her face was still hidden, and Sarah’s view included the woman’s arm and back. Mr. Stevens’s questing fingers lifted to cradle her breasts and, although Sarah couldn’t see the maneuver, she sensed his ministrations.
    He was trifling with the woman’s nipples, twisting and twirling them as he had Sarah’s own, and she observed, stimulated and agog. He rocked his front against his lover’s backside, and he dallied, his searching hands never still, until he had her squirming. The woman groaned, as though in misery, but Mr. Stevens only gripped her tighter.
    “Does your husband touch you like this?” he queried.
    “No, never.”
    “How about like this?”
    “No,” the woman repeated, gasping and writhing, and Sarah received the distinct impression that he was smirking and preening.
    Men! She’d never comprehend their thinking or their motives!
    She strained against the peephole, but she couldn’t discern exactly what he was affecting. He was caressing the woman, but how? How was he provoking her to dissemble so dramatically?
    His paramour was definitely relishing his thoroughness. Guttural moans issued from her throat, a fist wrestled against the leg of his trouser, grappling for purchase against the taut fabric. In visible ecstasy, her head tipped back, and Mr. Stevens kissed and bit against her nape.
    He rotated her, until they were facing the mirror, andthe moment became too personal for Sarah, because she recalled only too well how he’d positioned
her
when he’d been in her dressing room, how he’d cupped her breasts and toyed with her nipples. She could still vividly recall the heat and scent of his skin, the strength of his resolve.
    Her nipples began to ache. With each beat of her heart, her pulse pounded through them. They cried out for a type of relief she couldn’t describe and, hoping to ease their distress, she covered one of them with her palm. The contact set off a maelstrom of agitation that rolled through her chest and rushed down her stomach, centering between her legs.
    Her womanly cleft dampened, the flesh swelled. In agony, she grazed down her abdomen to her wet core. Even through the fabric of her nightrail, she could feel the radiating warmth. Her total being pleaded for a release that was outside her realm of experience, and a frantic longing seemed about to sweep her away. Without a doubt, the novel, strange appetites were stirred by what she was perusing.
    Stop watching!
she ordered herself.
This isn’t right or proper
. But she could no more quit than she could halt the sun from rising on the morrow. She was mesmerized by the sight of his bronzed fingers on the woman’s pale breast. The display incited unnatural cravings and kindled formerly shrouded desires, desires that she had no means of quelling.
    Although she should have felt ashamed or—at least—confused, she simply became more and more curious.
    Unrepentant, she pressed against the peephole, braced for more.
    Mr. Stevens’s arm was draped across the woman’s torso and spread low where Sarah couldn’t investigate its performance. Presumably, he was fondling her cleft as he had Sarah’s, and the woman zealously luxuriated in his intimate treatment. Their bodies rode together in an adapted rhythm, the woman making pitiful, begging noises.
    “Look at us,” Mr. Stevens commanded. “Look at what I’m doing to you, and say my name.”
    “Michael Stevens,” she replied.
    “Louder.” She uttered it distinctly, and he appeared exultant. His hips ceased their perpetual movement. “I’ll have you now,” he declared. “On the bed.”
    Where the minute before, he’d been amorously attuned and greedy for her, he’d instantly changed, strutting