Chapter 17 #2
He could not account for why that inflamed him so, but he found himself rolling her onto her back, tugging at the laces that held her bodice together, his kisses becoming harder and more demanding against her mouth as she stripped him of his holy orders in favor of the man underneath.
She was unbuttoning his cassock, likely unaware just how many more layers of inconvenient clothing were awaiting underneath, while he tugged away the linen on her body.
They rolled and lifted and grunted in frustration as layer by layer came away, only breaking in their kissing if something needed to be lifted over the head.
He stood and pulled away much of his fabric, moving to remove his own trousers as she scrambled out of the layers of her dress, her stays in a heap over the bed post and her eyes glassy at the anticipation of it.
He could see every detail of her, every wild curl that had gone rumpled from the digging of his fingers, every inch of exposed pale skin.
Never in his most depraved dreaming had he thought he might get to experience this in the full glory of sunlight.
He felt her eyes graze over his bared chest as she crawled backward in nothing but her shift. Saw the way her breath caught as he unlaced his trousers. It was a wonder he didn’t lose himself completely well before he could take her as he wished to.
He had to put off the moment of satisfaction, somehow, he realized. He had to elongate the pleasure for her sake or he would spend himself at the first brush of consummation.
“Lie back,” he whispered, releasing the laces at his waistband but not moving to push the trousers away. “Lie back, Rosalind.”
“Oh, but …” she began, but trailed off as his hands came up to stroke her ankles, pushing the hem of her shift higher up her legs, the warmth of his palms soaking into her skin. “Oh.”
She fell back, her hair splaying out around her like a halo as he watched her, his eyes half-lidded with awe that he was finally getting this, to do this, to touch her this way as he pushed that skirt higher, up above her knees, urging her shapely legs apart.
His trousers strained against him, reminding him of how impatient he was for this, of why he needed to indulge, to savor before he took.
He had touched her thighs dozens of times now, he thought as he moved the fabric higher, easing it over the warm expanse of her healing bruise and up to her hips, but none of them had felt like this.
She was bare to him now. Glistening and ripe and more succulent than any fig. His eyes fell on her with a dizziness that threatened to unmake him entirely.
“Rosalind,” he said again, his voice gone rough. “May I?”
“Yes,” she breathed, because she knew he liked to hear her say it. “Yes.”
He knelt, drawing her closer with his arms hooked under her thighs, and touched her first, lightly, with the pads of his thumbs.
He listened to the way she breathed, at the little flutters of sound from her throat, and groaned into the soft flesh of her thigh, kissing his way along the line of her leg.
“Matthew,” she whispered, reaching down to touch the ends of his curls, to twist her fingers lightly into them. “Am I ready? Am I ripe?”
He felt his limbs give, a shudder running through him at the question. He leaned forward and gently pressed his mouth to her, coating his lips in her wetness, trembling at the sharp way she sucked in a breath as he darted his tongue out to taste her.
“Yes,” he growled into her. “Yes, you are perfect.”
“Oh,” she whimpered, her hips coming off the bed as he dove further into his indulgence, as he careened past gentle sampling into a full, ravenous feast. Her fingers tightened in his hair, tugging gently as she gasped and squirmed beneath him, as she let him glut himself this way, lapping and sipping to his full content.
He gripped her hips, careful to avoid her bruise as he pulled her as close to him as she could get, as he found the ways that pulled the most satisfying sounds from her lungs.
Her legs kicked, her hands dragging out from his hair and along his cheeks as she began to plead in small, sweet little nonsense syllables, edging toward the crest of her own bliss.
He felt himself moan at the overwhelming sensuality of it, driven only to take her deeper and more hungrily.
His craving for her only climbed the more he attempted to sate it, and in the end, she unfurled for him, crying out as her hands grasped at the empty air on either side of him, her body bucking one final time as it released all the pleasure that had coiled up inside, waiting to be coaxed free.
He held her steady as she went slack, easing her back onto the mattress as he showered her legs with kisses, gentling her legs back into place so he could stand and gaze down at her.
He could still taste her, could still feel the glisten of her on his lips as he watched her curl onto her side and claw for breath, her body heaving and glowing with her release.
It was only then that he allowed himself to remove his trousers, to free himself of that final barrier to his own satisfaction.
He crawled into the bed behind her and curled around her body, sweeping the hair from the back of her neck as he nuzzled into the soft flesh there, letting himself feel how sweet and soft she was, completely bare and warm against his skin.
He did not rush or demand. For the moment, all he wanted was to share in her breathing, to feel the shudders of her recovery, to breathe in time and smell her hair and hold her close as she absorbed the wonder of her first true release.
As her breathing slowed, he felt her pressing back into him, felt her limbs growing away from their curled position at her center like an opening blossom. She reached an arm back and curled it around his neck, turning her head so that she could look at him behind her.
“There is more,” she said.
It was not a question.
“There is more,” he confirmed. “If you want it.”
“I want it,” she said immediately. “I want you. Yes.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, his body shuddering at the power of the words as they tore through him. He ran a hand down the naked curve of her hip, over her bruised thigh and down to her knee, which he lifted gently and brought backward, to rest atop his own leg as he nudged himself forward.
He thought, briefly, that he should have taken her shift off first. That he should have stripped her completely bare. But it was too late now, and he could not stop himself for anything, even the promise of Rosalind fully naked in his arms.
He was gentle, stroking into her in tiny, measured movements as he clenched his teeth together against the desire to burst from his own skin like a rutting demon, his every pore aflame with desire and want.
She pushed back against him, whispering over and over again, “Yes.”
Until finally he was lost.
There was nothing but motion, but tangled limbs and assent and her voice whispering yes as he took her in gliding, perfect strokes while his hands ran over the beautiful curves of her body.
And when he fell, he fell in totally, and he, too, said, “Yes.” He held her close and tight as he came apart and he knew, in that moment of flashing, complete pleasure, that he was hers completely and forever.