Chapter 21
MARA
He’s magnificent. Utterly magnificent with his head thrown back, broad chest and stomach dragging for air, and strong hands holding me exactly where he wants as he works to bury every inch of himself inside of me. Even as wet as I am, it’s a struggle because of his thickness.
I do this to him.
Me. Mara Shay.
I’d worried how accepting a man into my body again would affect me.
Whether I would find myself trapped in other encounters of the past and close my eyes and pray for a field of flowers to appear in my mind, or if I would burst into tears from the violation of being penetrated.
I knew his cock was big, both in and out of a state of arousal.
But in this moment, the man touching me is gentle as he pins me in place without hurting me. His smell clean and familiar as his pleasure stings with a lovely burn. The feel of him comforting instead of sickening.
No, there will be no escaping to the flowers in my mind. Not with Warren.
My soul knows him.
My husband, the man who just recited a wedding vow so beautiful and perfect in its sincerity that I could almost cry.
The only man I will ever take into my body again.
He bottoms out with a jagged groan, then he stills, transfixed at the sight of our joining. “Too good,” he mumbles breathlessly. “How can you even fit all of me inside you like this?”
I don’t have the answer to that. All I know is I’ve never felt so damn full in all my life. “Move,” I beg. “I need you to move!”
He stiffens, a pained grimace twisting his handsome features. “You mean get out?”
“No, I mean move!” Still holding his hips with my legs and hands, I yank him down until we’re skin to skin once more. At the change of sensation from the different angle, I gasp and he curses, but he slaps a hand to either side of my head to brace himself. “Take me,” I plead.
“Fuck!” The word is almost as deep as his cock as he begins to move in choppy strokes, murmuring things that might be words of love just as much as they might be nonsense as he settles into a slow, grinding rhythm.
The heavy pressure is so perfect that my senses momentarily go blind.
Surrounded and conquered by him, I close my eyes and let myself float away in bliss.
Words leave me, but there is no need for soft lies to falsely stroke his ego to get him to finish.
My arms wrap around the expanse of his back as I try to pull him even more into me.
I need more of his touch. More of him. Although his body rubs against my clit with every movement, I’m unsure if I can find release again so soon.
But even if I don’t, there’s a different sort of womanly pleasure in holding him as he makes me his wife and finds satisfaction in my body.
With every thrust, the remnants of the wall barricading my heart crumble as his love for me gently and steadily batters into it.
“Just like this. Keep going just like this.”
The hot breath of Warren’s groan burns my neck as he slowly and steadily slides into me again. Over and over, as he breathes words of praise into my skin. “So good. You’re so good for only me, wife.”
He curses when I accidentally squeeze around him. “Goddammit, Mara. Don’t be doing that. Not unless you want me to lose control.”
“What if that’s what I want?” I do it again, this time on purpose, and the way his face pinches tautly tells me just how close he is.
Sweat beads along his forehead, and his muscled arms strain as he fights to not fully crush me with his weight.
What would it take to push him over the edge?
All these nights, he selflessly gave me release without taking any for himself.
Even tonight, he made sure I reached my peak before he ever breached me with his cock.
“Don’t goad me,” he warns through gritted teeth. This is a man clinging to the last threads of his control, and the knowledge is thrilling. His hips move a little harder, a little wilder.
I love it.
I slip my hands down to cup his ass as I clench around him again. Warren growls, hips stilling until I release him. And then my sweet, charming husband becomes a beast, driving into me with savage thrusts so forceful that I slide across the bed.
“Yes,” I moan through choppy breaths. “Make me yours, husband.” Make me forget every man who ever came before you.
The more he claims me, the more a deep desire stirs within my core at the vast power difference between us.
The man strong enough to hurt me uses his strength to please me.
To protect me. I think…I think I crave being small and powerless in the embrace of such a man.
From this man.
My husband.
I wait for the fear from such a thought as Warren’s arms tighten around me, but there’s only a wave of want. An absolute realization that being beneath him—and only him—and seeing the stark, physical need on his beautiful face as he takes what he wants from me only makes me crave him more.
His hips falter, thrusts growing both slower and harder.
With one last forceful surge forward, he holds, releasing himself into me with a long, hoarse groan.
The sight and sounds of him in this state—knowing it’s because of how much he desires me—is enough to send me spiraling once more.
I pulse around him, barely hearing his muffled swearing over my own broken breaths as my vision grows spotty and I lose myself to oblivion.
Warren collapses onto me, crushing me for a brief moment before lifting to tenderly brush sweaty strands from my brow.
Even though the cool air that chills my skin is welcoming, I miss the full, comforting weight of him.
He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to pull his cock from me, though, and I don’t mind staying connected to him for a while longer.
He glances down at our joining, awe and satisfaction mixing in his expression. “I didn’t know such perfection and heaven could be found in a wife, but now that you’re mine, I need you every night for forever and always.”
“That’s a long time.” I place my hand over his pounding heart. Love, only a mere four letters, isn’t an adequate word to describe the depth of my feelings for the man this heart belongs to, but it’s the only one that comes close.
“Eternity itself isn’t long enough for a love like ours, Mara.
” He kisses me, deep and slow, and I believe him.
“I’d tie you to me like this forever if I could, so don’t you go getting any wild ideas about anything less than eternity unless you want me to show you all the ways a Shay man hunts down his woman. ”
His words are intense, but after hearing Dove and Eleanor’s own stories, I believe him in that, too. “I don’t ever want to leave you. I love you too much.”
“Not as much as I love you.” He glances towards the corner of the room. “And that sweet, beautiful daughter of ours, who I can’t believe slept long enough for us to have this time together.”
“It must have been all the noise and people tonight that tired her out.” A blessing in disguise.
Now that our breathing has returned to normal, my lashes steadily grow heavier.
I pull him closer and seek his lips, the gesture one of affection rather than desire, and his hips begin to lazily move.
“How long are you going to stay inside me?”
“Mhmm…” A smile just as languid as his thrusts forms. “Thank you for reminding me.”
In this sleepy haze, it takes me a moment to register his words. “Reminding you?”
“That I need to clean you up.” He slowly drags his softening, but still obscenely large, cock from me, hissing when I may or may not accidentally clench around the blunt tip again.
Fluid—both his and mine—leaks in the wake of his exit, and I shift uncomfortably.
I never did care for the sticky mess men left behind.
Mostly because I never wanted the man it came from in the first place.
I don’t mind Warren’s so much, but I would most definitely appreciate it being wiped away now.
But if I expected a towel or a shirt, I would be sorely mistaken. Instead, he moves down on the bed and hooks my thighs around his shoulders. I drag up the energy to lift to my elbows. “What on earth are you doing?”
Warren thumbs my entrance, playing with the liquid and sensitive skin as if mesmerized. “Goddamn, wife. Your little quim looks so pretty all covered in me.”
No one has ever been this…this captivated with this part of me beyond how it could be used for their own needs, and for Warren to be so intensely focused on it makes me flustered.
Being seen is so very different than merely being looked at, and this man sees me like no other.
My knees knock together to block him, but they fall right back open when his mouth nuzzles my inner thigh.
“You didn’t answer me,” I finally get out.
“I told you before, wife. If I make the mess, I clean it up.”
“You mean you intend to lick up your…your seed?” My mouth is agape. Never on earth have I heard such a thing! “You could just wipe it away.”
He winks roguishly. “Oh, I will. With my tongue. Because why would I use anything else when I could have a taste of us together? Now keep those pretty legs wrapped around my head and let me get to cleaning.”
Stunned, I fall back to the bed, all traces of sleepiness vanishing. I should know by now that my husband is absolutely nothing like any man who has been before him, and by the time he and his tongue are done, I can say beyond all shadow of a doubt that I’ve never been cleaned so thoroughly.
Or loved.
We manage to get about an hour’s sleep before Emmaline wakes up, and even though I’m sore and exhausted, happiness radiates from my very bones.
Oh, it had awkward moments, of course, but it was altogether beautiful and healing.
Having him wrapped around me and moving inside me as he told me and showed me how much he loved me…
Warren drags his lips in a soft kiss to my temple as I lean back on his chest to nurse Emmaline. Being held in this moment by such a good man is healing, too.
“Look at her go. She’s dang near ‘bout to choke if she doesn’t calm down.” From behind me, Warren comments the obvious with no small amount of concern at Emmaline’s almost frantic gulps.
“She’ll settle soon enough.” I run my fingers through the softness of Emmaline’s hair and receive a happy, milky grin from her in return. “See? Poor baby’s belly was empty, wasn’t it, my darling? You need to have more patience.”
“Oh yeah?” The smile in his voice is obvious even without looking at him. “You mean like the patience I had in making you mine? Guess that makes me the patient parent and you the stubborn one. That about the right of it?”
I scowl simply from habit, but it’s not heartfelt. “That’s not exactly what I meant. Just because you might have more patience than me doesn’t automatically cast me as being stubborn.”
“Hmm.” His toes nudge playfully at mine. “Considering how long it took to convince you to marry me, I’d say I’m a patient man.”
“One could also raise the argument that you’re a stubborn one since you didn’t give up until you got your way.”
“Well, damn,” he muses with a huff. “Guess I can’t argue that one away.”
I rest my head on him, eyes closing as my soft laughter dies off. “I’m glad I went last night.” Never would I have dreamed that the night would end up as it did, but it was absolutely perfect.
“So’m I.” His arms wrap around Emmaline and me as he kisses my cheek. “Because now everyone in town knows how beautiful my wife and baby are.”
“Stop it,” I protest halfheartedly, but I can’t stop the rush of heat blazing into my cheeks nor the fluttering of my heart.
“What? A man can’t be proud to show off his family?”
Proud, he says. Months ago, I would have thought it a lie. A well-meaning one to spare my feelings, perhaps, but a lie nonetheless. After last night, though…after the way he forced his way into my life and claimed both me and Emmaline…I know he speaks truth.
This is where I belong.