Chapter 23 #2
Her breath hitches again, her hands clutching my shoulders. “You’re not exactly making it easy for me to deliver top-tier spa service here.”
I smile against her skin. “You did your job. You relaxed me.”
“Good,” she whispers.
“And now,” I murmur, tilting her chin so she’s looking me dead in the eye, “it’s my turn.”
She doesn’t look surprised that I need to take over. Or disappointed, come to that. Our mouths connect again, and she wraps her arms around my neck, clinging to me like she’s as desperate as I am.
“I loved my spa evening,” I tell her, wanting her to know how appreciative I am.
“You did?” Her lips curve into a smile that hits me straight in the heart. I swear I could live to make her happy.
“I did.” I kiss her throat. “Let me show you how much.” I move my fingers again, finding the slickest part of her. She lets out a soft gasp as I circle her, feeling how swollen, how needy she is for me.
“West,” she whispers.
I brush my lips over hers. “I want to taste you,” I tell her. I haven’t thought about much else all day. Her sweet against my fingers, my tongue, around my cock.
Making her come so hard she can’t walk.
“Here? In the bath?” Her brows dip.
I grin. “Not unless you want to drown.”
Before she can reply, I lift her, gently, but without asking, rising to my feet with her in my arms. Water cascades down our bodies, sloshing over the side of the tub.
She clings to me, laughing breathlessly as I carry her through the steam-filled room to grab some towels for us, because there’s only one part of her that I want to be wet right now.
“West,” she murmurs, arms wrapping tighter around my neck as I carry her. “You don’t have to…”
“I want to.”
I dry her off, then myself, before I lay her down on our bed, her legs splayed out, her damp hair a contrast to the crisp white sheets.
“Look at you,” I murmur. “Such a beautiful wife. All clean and aching for me.”
I get to my knees, wanting to worship her, kissing the sole of her foot because I’m nothing if not thorough.
She giggles, but it turns into a soft gasp when I press my lips to her ankle.
Then her calf, slowly moving up to the inside of her knee.
My hands are firm on her thighs, spreading them wider, anchoring her to the bed as I move higher, letting my mouth follow the curve of her leg, pressing open-mouthed kisses against her flushed skin.
“Oh God,” she breathes, her voice already shaky.
I lift my head to look at her. Her eyes are heavy with want.
“You’re already trembling,” I murmur, lips brushing her inner thigh. “And I haven’t even started.”
She shudders as I kiss along her thighs. As my thumbs part her even more. As my breath ghosts over her slick heat.
And then I taste her.
A low groan escapes from my throat as I bury my tongue in her, letting her flavor flood my senses. I lick her slow and deep, like I’ve got all the time in the world. Her back arches. Her fingers twist in the sheets. Her moan is half my name, half incoherent.
I drag my tongue up and circle her, slowly at first, then faster, teasing her with pressure and rhythm. Her hips jerk and I pin them down, not letting her escape. Not letting her take control. That’s my job. Making her forget everything except the fact that she’s mine.
I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than to feel this woman come on my mouth.
Okay one thing more, but that part of my body will have to wait.
Right now the pleasure is for her. I lift my hand to slide my fingers against her, my tongue never relenting, then I push two inside of her warm, welcoming body, feeling her contract, so damn tightly I almost come without being inside her.
And that would be a travesty.
So I hold it together. Barely. Focused on her, on the way her breath catches, the way her thighs begin to quake around my shoulders, and ignoring the heavy, aching need that makes my body yearn for her.
“West,” she gasps, and I feel it, the way her body tightens around my fingers, the way she’s right on the edge.
I curl them just right, drag my tongue in a rhythm I know she’ll remember tomorrow, and she falls.
She comes with a cry that rips through her, her whole body arching off the bed, but my mouth is still moving, drawing it out. Giving her more. Until she’s shaking with aftershocks, her breath stuttering, her fingers reaching for me like she’s trying to find an anchor to cling to.
I let her pull me up, her eyes so wide and focused it’s like she doesn’t want to see anything else. Her chest is heaving, her body trembling. She presses her lips to mine, making it clear she needs the closeness, the connection.
The same thing I need right now.
“I need you inside of me,” she murmurs, not caring that I must taste of her, that my whole face is slick with her desire. “Please…”
She hitches her hips against me, and I have to close my eyes to center myself. How many times have I thought about this moment since she moved in? Since we said ‘I do?’
Or before? I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think about anything except the way her soft curves fit so perfectly against the hard planes of my body, like she was made for this. Made for me.
I cup her face, kissing her as softly as I can, because there’s a feral heat in me telling me to take her rough and hard. To make her mine completely.
To make her scream out my name so loudly that the whole world will know who she belongs to.
But this is Eden. She drew me a bath. I’m not going to be a neanderthal after she treated me so damn sweetly.
“You sure?” I ask her, because I need her to be all in. Somewhere, in the very depths of my mind, there’s a warning siren going off. Not because this is wrong – hell I’ve cleaned up worst messes before – but because it feels too right.
Because I know that nothing good ever lasts.
“Take me, West.”
The way she says it, so softly, yet so full of certainty, pushes away all of my worrisome thoughts, replacing them with a dark, shadowy desire that’s impossible to ignore.
I line myself up, and for one beat, I pause. Just to remember this. The way she’s looking at me like I’m worth something. Like I’m hers.
And then I press into her slowly. Not because I want to tease her, but because the moment feels too damn big to rush.
Her breath catches.
Mine stops altogether.
“Oh.” Her wide eyes stare up at me like I’m some kind of god. “Please. More.”
And then I’m inside of her. All of her. She closes around me like the tightest of velvet warmth.
My whole world narrows to a pinpoint, suffused with heat and pleasure. She lets out a gasp as I bottom out, the two of us connected in every way.
But I don't move. I can't. Not yet.
Because this – this moment – is a miracle. And some part of me knows I’ll never get it back if I screw it up.
She’s looking up at me with those huge, dazed eyes, her lips parted like she’s about to say something but forgot how to speak. And then it hits me.
I’ve never done this before, not like this. Not with someone looking at me like I’m everything. Knowing I’m looking back at her the same way.
I start to move, slow and deep, letting her feel every inch of me. Her breath stutters. Her body arches. Her legs tighten around my waist.
“Oh god, West,” she breathes, like it’s a prayer. Like I’m the answer to a question she never knew she was asking.
I bury my face in her neck, trying to hold it together. To keep my rhythm. To make it last. But the sound she makes when I thrust again – half moan, half sob – makes something inside of me crack wide open.
I want to brand her from the inside out. I want to crawl inside her skin and never leave.
I want to make her mine, so completely, she’ll never see anything but my face again.
Her hips rock up to meet mine, her heels pressing into my back, her nails digging into my shoulders like she’s trying to keep herself tethered to reality.
But I don’t want her grounded. I want to lift her. Ruin her. Worship her until she forgets her own name and only remembers mine.
“West,” she gasps, her voice trembling. “Don’t stop.”
“Not a chance, baby.” I’m not sure I ever want to.
I ride her deeper, harder, but still somehow I’m still restrained. I don’t want to break her. I want her to feel me. To know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’m hers.
Her breath catches. Her body arches.
“I – oh my God—”
“I’ve got you,” I whisper hoarsely, kissing her throat. “Let go for me. Let me feel you come.”
And she does.
Her whole body goes taut, her eyes wide as her orgasm crashes over her. A choked cry leaves her lips, and then she’s trembling around me, pulling me in deeper with every pulse of her body like she never wants to let go. It’s heaven in human form. She’s around me, inside me. Everywhere.
And feeling as she takes her pleasure from me is all I need.
I follow her with a groan, burying myself deep as I come undone, emptying into her with a force that leaves me shaking. My heart pounds. My body feels wrung out.
But it’s not just a release. It’s something more. Something I never thought existed. At least not for a man like me.
I press my lips to her temple, still inside of her, still trying to catch my breath. She’s soft and boneless in my arms, her fingers brushing my back like she’s memorizing me with every stroke.
Eventually, I slide out and roll us to our sides without letting go, before I pull the covers up around us. Eden lets out a sleepy, contented hum, and nestles in closer until her face is on my chest. I can smell the sweetness of her shampoo, feel the cadence of her rapid breaths.
But more than anything, I feel something that I haven’t felt in a long, long time. Maybe not since I was a tiny kid.
I feel safe.
I wrap my arms tighter around her soft body, because if anybody isn’t safe right now, it’s her. My wife. The woman who thinks she can change the world one gray water system at a time.
She shifts against me, murmuring something I can’t quite understand. But it doesn’t matter. She’s here. She’s warm.
And mine. Completely and utterly.
For now, at least.