Chapter Eighteen #2
“Mmm.” She relieved him of the waistcoat.
Setting to work on his cravat, she pressed heated kisses to the skin she uncovered from that length of fabric.
The scrape of her teeth on his neck would send him into madness soon.
“Too many clothes still.” That whisper held so much fervor, passion that he at once agreed.
Fabric fell to the floor in abandoned puddles.
He toed off his boots, hopping, tugging the footwear from his person while she removed her petticoat.
Dear God, in the gentle illumination from the candlelight, the outline of her hardened, pink nipples was clearly visible.
Quickly, he tugged the collar, cuffs, and linen shirt from his body, and as she slowly removed that thin shift, he shucked out of his breeches.
Arousal pulsed through his shaft; finally she was his without distraction.
His ability to breathe completely left him, for she stood naked before him, and the air stalled in his lungs.
Though rounded eyes full of need and the slight flush on her cheeks with her hands resting lightly on her rounded hips made her the subject of a painter’s dream.
From the swell of her breasts to the nip of her waist to the thatch of black curls at the apex of her thighs, she was every inch a goddess, descended from the heavens for his pleasure.
“So much awe? You’ve seen me thusly many times before, Major.” The blatant look of invitation finally spurred him back to life.
“Yes, I know, but every time is amazing.” Drawing in a breath, Felix slid a hand down her spine, brushed his fingers against the divot at the small of her back while she explored the planes of his chest, his abdomen, glanced her fingertips along the curve of his arse.
Every touch, each caress hurled him closer to the edge, but he didn’t wish to waste time with words, so he kissed her, tangled his hands in her hair, tilted her head back, and kissed her as if that were his only purpose in life.
Perhaps in his moment it was.
Caroline sighed, put a palm to his cheek, swept it around to his nape and encouraged him closer with the veriest hint of pressure. “I have lived for this moment.” She wriggled her hips into his, bumping his hardened member, and giggled when a hiss issued from him.
“It is the same moment we’ve shared before.”
“But it feels different this time, don’t you think?”
“I don’t believe I’m thinking at all.” He moved his hands to her waist and when he tossed her onto the bed, her squeal of delight went straight to his stones. “But damn if I’m not going to draw this out.” For them both. “It is the start of our honeymoon, after all.”
In a twinkling, he joined her on the bed, but she wasn’t having any of his domination—not yet.
She pushed at his chest until he collapsed onto his back, looked at her as curiosity flowed through his veins.
For the moment, he would let her have the upper hand.
After, he would finish them both in hopefully spectacular fashion.
“You are so much more interesting when nude, Major.” Caroline straddled his knees, laid her palms on his hips with his erect shaft front and center.
He snorted in an effort to dislodge the desire that wanted to ignore foreplay. “I don’t know about that.” When he reached for her, she batted his hands away. Clearly, she knew what she wanted and wouldn’t be dissuaded. It was one of the things that had drawn him to her to begin with.
“Luckily, I do.” Slowly, watching him the whole time, she leaned over. Strands of her hair tickled the sensitive skin of his member, and he sucked in a tight breath. “For the next several minutes, abandon your duties and focus on all the wicked things we can do together.”
“As if I have a prayer of doing anything else.”
“Good.” Then she pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his abdomen, dragged those lips up his chest. Her fingers followed, combing through the mat of hair there, teasing the flat discs of his nipples with her nails until they hardened, and another gasp escaped him.
“Dear God.” He shivered from the erotic sensations and rather enjoyed her play. “Caro…” Already, he might perish from her touch.
“Hmm?” Dark desire and heat glimmered in the blue pools of her eyes as she continued her exquisite torture.
“More?” Before he could comment, she once more leaned over him, her hair and nipples glancing over his skin, and when she closed her lips around the head of his straining length, he nearly vaulted off the bed.
“Ah!” His hips bucked, in an invitation or a simple reaction, he didn’t know, but she chuckled and took him deeper into the warm cavern of her mouth, working him over as if they’d been together like this for an eternity.
A taste of things waiting in his future.
Fisting the bedding in his hands, he dug in his heels, tried to regulate his breathing, but she wasn’t quite done with him.
She pulled off him, and with swollen lips, smiled. “Ready for what’s next?”
“That depends.” Did she refer to this moment or to the future?
This was moving all too quickly, and he hadn’t had enough time to explore her body, but that didn’t seem to matter to her.
Caroline shifted position, came up his form to straddle his waist this time.
“Let’s put this nice, thick tool to good use, hmm? ”
“Wait, I—” His yelp changed into a groan as she slid easily upon his shaft, never stopping until he’d penetrated her fully.
That heated sheath had his breath shuddering from his throat, and it was all he could do to grasp her hips and guide her movements.
Was there ever a more beautiful sight than seeing a naked woman in all her glory as she rode atop her lover? “Damn. What did I do to deserve you?”
“Who can say, but since you are a man of few words, I’ll accept that adoration.” She moved on him, taking him deeper with every gyration of her hips, every little wriggle and bounce, and there was a part of him that wanted nothing except to claim her, let her ride until they were both spent.
But that would mean this session was over all too soon.
He wasn’t ready to let her go yet. After a couple of thrusts into her honeyed heat, he couldn’t survive the continued, sensual onslaught.
“Enough.” Tangling a hand in her hair, he pulled her down over his body to kiss her, show her in no uncertain terms he would guide this coupling, then his muscles tensed, and he flipped them both over. “My turn.”
“Spoilsport.” But she didn’t bid him nay, even offered him a come-hither grin as their bodies came apart and the joining was broken.
“We shall see.” Settling between her splayed legs, Felix spent the next several moments charting her curves, learning anew the secrets of her body.
When he strummed the pads of his thumbs over the hard tips of her nipples, his wife squirmed beneath him with a string of breathless moans.
As he caressed a path between the perfect globes of her breasts and down to her navel, barely discernable gooseflesh popped on her skin.
When he rested a light hand on her belly where his child grew, a ball of emotion rose in this throat.
“Felix… Please.”
The plea brought him back to the moment.
She caught one of his hands and put it on her breast, clearly needing him there. “Send me over.”
“Soon.” Wishing to give them both maximum pleasure, he leaned over, kissed her lips then continued to kiss and nibble down her torso.
The pebbled tip of a nipple against the flat of his tongue was like heaven, and the faint scent of her floral perfume as he licked his way over the soft swell of her belly drove him onward.
Scooting down the tick mattress, he spread her thighs wider.
“Ah, Caro. So lovely.” Then he buried his head and tasted that inviting flesh, lapped at the moisture from their abbreviated joining, and their moans blended.
“More.” She furrowed her fingers into his hair, guided his head to where she wanted him, and those tiny pinpricks of pain enhanced his own need, pushed him ever closer to the edge.
“Oh, yes!” Lost to the throes of pleasure as he worried that all-important little nubbin at her center, she clamped her knees to his ears and bucked her hips, putting her further at his mouth for greater devouring.
It took a concentrated suckle, a tickle of his tongue, the light scrape of his teeth to that tender piece of flesh to send her over the edge with a half-stifled scream and the wild undulating of her hips.
Pleased beyond measure and immensely aroused at how she responded to him even after all their other couplings, Felix came back up her body, settled himself between her bent knees and then penetrated her, claimed her, speared into her heat until he was fully seated and irrevocably joined with her.
“Dear God.” It was all too heavenly, and when he peered into her eyes, lost himself in those blue pools, he fell for her all over again. “This… You… I am so glad you are my wife.”
“While I agree with you, please concentrate on the matter at hand. No spending prematurely.” The mix of censure and amusement in her voice proved too strong an aphrodisiac and prompted him into action.
“Such a managing baggage.” Taking his weight onto one elbow, he clasped his other hand to her hip in silent sign of possession, digging in his fingers, hoping he’d leave his mark, and then he began to move within her, and with each thrust into that welcoming heat, he lost pieces of his soul to her.
But pieces of hers came into his keeping as well.
Caroline wrapped her arms about his shoulders, worked her hips in time to his strokes, and they soon fell into a pleasant, sweaty rhythm.
Bodies crashed against each other, his heart pounded, her breath rasped in his ear.
She encouraged him with moans and sighs.
He answered her with the same, and through it all, he claimed her repeatedly, taking as much as she gave and reveling in the fact that this marvelous woman matched him in enthusiasm and stamina.
And she’d chosen him to stand by her side forever.
Tingles went through his stones which meant imminent release.
When she nipped the side of his neck and squeezed her inner muscles to further tempt him, Felix was lost. His strokes turned fast and frantic.
She encouraged him with soft cries, and as she plucked at her nipple, that was the beginning of the end.
Deeper, shorter, quicker his thrusting grew.
As she cried out and her body stiffened and those inner walls fluttered with the first vestiges of release, he was hurtled into his own, and damn if he didn’t come hard and intense as if he were a green boy just out of university.
Collapsing on top of her, he dragged breath into his lungs, buried his face into the crook of her shoulder as his heartbeat regulated and the world came back into order. “Would that it will always prove this good.”
“Agreed, but we both know life is perverse. Also, there is more to a marriage than intercourse.” The warmth of her breath skated across his cheek. “I love you, Felix. Never think I don’t.” She snuggled into him as she rolled onto his side and their physical connection was broken.
“I love you too, Caroline.” Loath to be away from her, he tugged her into his arms and held her close.
“I had written vows to speak to you on our wedding day. Essentially, they say that you made me the happiest of men when you spoke vows to me, but now that I know you’ll make me a father in six months?
I am beyond joyful, and emotions are threatening to get the better of me, but I’ll strive to show you how I feel to the best of my ability. ”
“That is saying much, and it’s beautiful. I would like to hear the original vows.”
“Perhaps tomorrow.”
She pressed her lips to the side of his neck. “None of this would be possible without you being brave enough to ask me to marry you.”
He snorted. “Somehow, I think you would have pushed me into it had I delayed further.”
“Perhaps.” When she snuggled closer, a sigh of contentment left him. “I can’t wait to see where our lives will go from here.”
“As do I, and with any luck, there will be many more cases to solve. The team we’ve formed? It’s rather lovely.”
“It is. In all the ways that matter.”
“There is great comfort in that.” As his eyes drifted closed, Felix felt a particular calm descend upon him.
It had been stupid not to have married her sooner.
Fear had held him back, but truly? When a man found the right woman who would enhance who he was and who let him do the same for her? It was rather splendid indeed.
For better or for worse, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, he would always stand firm by her side, and they would both be stronger for it.
How fortunate was he?
Major Felix Kourier and his wife, Caroline, will return in an all-new case coming Christmas Eve 2026 called Murder Most Fowl. Stay tuned to social media and my newsletter for a cover reveal and preorder information when it becomes available.