Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
CHRISTIAN
Men don’t think in flowery thoughts. We don’t describe women’s skin as silken or her hair as flowing locks, or the sounds of her gasps of pleasure like a Beethoven symphony.
We’re far more cerebral than that. Blunt instruments who haven’t evolved all that far from their ancestors, who hunted with spears and carried any woman they fancied back to their cave.
But fuck me, as I crawl down Grace’s body and bury my nose in her pussy, I may as well be at the Chelsea fucking flower show for the number of flowery, poetic thoughts filling my head.
Her fingers dive into my hair, and she presses firmly on the back of my head and lifts her pelvis, grinding herself against my face. I like a woman who shows me what she likes and wants.
Need me to grab your tit, but I’m copping a feel of your arse? Put it there.
Enjoy a hand necklace? Take hold of my wrist and clamp my hand to your throat.
Want me to eat you out? Grind on me like Grace is doing, and I’ll binge until you beg me to stop.
Burrowing my hands underneath her bottom, I lift her to give me better access. Groaning, she tugs on my hair and wraps her legs around my neck. Good God, this woman will be the death of me. She’s shy and introverted in many ways, but in the bedroom, she’s a fucking wildcat.
“More.” She groans. “Suck my clit.”
I also like a woman who tells me what she wants. I get the whole reading bodily cues thing, but when a relationship is new, telling is good. I’m not a fucking mind reader.
I swirl my tongue around the hard nub, then suck on it, sliding two fingers deep inside her.
She’s soaked, and they slip in easily. I scissor them, stretching her.
A stream of mumblings fall out of her mouth, and even though I can’t make out a single word, I don’t need to.
She’s there, in the moment, her mind silent, her body in charge.
Her hips swivel faster, her fingers pulling on my hair enough to yank it out by the roots. I slide my palm over her abdomen, along her ribs, and find her nipple. One tug, and she comes apart, her scream of pleasure better than the greatest composer’s masterpiece.
I fucking want that sound as my ringtone.
“Now,” she demands. “Please, Christian, now.”
I rise up, shoving my boxers down my legs. Ripping open the condom packet, I pinch the end and slide it onto my dick. She angles herself to take me easily, clamping her hands onto my arse. She pushes, and in one violent thrust, I’m inside.
“Hang on,” I mutter, burying my face in her neck. “I need a sec.”
The scent of her skin mingled with her alluring perfume fills my nostrils. I hold my breath.
It’s too much.
She’s too much.
I can’t handle the torrent of feelings of being inside her. I’m too scared to move, too afraid it will be over in five seconds flat.
She smooths a hand over the back of my head, and the tenderness of her caress undoes me. A lump crawls into my throat. Where is this coming from? I like sex. It’s pleasurable for as long as it lasts. But this is different.
What’s happening to me?
“I’ve got you,” she murmurs, kissing me on the cheek. “Move, Christian. Take what you need. I’m here for you.”
Oh, fuck.
I raise up onto my forearms, pull out, and slide back into her. She wraps around me like a tailored glove. The perfect fit.
“I’m too close to go fast.” I give her a sheepish grin. “I’m not usually this pathetic, I promise.”
She caresses my cheek. “It isn’t pathetic to feel so much that you can’t hold on. It’s flattering. Just let go. Let it all go.”
Her words are my undoing. I burrow into her neck and breathe her in.
It’s the most freeing sexual encounter I’ve had in my life.
When my orgasm hits, an inferno explodes inside me, but not just in my groin, in my entire chest, too.
My heart feels as if it’s going to burst right through the skin, and electrical currents zip up and down my spine.
Easing out of her, I roll to the side, reach for her hand, and place it over my pounding heart.
“Feel that?” I ask, and she nods. “That’s you, Grace. That’s all you.”
She tucks into my side and kisses my shoulder. “I need a mold of these.”
I chuckle. “A mold of my shoulders?”
“Yeah, they’re my thing, and yours are pretty darned fine.”
“Consider it done.” I shift onto my side and cup her breast. “But only if I can have a mold of these?”
She grins. “I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.”
I snuffle a laugh. “I didn’t make you come again.”
“So?”
“So, I should have.”
“And which instruction manual is that in? It’s hard for women to orgasm during intercourse, and honestly, in my view, it takes away the enjoyment of it all. If it means that much to you, I’ll get on top next time, then I can grind my clit against you.”
Her honesty is so fucking refreshing. I tuck a few strands of hair behind her ear. “Where have you been my whole life?”
“About two hundred miles north.”
I chuckle. “Are you hungry yet? I don’t want you wasting away on me.”
She runs her gaze over my shoulders and chest, then drops it to my groin.
Removing the condom, she ties a knot in it and sets it on the bedside table, then straddles me.
She runs her finger along the thick vein on the underside of my dick, and when it jumps under her attention, she flutters her eyelashes.
“Oh, yeah. I’m starving.”
She drops her head and takes me in her mouth. The day the universe saw fit to put this woman in my path was a day I’ll be forever thankful for.
I don’t deserve this kind of happiness, but as long as it lasts, I’m going to drink every drop of joy.
“I never eat in bed,” Grace says, taking a huge bite out of a cracker loaded with cheddar cheese. “Too many crumbs.” She brushes a bunch off her lap as if to make a point.
I dip a spoon into the sour cream and drop a dollop onto Grace’s left boob. “I like to eat in bed because doing this at the dinner table isn’t acceptable etiquette.” I lap up the cream, making sure to tongue her nipple in the process.
She makes this combo noise of a giggle and a gasp, and it’s fucking adorable.
Usually, after sex, I either want to sleep, or escape slash get the woman out of my space as soon as possible.
I’m not a cuddler, a talker, or someone who shares a picnic in bed with the woman he’s just banged.
Yet with Grace, I keep watching for signs she wants to go home, and I have my persuasion speech all ready to encourage her to stay the night.
The truth is, I can’t think of anything I want more than to finish eating and snuggle under the covers with her.
Okay, there may be a middle-of-the-night awakening, and in all likelihood a morning-sex-marathon, but just going to sleep with my arms around her sounds like a fucking dream I never want to wake up from.
“I’m stuffed.” She sets her plate on top of the tray and leans back against the pile of pillows, rubbing her stomach. “I couldn’t eat another thing.”
“Nothing?” I waggle my eyebrows and palm my semi. I don’t think it’s fully deflated all night.
“Not even if it was slathered in rocky road ice cream.” She giggles. “Not this time, anyway.”
“Ah, rocky road is a favorite?” I pretend to write in an invisible notebook. “Got it. I have you scheduled for rocky road-flavored penis at twelve o’clock tomorrow.”
The sound of her laughter fills my chest as I gather up the remains of the food, pile it onto the tray, and leave it outside the lift for the staff to collect. Grace is already buried underneath the covers when I return. It looks like she’s happy to stay, but I’m not making any assumptions.
“Did you want to… um…”
“Stay the night? Yes. My stomach is so bloated, there isn’t a chance that dress will fit me until I’ve digested a good portion of that food. If I try to move, I’ll be sick.”
Grinning, I slide under the covers with her. She backs into me and wriggles her arse against my dick, which, of course, hardens immediately. She does it again, and I groan.
“Keep rubbing me like that, and I don’t care how stuffed you are, you’re getting stuffed with my dick.”
“You know, you could sell copies of all that sweet talk you’ve got going on.”
“It’s a good sideline income, I guess.” I kiss her on the side of her neck. “I am brilliant at it.”
Her shoulders shake with laughter. “Christian?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you just love this part?”
“What part?”
“The part where the first time is out of the way and it didn’t go horribly wrong, and there’s this… comfortableness. Is that a word? I’m not sure, but if it isn’t, it should be. It’s like the tension that hovered in the air vanishes and you’re left with a warm fuzziness.”
I’ve never had the warm fuzzies after sex, or this comfortableness she talks about, and I don’t like that she has. Not one bit. I say none of this, though. Instead, I pull her closer to me and murmur, “Yes, Duchess. I love this part.”
I’m almost asleep when she speaks again.
“Christian?”
I smile against her skin. “Yeah?”
“I really hope your dad says yes. I don’t like the thought of you marrying someone else.”
My chest constricts, and while I’m struggling for a response, Grace lets out a heavy sigh, and in less than thirty seconds, her breathing evens out, and her entire body melts into the mattress.
An hour later, I’m still wide awake, staring at the ceiling.
I have never considered going against my father’s wishes, but if he chooses a bride that isn’t Grace, we’re going to have a problem. A big fucking problem, because the only woman I can ever envisage marrying… is her.