Chapter Twenty #2
There he had to stop himself, for he’d got so distracted by his own arousal that he’d lost track of hers.
She was beginning to fly apart, and though he hadn’t meant to let her do so just yet, it was too late.
Her head was thrown back, her fingers twisting in his hair, her cries echoing round the chamber, her body quaking in his hands and in his mouth.
It was the most intensely intimate and erotic thing he’d ever experienced.
He was stirred beyond reason, and as soon as her ecstasy subsided, he ripped off his trousers. But when he began to move over her, she stopped him, pushing on his shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing at all.” Her fingers scrabbled at the hem of his shirt, and he helped her get it over his head.
“Good idea,” he allowed. Now as naked as she, he tried to settle over her again.
But she wiggled out from under him, laughing. “Wait! What happened to slow and tender?”
“To hell with slow and tender,” he said succinctly. “Haven’t we had enough of that?”
“I surely have, but you’ve not had any.” She bounced off the bed to hunt for something on the floor.
“I don’t need any,” he protested.
With dismay he saw her come up with the nightgown. “If I had to endure such torment, so must you. Never fear, it shall be worth your while.”
“Don’t put that back on,” he growled as her head disappeared inside the garment. “That’s an order.”
She reappeared impishly. “Far be it from me to disobey a direct order,” she drawled, letting the gown slip from her fingers. “I have a better idea, anyway. These will provide greater protection…”
He watched open-mouthed as she stepped into his trousers and pulled them up to her waist. “What on earth are you doing?” he demanded.
“Compromising,” she said, fastening buttons haphazardly. “You got to be fully clothed, and I shall be only half. There.” Though the trousers sagged around her hips, they did stay up.
“But you’re covering the most important half,” he complained. “I order—”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, pouncing on him in a fit of giggles. “Not another word, or I’ll put the shirt on, too. I can disobey, you know.”
He groaned. “But I want you now. Can we not—”
“You’ll have me soon enough if you cooperate.” She pushed him on to his back and climbed over him, her breasts swaying distractingly. “If not, this will only take longer.”
“Oh, very well,” he grumbled.
If he’d already been fiercely aroused, he was soon unbearably so. As she subjected him to all the same torments—the prolonged tease of kisses and caresses—he couldn’t tear his eyes from her, for he’d never seen a lady in trousers.
Much less his trousers.
And he had to admit he found the sight perversely enticing.
Aside from leaving her breasts entirely bare (and free to graze some part of him every time she shifted) the separate legs kept what lay between them at the forefront of his mind.
Especially whenever her movements pulled the fabric taut against her, or when the mis-buttoned waistband gaped in some odd place, allowing him a tantalizing glimpse inside.
Still, he was ready to tear the damned trousers off her when a surprising sensation brought him up short: a puff of cool breath.
He met her wicked gaze with raised brows. “You’re not meaning to—?”
Though she looked a little nervous, she gamely parroted him: “Not if you don’t want me to. Do you want me to?”
He swallowed hard. “If you’re sure.”
Her mouth closed over him, and it was every bit as slick and hot as she’d been below—though not soft. Or not only soft, but a mix of sensations so exquisite he could only endure them for a short time before he was forced to stop her.
“Did I hurt you?” she asked anxiously.
“No.” He tipped her gently onto her back, with her head at the foot of the bed. “But if I’d let you go on, you’d have unmanned me.”
Her eyes twinkled. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
“But I would have.” He wrenched the trousers open, heedless of flying buttons, and shimmied them down her legs. “It’s our wedding night. We must consummate our union properly.”
“Have you forgotten we already did?” she wondered, pulling him down to her, wrapping herself around him. “Last night in the library?”
“I will never forget last night in the library,” he murmured low in her ear, making her shiver.
“Me neither,” she whispered in his, nipping his earlobe.
He arranged her legs around his waist, marveling at how easily, how naturally their bodies fit together. How right it felt sinking into her softness, her snugness, her slick heat, so right and so good that a deep, animal sound was drawn from his throat.
An indecorous sound, that. But he didn’t try to stifle it. Why should he?
He was right where he belonged. There was nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to conceal. The way he and Claire were together, the things she made him feel, the man she’d helped him become—all was just as it ought to be.
He was just who he ought to be.
“Mmm,” she hummed in approval when he began moving inside her. “Slow and tender is nice.”
“I told you so.”
“But I liked fast and demanding, too.”
“We can do that next.”
“And I should still like to unman you.”
He laughed. “We’ll have time for that as well. We’ve got all night, remember?”
“We’ve got all night,” she echoed with a blissful sigh. “And the rest of our lives.”
“And the rest of our lives,” he agreed, taking her lips in a kiss.