Chapter Sixteen
She is so fucking beautiful, both inside and out, how can she possibly think we aren’t exactly perfect for each other?
As Diana lay sprawled in the middle of the bed, Nathaniel soon joined her, and seconds later, he claimed her lips in a searing kiss.
Yes, he was angry and confused and perhaps feeling a bit vulnerable, but he wasn’t going to step out of her life without trying once more to win her over and secure her promise.
“Shall I continue?” Her arms around his shoulders gave him hope, for if she hadn’t wished for this coupling, she would have kicked his arse from the room without prejudice.
“Are you done pleading your case, then?” One of her light-brown eyebrows arched in challenge, for that’s what she did best with him.
“Ha!” How much did he adore her? “I won’t be the one pleading by the time we are finished this night.”
“So arrogant of you to assume that.”
With need pulsing through his impossibly hard shaft, Nathaniel lost no time in exploring her body with his palms and fingertips.
Damn, her curves would drive him mad before long, but he looked forward to the descent.
Never could he have enough of her form, and one of these days, he would have time to explore every inch of her, but tonight was for a different outcome entirely.
When he brushed her pebbled nipples with his knuckles, bent his head to take one of them into his mouth, her shuddering breath and moan made him chuckle.
“I adore how responsive you are.” Every touch, every caress he gave her provoked a sound or a shiver.
After what had occurred in William’s drawing room, he didn’t think he would be given the chance to have her in his bed again let alone another opportunity to try and win her heart, and he refused to waste a second of it.
In many ways, he’d been preparing for this very moment the whole of his adult life.
“I’ll show you responsive, Holdcraft.” Slowly, and holding his gaze the whole time, Diana edged a hand down his torso, slid it along his abdomen, and then finally, she cupped his equipage with a firm hand. He uttered a chuckle mixed with a groan.
“You wouldn’t.” The bewitching twinkle in her eyes meant wicked things ahead for him, and he couldn’t wait. It also meant she was coming ’round to his way of thinking.
“I would indeed. Why should you have all the power?” With a giggle, she moved her hand. Gently at first then with more friction and authority, she stroked her curled fingers up and down his length. “Did you mean what you said?”
What the devil? He couldn’t think while she fondled him. “I said many things.”
“Earlier tonight, that I’m the only woman you want in your bed from now on… or something to that effect.”
The darling woman suffered from insecurities the same as him, yet she wished to run from them instead of talk about them. “I did. There is no one else for me except you, from now to eternity.”
That shocked him as much as it apparently did her.
“Oh.” Her hand never left his member, and her touch, the floral scent of her, the warmth of her body against his all worked at his undoing.
“Diana…” His shaft tightened, thickened from her handling, but she ignored his warning and continued her ministrations.
Over and over, her palm and fingers glided up and down his prick.
She brushed the pads of her fingers along the sensitive tip, and as he sucked in a breath, she pressed her lips to his shoulder, nipped the skin with her teeth while guiding her touch down to fondle his stones, squeeze them, presumably in a bid to make certain he never forgot her.
Nathaniel jerked in her hold; he wouldn’t last at this point.
Needing an outlet, a distraction so that he wouldn’t spend prematurely, he brought his mouth crashing down on hers.
For one second, her fingers paused as she kissed him back, but as he fenced with her tongue, perhaps implored her to accept his suit, she resumed her attentions on his shaft. Up and down. Twist. Up and down. Twist. Faster and faster with varying degrees of tension and friction.
The woman is going to kill me.
And he looked forward to a lifetime of it, because he would win her. “Hold, else I’ll come on you instead of in you.” He stilled her hand, but damn he couldn’t wait to claim her body, for as many times as she’d let him tonight.
“Nothing is stopping you.” Holding his gaze the whole time, she moved her hands to his chest and kissed him, lightly nipped his bottom lip. “Reassure me, Nathaniel. Show me that if I choose it, a future with you won’t prove a disaster, that my selfish choice won’t be your downfall.”
The poor thing. Love for her built even stronger because she only thought of him and what she assumed he needed and wanted from his own life.
“I’ll do my level best.” This might be the most important bedding he’d ever participated it.
Pushing her arms above her head, he threaded their fingers together while settling comfortably between her raised knees.
“Everything I said tonight has been nothing but truth.” Then, peering into her eyes, he penetrated her warm and welcoming body, went as deep as he could into her body, so she’d have no doubts about how much he wanted her in all the ways that mattered.
“Oh, goodness.” Her back arched, which sent him ever deeper. As her eyes closed, tears slipped to her cheeks. “It’s too much, all of it is.”
Not knowing if she referred to the coupling or recent events, he squeezed her fingers then moved within her.
When he would have gone frantic and hard for this joining, he changed his mind at the last second, for perhaps she needed slow and gentle tonight; she needed reassurance, and he would always give her that.
“Nathaniel, I…” She clutched at his hands, but her words dissolved into a sigh of pleasure.
For several moments, he stroked into her more tenderly than he’d ever done in recent years.
Diana had made all the difference in his life, and he wished to show her that.
In the midst of his lovemaking, he released her hands in order to hold her head between his palms. Slowly, he kissed her as if he had all the time in the world while ignoring his own needs.
With a moan of approval, Diana clung to him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs about his as she moved her body in time to his.
When more tears fell to her cheeks, he kissed them away as he loved her with every ounce of feeling he could muster.
Then urgency reminded him that he couldn’t last and he wasn’t a young man any longer. Quickly, he changed his rhythm. Without hesitation, she matched him, met each stroke because that had been her wont all along.
“I’m so close,” she whispered as her head thrashed on the pillow.
“As am I.”
When she put a hand between them to bedevil her own button, he almost lost his hold on control. Wanting to be the one to send her over, he batted her hand away only to rub that nubbin with varying degrees of friction that he knew she liked.
“Why must you torture me so?” she asked around panting breaths, as she dug her fingernails into his shoulders, his back, even his buttocks.
Those tiny pinpricks of pain spurred him onward and sent him hurtling toward the edge.
“That’s part of the fun.” He worked doubly hard at sending her over the brink, and the brief reprieve from thrusting was most welcome.
Quicker he moved his fingertips on that nubbin.
Harder, then with soothing strokes, he worked that tiny bundle of nerves.
“Nathaniel!” Diana’s body stiffened. Her back arched; her toes pointed. She grabbed a fistful of the coverlet as she shattered in his hold. “Oh, oh, oh!”
The expression of bliss on her face almost had him following her down into that void, but he clenched his jaw and staved off the inevitable.
As a flush of arousal covered her chest, he encouraged one of her legs upward while she wrapped the other about his waist. “Let’s see how quickly you can go over again, hmm? ”
He withdrew from her passage merely to savor the moment of spearing into her tight, welcoming passage again. Damn, but that was one of his most favorite parts, and doing this with Diana would easily become an addiction, one he never wanted to find his way out of.
Then he was lost to the wonder of her body, of joining with her, rising up the hill with her, falling down the other side, and repeating the trip until they both panted and surged against each other.
Faster his hips worked. Deeper he stroked in the attempt to touch her soul.
Over and over, they indulged in a dance as old as time itself.
I would do anything for you. Just take that chance with me.
Diana came apart in his arms the same time release rushed through him to heat every nerve ending and point throughout his body.
He called out her name while a keening cry left her throat, and the contractions in her core threatened to suck him under once more.
As his shaft pulsed, he ground his hips into hers, fucked her until the very end in a futile effort to prolong the joining, but of course, he was spent.
They rode the waves of bliss as one. As the chaos and pleasure calmed, with a sigh, he collapsed on top of her then rolled to his side and pulled her with him. “Ah, damn, how can you not see how utterly fantastic we are together?”
“I…” She buried her face into the crook of his shoulder. Moisture dampened his skin as he realized she was crying again.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” She uttered a sigh mixed with a giggle, and the sound went straight to his heart.
“I think it’s me who is wrong.” When she lifted her head, met his gaze, there was such love in those sapphire depths that he caught his breath.
“But I won’t change my mind.” Another wave of tears welled in her eyes.
“Dearest, you wouldn’t be so upset if you didn’t think your choice wasn’t the one you truly wish to make.” At least he hoped so.