Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Erin
“So after all your carrying on about your bedroom being mine,” I say, which earns me a teasing smack to the arse.
The primary bedroom is breathtaking. A massive four-poster bed dominates the space, piled with soft linens and thick pillows.
There are candles everywhere, lit and glowing softly, and the windows overlook the dark expanse of trees outside.
It’s intimate and romantic and exactly what I didn’t know I needed.
“Cavin.” I turn to him, my eyes stinging again.
He brushes his lips against mine and kisses me. “Do you have any idea how hard I’ve been holding myself back?” he says, his eyes growing heated and possessive. “Any idea?”
The kiss deepens, then turns hungry.
“Cavin.” I breathe against his mouth.
“Aye?”
“I want this. I want you.”
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his eyes dark and searching. “You’re sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
His control snaps. He kisses me like he’s starving, and I’m fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, desperate to feel his skin against mine. His hands are everywhere—tangling in my hair, gripping my waist, sliding up my ribs, over my breasts with reverence.
“Fuck this,” he growls and rips his shirt open. Buttons scatter across the floor.
I gasp, staring at the expanse of golden skin, the hard planes of muscle, the black ink winding over his shoulder and down his ribs. The scars that map out his history.
He’s gorgeous. Dangerous. Mine.
His hands find the zipper of my dress. The sound of it sliding down is obscenely loud in the quiet room. Cool air hits my heated skin as the fabric pools at my feet.
I’m standing there in my white lace bra and knickers, and the way he looks at me—
“Christ, Erin.” He sighs. “Look at you. You’re gorgeous.”
I reach for him and pull him close, then kiss the small tattoo of a rose on his shoulder. “Thank you.”
My hands stroke down the length of his chest. His abs contract under my touch. His cock is a hard, thick ridge against my hip, straining against his trousers.
“My fuckin’ god,” he growls. “Keep touching me like that and this’ll be over before it starts.”
I do it again. Deliberately. My thumbs graze over his nipples.
He makes a rough sound—something between a curse and a prayer—and his hips jerk forward involuntarily.
Power surges through me. I did that. I made him lose control.
He lifts me effortlessly and lays me on the bed like I’m something precious and breakable, even though his eyes are wild and hungry.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, crawling over me. His mouth finds my throat. My collarbone. Lower. “So fucking beautiful, Erin.”
He unclasps my bra, slides it off my shoulders, then tosses it aside. Cool air hits my nipples, and they tighten into hard peaks.
His eyes darken. “Fuck me, lass, you’re perfect.”
I arch into his touch, every nerve ending on fire. He’s maddeningly patient, taking his time, and I want to urge him to hurry, but I can’t form words because his mouth is doing things that make my brain shut down entirely.
He kisses my shoulder. “Mine,” he whispers, and the constant chatter of anxiety in my mind—the voices that never stop—becomes blissfully, deliciously quiet. “Mine.”
His rough fingers skate down the length of my arm, then back up, tracing my collarbone. They come to rest on my hip, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin there.
“Do you like that, Erin? Does that feel good?”
I close my eyes, then breathe out on an exhale. “Yes. I love it when you touch me. Don’t stop, please.”
“Good lass.” He wraps his hand in my hair and claims my mouth. His tongue sweeps against mine. Demanding. Possessive.
My thighs are slick with arousal. My brain is blissfully content. Quiet. Focused only on us.
He breaks the kiss, resting his forehead against mine. “Are you nervous?”
I nod.
“Don’t be.” His hand slides down and cups me through my knickers.
I gasp. “Let me make this body sing for me. Mine now, yeah? Every fuckin’ sound you make belongs to me.
” And when I let myself go, relaxing into him, he makes a deep, masculine sound of approval.
“That’s my good girl. That’s it, love. I’ll take my time until you’re ready and panting for me. We have all night.”
My body turns pliant and warm under his touch. My breasts feel heavy, aching.
The pad of his thumb grazes one nipple. His mouth closes over the other, the flat of his tongue lapping at the peak.
My body arches on instinct. I let out a soft gasp, needing pressure, needing something.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against my skin. “Let me hear you.”
The scent of our bodies and arousal fills the air around us. It’s intoxicating. When he releases my nipples to kiss my cheek, I pull his body close to mine and stroke his chest, my thumbs skating over his nipples too.
“My fuckin’ god.” He releases a short growl of approval. His hardened cock throbs against my thigh. “Christ, you're perfect. Mine. Say it—tell me you're mine while I'm touchin' what belongs to me.”
“I’m yours.”
“Jesus, love, I love it when you touch me. You're gonna kill me, but I'll die a happy man buried between these thighs.” His voice is strained, barely controlled.
He claims my mouth again, before his hand wraps around my arse and pulls me to him until we’re flush. The hard length of him presses against my core, only thin lace separating us.
Oh god. I love the feel of his hand on my arse. The possessive grip. The way he manhandles me like I’m his to do with as he pleases.
He hooks his fingers in my knickers, then drags them down my legs and tosses them aside.
I’m completely naked, exposed, and vulnerable.
He strips off his trousers and boxers, and his cock springs free—thick and heavy, flushed dark at the tip. A bead of moisture glistens there.
My mouth goes dry. He’s bigger than I expected. Fear flickers through me.
“Hey.” He cups my face and makes me look at him. “We’ll go slow. I promise.”
“Okay.”
He spreads my thighs with his big hands and lowers himself to the floor. I realize what he’s going to do, and it feels too much, too intimate. I press them closer together when his eyes darken on me.
“I want to taste you, love. Can you trust me?”
“That’s too much,” I whisper.
“If you let me do this, it’ll be easier to take me,” he whispers back.
He settles between my thighs, spreading them wider. His eyes find mine and hold them. And I find my courage. I’m so eager to see what it feels like… what he feels like.
He kisses my inner thigh, then stretches the tip of his tongue to lick the slick arousal painted on the sensitive skin. Heat floods me. He presses his nose lower still, and I gasp. My mind again goes quiet, like my whole body is nothing but one big pulse of expectation.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he says softly. “Tell me if you need me to stop.”
“Okay,” I whisper back. His responding growl makes my pussy clench with need. I spread my thighs, feeling powerful. I watch his eyes grow dark and heated as he breathes me in and releases a shuddering groan. My grip on the sheets relaxes, and instead, my fingers weave into his hair, anchoring me.
And then he drags the flat of his tongue to my throbbing, aching core.
I cry out, my back arching off the bed, gripping his hair.
Oh my god, this feels amazing. With every stroke of his tongue, heat blooms inside me, the pressure building.
My resistance melts, and I whimper when he suckles my clit between his full lips.
His groan of approval tells me he likes this too.
“Right there,” I whisper when he strokes just right, and I whimper in need. I press the back of his head to keep him in place. “My god, don’t stop.”
“That’s my girl,” he says, his voice muffled between my thighs. “So fucking sweet. So fucking perfect. Let yourself go, love. Come on my tongue.”
My body grows boneless, and I sigh—the delicious feeling of his tongue, his rough hands gripping my thighs, the way pleasure is building, growing—it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.
My fear dissolves into trust, and I let myself just… melt. “That’s it, love,” he whispers, before he scratches the stubble on his chin across my thighs. “You’re doing so well. Come on my tongue, love.”
I cry out in pleasure when my orgasm suddenly claims me. Bliss floods me, my hips rise, and he holds my thighs and continues to lick me through every spasm of ecstasy.
“Good girl.” And I’m still coming, still in the throes of bliss, when he kisses his way back up my body.
“See? I told you I’d take care of you. Now you’re so damn wet for me, aren’t you?” He slides his fingers through my wet heat just to prove his point, before he laps them clean, inches from me.
I whimper wordlessly, suddenly overcome with an unexpected need to be filled by him, to draw closer, to feel him inside me.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he whispers in my ear, trembling with the effort of holding himself back.
“No. Don’t stop,” I whisper. “Please don’t stop, Cavin.”
He reaches down and positions himself. The broad head of his cock presses against my entrance.
“Breathe, love.”
I try. He pushes forward. Just the tip.
The stretch is immediate. Intense. My body resists.
“Fuck, you’re tight.” His jaw is clenched, the muscles corded with the effort of holding still. “Relax for me, Erin. Let me in.”
I breathe… try to relax. He pushes deeper.
There’s pressure, then a sharp sting that makes me tense.
“Shh, shh.” He kisses me, murmuring against my lips—soft reassurances in that rough brogue that grounds me. “That’s it, love. I’ve got you. You’re doing so well. Taking me so fucking well.”
He bottoms out, then stays completely still, letting me adjust. I feel so full, stretched, connected to him in the most intimate way possible.
“How do you feel?” His voice is strained.
“Full.” I shift my hips experimentally. “So full.”
“Christ.” His hips jerk involuntarily. “Don’t—don’t move like that unless you want this over fast.”
“I want—” I don’t know what I want. I just know I need more. “Move. Please move.”
He pulls back slowly, then pushes in again, watching my face for any sign of pain.
The sting fades, replaced by something else entirely. Pleasure builds gradually, a rising tide.
“More,” I breathe out. “Faster.”
“Greedy girl,” he says with a light slap to my arse that sends heat blooming between my legs. But he gives me what I want and picks up the pace. Each thrust hits something inside me that makes stars burst behind my eyelids.
His forehead presses to mine. We move together, finding a rhythm. His hand slides between us and circles my clit.
“Oh god—Cavin—”
“That’s it. Let go for me, love. I want to feel you come on my cock.”
My body clamps down on him as pleasure crashes over me in waves. I cry out his name, my nails digging into his shoulders. I shatter, lost to the echo of the first orgasm, eclipsed by the second.
“Fuck—Erin—” He loses his rhythm. His thrusts become erratic, desperate. “I’m—fuck—”
He buries himself deep and comes with a groan that sounds like it’s torn from his chest. I feel him pulse inside me. Feel the warmth of him spilling into me.
It’s messy and overwhelming and utterly perfect.
For a long time, we just breathe together, tangled up in each other and the sheets. His weight is heavy on top of me, comforting rather than crushing.
Slowly, he pulls out. I wince at the sensitivity.
“Alright?” His eyes search mine, worried.
“More than alright.”
He rolls to the side, pulling me with him, and tucks me against his chest. His hand strokes up and down my spine in a soothing rhythm.
“Mine,” he murmurs eventually, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “My wife.”
“Yours,” I whisper back, running my fingers through his hair. “Always yours.”
And in this house—our house—with the candles flickering and the fire crackling and the world locked safely outside, I’ve never felt more at home. Never felt safer. Never felt more seen.
The voices in my head are quiet. The anxiety that usually thrums through my veins like a second heartbeat is gone.
There’s only him. Only us. Only this.
He pulls the sheet over us, and his arms tighten around me.
“Sleep, love,” he murmurs into my hair. “I’ve got you.”
I believe him.
For the first time in my life, I actually believe someone when they say that.