Chapter Forty
Edmund’s heart stopped.
The sensation of her gaze traveling over every inch of him was a singularly thrilling experience.
He felt her appreciation like a warm caress and her desire like a dance of sparks.
When her soft focus settled on his cock, he experienced a deep tug of lust and longing.
Blood rushed through him, making him light-headed as his cock throbbed to impossible hardness.
A low moan slipped from his tight chest, and her gaze flew back up to his.
Instead of a storm, the dark, mysterious sea in her eyes sparkled with stars. Tonight, the storm resided within him. Raging silently through his chest, battering against his heart.
Then the tip of her tongue slid across her lower lip, her lashes fluttered gently, and she smiled.
His body seized with the deepest need.
How the fuck was he supposed to give this up? Give her up?
He was in the midst of willing himself to breathe when she stepped toward him.
Lifting her hands, she rested them gently on each side of his ribcage as she pressed herself against him from chest to knee.
Silken warmth soaked into his skin. Her soft belly covered his aching erection, soothing and taunting at once.
He first felt her lips drifting lightly across his chest. Then she pressed a sweet kiss on his shoulder before dropping more along his collarbone. When her tongue flicked hot against his pulse, he tensed with a rush of pleasure.
Lifting his hands, he released the sash of her robe with a single tug and drew the tantalizing garment away from her body, letting it fall to the floor in a whisper.
Then he doubled his arms around her waist and lifted her against him.
Her gasp was soft as he took her mouth in a deep, languid kiss.
Every step he took toward the bed created a delicious friction as his cock shifted against her silken belly.
Stopping at the bedside, he lowered her to her feet.
After pressing a soft kiss to her lips, he murmured, “As much as I fucking love this slip of silk you’re wearing, it’s got to go.”
She gave a soft laugh and stepped out of his arms.
With a wicked little smile, she brushed her fingertips across her shoulder, sliding the narrow strip of silk down her arm.
The deep neckline slid over the peak of her breast, baring it to his hungry gaze.
Then she did the same with the other side, until the dark purple material gathered around her hips.
She paused for just a moment before she smoothed her hands over her hips, pushing the gown down until it released into a puddle at her feet.
Edmund’s mouth watered and his blood rushed past his ears, deafening him to anything but the pounding rhythm of his heart.
She was stunning. More than perfect, she was a woman of flesh and blood and dreams and desires. And right now, she desired him.
And he needed her. Like he needed air and moonlight and poetry.
She took a step toward him and his heart shuddered.
Pressing her hand gently to his sternum, she looked into his eyes with sparkling intensity. “Lie back on the bed,” she whispered.
His belly clenched with a pulse of deep pleasure as he stretched out on the mattress. Stacking his hands beneath his head, he gazed up at her. He’d never experienced such anticipation. The hum of it permeated every inch of him as he waited to learn what she wanted of him next.
Gratefully, she didn’t make him wait long.
Lifting a knee onto the mattress, she crawled up beside him, then rested back on her heels. Her long braid slipped over her shoulder to drape over her breast with the end gently brushing the top of her thigh.
His belly tensed with the urgent temptation to grasp that satiny rope, use it to pull her toward him, bring her lovely, sweet mouth to his. He resisted. As much as he wanted to taste her kiss, he wanted to see where she’d take this next even more.
Holding his gaze, she lifted her hand to drift her fingertips lightly across his belly. Every muscle tightened in reaction.
“I realize there’s a lot I still haven’t learned,” she whispered huskily as her gaze drifted from his, dancing down his sternum, over his taut abdomen to his fiercely hardened member. “But I cannot go another moment without knowing this.”
As her voice faded into the night, she wrapped her fingers around the base of his cock, angling it upward as she bent forward. The air seized in his lungs with a harsh grunt as the warmth of her mouth closed over his tip.
He hadn’t anticipated this—hadn’t prepared himself. The shock of pleasure that jolted through him at the erotic, heated slide of her lips and tongue over his ridged head nearly stole his consciousness as stars sparked in his vision.
Recalling the need to breathe, he sucked in a deep inhale just as her tongue danced delicately across a sensitive bundle of nerves and he exhaled in a deep moan.
Her hum of appreciation vibrated around his length as she lowered her mouth, taking him in. Slowly. Deeper, until he kissed the back of her throat.
Without a full breath, his next moan caught in his chest, sounding more like a primal grunt.
For some reason, the sound seemed to please her as her gaze shifted to look up at him while she drew her mouth back up to the tip.
Pausing there, she stared into his ravaged soul as she swirled her tongue around the ridged head.
His awareness flickered and his breath stuttered as pleasure shot through his entire body, like fine streaks of white-hot lightning. She scorched him. Seared him with her mouth, her eyes, her unadulterated sensuality, her unfiltered desire.
Still holding his fervent stare, she glided her mouth down his cock then back up.
It was her soft moan and the gentle flicker of her lashes that broke through his stunned haze. She was taking pleasure in the act, but not nearly enough.
As her tongue started another swirling exploration, he reached for her.
Wrapping his hand around the back of her smooth, creamy thigh, he pulled her toward him.
Her gasp of surprise bathed his cock as he lifted her up and over him until her knees straddled his shoulders and her gorgeous cunt—dusky pink and glistening with her moisture—hovered over his face.
“Edmund?” she whispered in a tremulous inhale a moment before he palmed her lovely arse and brought her down to him.
The catch of her breath was intensely arousing, making his cock jump in her hand.
But the moan that followed was lush and deep as she gave a gentle roll of her hips, angling herself to receive his kiss just how she wanted.
He licked up her desire in long, hungry strokes of his tongue, claiming every bit of her body’s slick honey. Then he suckled gently on her clitoris, making it swell and pulse against his tongue just before he slid two fingers into the soft, tight heat of her cunt.
Her moan was primal and raw. And then she took his cock deep into her mouth.
Edmund’s blood rushed wildly through his veins, his balls tightening and his belly clenching with burgeoning pleasure.
He managed to hold off his impending release only because he was so damned desperate for more.
More of the lush glide of her mouth. More of the rich, sweet taste of her. More of her passion. More of her.
Knowing this was the last time made him fiercely greedy. He wanted to keep this going for hours. Days. Years, if he could.
While he began a punishing rhythm with his thrusting fingers, he continued to suckle her clitoris, flicking his tongue over the sensitive bud until she gasped and writhed.
Even as she moaned and gasped and rolled her hips, she sucked his cock with passionate fervor.
Teasing his tip with rapid flicks of her tongue, then licking languorously around the head before taking him deep with a thick sound of pleasure.
It was wicked and divine.
He had no idea whose pleasure broke first. Everything just seemed to reach a culmination together.
Her hot, wet sheath tightened and spasmed around his fingers.
His spine tingled and his balls twisted with a deep ache.
Her breath caught on a deep guttural moan as her mouth closed around him, holding firm with the flat of her tongue.
Stars blinded his vision and pleasure pulsed up his length as her knees squeezed against his shoulders and she rocked her sex against his mouth.
He drank her heady essence as she swallowed every drop of his release.
Her pleasure became his, and his became hers until their muscles trembled, their spines softened, and they drew their first full breaths.
Though his body still thrummed with one of the deepest, most profound climaxes of his life, Edmund somehow had enough awareness to gently shift their positions so he could take her properly into his arms. Her head came to rest against his thundering heartbeat, her hand lay lax on his low belly, and her legs intertwined with his.
Holding her while her body calmed and her breath slowed was a delectable pleasure he’d never expected to enjoy so much. The sense of responsibility he’d previously felt for her seemed like a ridiculous notion compared to the emotions flowing unheeded through him now.
It was possession and denial. Terror and deep contentment.
It was profound and complex and wonderful.
It was everything he’d never wanted to feel and yet, now that he did, he couldn’t imagine going without it for even a second.
He felt as if he’d finally discovered the most guarded secret of existence only to face the fact that he couldn’t keep it.
There was a word for it. It floated about his consciousness but he refused to acknowledge it. Because then he’d have to address the reality of losing it. So, he held her tighter and closed his eyes and realized it was entirely possible for heaven and hell to exist together.
*
Edmund woke from a dreamless slumber to the delicate caress of butterfly wings whispering over his skin. The light and lovely sensation danced across his ribs, drifted along his sternum, then up the side of his neck where it stopped.
Then a gentle waft of warm air touched his lips before he felt the sweet press of a quiet kiss.
Fully awake, now, he smoothed his hand up Lydia’s spine as she leaned over him.
All the way up to her nape where he grasped the base of her braid in his fist. Then, with a primal growl, he lifted himself from the mattress and rolled over her.
He felt her smile as his chest covered hers and his hips settled between her parted thighs.
Her fingertips stroked gently up and down his back as she took his kiss and gave it back, with lush licks of her tongue and sweet little nips of her teeth.
With a gentle nudge of his nose against hers, he lifted his head and opened his eyes to look into her starry, storm-sea gaze.
Her smile angled straight to his heart, and he forced a curve to his lips so she wouldn’t know the devastation she wrought with such a simple expression.
“I’m sorry,” he graveled. “I didn’t intend to fall asleep.”
“It’s alright.” Her voice was soft and husky. “I drifted off for a bit, as well.”
As his cock stirred to life, Edmund adjusted his position to angle himself toward her heat.
Her eyes widened and glistened. Her tongue slid along her lips. And she gave a subtle roll of her hips. The tantalizing caress of her sex across his swelling tip pulled a heavy moan from his chest as her eyelashes fluttered.
“Lydia,” he whispered thickly.
“Yes,” she sighed, rolling her hips again so he’d glide over her sensitive folds to the bundle of nerves at the apex. “A sheath,” she gasped.
With a grunt, he rolled away and lunged for his coat to rifle through the pockets in search of the contraceptive device. He secured it in place as he stalked back to the bed. It took only a moment, and soon enough, his body covered hers once again.
Her gasp and the bite of her fingernails into his back was all the urging he needed.
Taking her mouth again in a fierce kiss, he slid one hand beneath her buttocks, lifting and tilting her to receive the forceful plunge of his hardened cock into silken heat.
They moaned together. Then gasped as he withdrew to the tip.
Holding her gaze, he continued the slow, deliberate, sensual assault. Going deeper, pushing her higher. Until he hooked his arms beneath her knees, tossing her legs over his shoulders so he could reach the very core of her.
She breathed his name with every thrust and sunk her teeth into his bottom lip, marking him as hers. When she finally fell apart in exquisite shudders, her pleasure ran freely from her, coating him in her slick warmth until he joined her in the oblivion of release.
He made love to her once more before sunrise.
The last time was slow and reverent as he rolled her to her stomach and kissed her from nape to toes, learning every secret sensitivity and every delicate moment of sighing pleasure.
Then he kneeled behind her and lifted her arse to enter her gorgeous cunt from behind as she moaned and clutched the coverlet in tight fists, thrusting herself against him with unabashed, primal passion.