Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“Granddad!”
When the shameless schemer failed to answer Drew’s third bellow, he rested his forehead against the glass pane and shook his head in disbelief. Shifting his weight, he discreetly adjusted his deflated prick with a grimace.
Damn it all.
Not only had he made a complete hash of what was almost certainly the only time he would ever hold Cecelia in his arms, but now the unlucky woman was trapped inside his humid, unkempt greenhouse.
In his fantasies, their first kiss had always been slow and thorough and memorable for all the right reasons.
Instead, the moment her soft lips touched his, all the blood in his body had pooled in his groin.
He'd kissed her like a starving man after twelve rounds in the ring and practically convulsed with need when her tooth scraped his lip. No wonder she had bolted for the door.
“What are the chances he’s coming back?” Cecelia asked.
Drew huffed out a miserable laugh and turned around.
Cecelia stood beside his award-winning tea roses, bright-eyed and flushed, errant dark curls tumbling out from under her bowler.
She was so breathtakingly disheveled that he was momentarily lost for words.
Then his gaze snagged on her lips, which were swollen from their kiss and pressed together not in disapproval, as he would have expected, but as if she were fighting a smile.
“Does this new predicament amuse you?” he asked with some incredulity.
One shoulder lifted. “Seems a rather fitting end to this farce of a day.”
“Suppose that’s true. It could only get worse if…” A thought occurred to him, and he winced. “If it’s two o’clock.”
She consulted the silver fob watch pinned to her blouse. “Five minutes ’til the hour,” she confirmed. “What does that mean?”
“Granddad naps every afternoon at two. Once he’s down, we won’t see him for another hour or two.”
“Like I said—farcical.” She chuckled again, and the sound melted the tight, desperate coil in his stomach. “I should be cross but watching him totter toward the house, as slow and determined as a tortoise, was simply too funny.”
“I can break the latch,” he offered, reaching for the door handle. “Let you out.”
“Don’t you dare.” She swatted his hands away from the wooden frame with a fierce glower. “You only just finished repairing the greenhouse. I won't have you undoing all that work because I happened to get myself locked inside.”
He hesitated. Not because of the latch, which he could fix in ten minutes, but because removing it meant letting her go.
Damnit, he wasn’t ready to watch her walk away after one disastrous kiss as if that’s all there was to them.
Not when Granddad's meddling had handed him a second chance.
He cast about for a way to ask for another kiss without sounding like a desperate cretin—
“I owe you an apology,” she announced, “for behaving quite badly.”
“There’s no need—”
“There is.” Her chin lifted, and her hands launched into the air to aid her explanation.
He'd always loved that she argued with her whole body, as though her voice alone wasn’t enough to express the passion inside.
“It was foolish of me to follow you here. Then to top it all off, I threw myself into your arms and bit you instead of kissing like a normal person!”
His mouth went dry.
“Cecelia, wait.” He caught her hands in his.
“I thought you stopped because I was doing such a poor job at kissing.” Her eyes widened, and he added in exasperation, “I stood there like a numbskull! I wanted to touch you so badly, but I was afraid I’d muss your shirtwaist with my rough hands.
I was so busy convincing myself not to toss you over my shoulder, race to my bedroom, and fu—”
He stopped. Cleared his throat awkwardly.
Jesus Christ.
“Mr. Sutton,” she murmured, her voice dropping into unmistakable amusement. “You are positively lascivious.”
“I am when it comes to you.” He spoke slowly, clearly, unmistakably. He was done pretending Cecelia didn’t undo him. “Always have been, always will be.”
“So I’m beginning to understand.” She took one step toward him, the teasing in her expression melting into something more fervent. “I was nervous.”
He answered with a careful step of his own. “So was I.”
“I haven’t kissed anyone in years. And I haven’t…anything else.”
His heart stumbled over the sweet, vulnerable admission. “I haven’t touched a woman since I met you.”
“But that was three years ago!” Wonder spread across her face, and she drifted another inch closer until only the width of a hand separated them. “Then the sound you made wasn’t a grunt of distaste but…”
“A desperate, carnal moan,” he confirmed.
He couldn't resist any longer. His arm slid around her waist, still half expecting her to pull away.
She didn't. Instead, rich, delighted laughter bubbled from her, shaking her shoulders.
Every featherlight brush of her bodice against his coat made his pulse pound harder, his body tighten more.
Gradually, her laughter faded. She raised a hand and rested it over his thudding heart.
“So.” The word floated between them. “Shall we try again?”
God, he fucking loved her.
“Immediately.” He scanned the greenhouse. “Though perhaps we’d better move somewhere less exposed, in case Granddad wakes early with a guilty conscience.”
“I agree, especially since I plan to kiss you senseless.”
His grip tightened on her waist, digging into the soft cotton lawn before he remembered himself. He loosened his hold only to clutch her hand in his, unwilling to let her go for even a moment.
“Wait,” she said.
He went still. For one terrible second, denial roared through his body as she tugged her hand free.
But she only removed her bowler and tossed it onto the bench behind her without so much as a glance.
Her gloves joined the hat. She took his hand again, her warm, calloused fingers sliding between his.
“Now I’m ready.”
He led her down the soil-scattered brick path to the rear of the greenhouse where it was coolest, the burlap shade drawn overhead to protect his autumn seedlings from the summer sun.
At his worktable, a jumble of seed packets, twine, and half-finished notes on his cactus dahlias covered the surface.
He braced his forearm on the weathered pine and swept everything to the ground.
“Heavens,” Cecelia breathed. “Who knew making a mess could be so terribly arousing?”
He caught her by the hip, turned her, and settled her against the edge of the table before crowding into the space between her knees. He grunted with satisfaction.
“Now you know how I feel every time I'm around you.” He planted his hands on either side of her, caging her in.
“Walk past me with your nose in the air?
I'm aroused. Argue with me over the best fertilizer?
I'm aroused. Finally allow me close enough to learn your scent?” He burrowed his nose in the nook behind her ear and inhaled deeply, his senses flooded with fresh earth, lavender, and clean linen. “Goddamn, I’m aroused.
She laughed breathlessly, her fingers clutching his forearms. “You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not.” He rocked forward, letting her feel the evidence of his arousal. Her quick, indrawn breath made him stiffen more. “Feel that? I’m already hard for you.”
“Time to kiss me,” she gasped.
“Undo your collar,” he murmured. “The top button of your blouse.”
Her hands flew to oblige, and he indulged himself by nuzzling into each bit of exposed skin. He dropped soft kisses to her fluttering pulse, then down the column of her neck to dip his tongue into the hollow at the base of her throat. Salty. Earthy. Cecelia.
“Like this?” he grunted.
“Yes—no.” She wiggled on the table. “Oh, stop teasing me, you wretch. Kiss me.”
The route to her lips was unerring. Unfaltering.
He stroked his tongue across the closed seam, humming low in his throat when she opened and his tongue could slip inside to play with hers.
The kiss deepened, moans and gasps slipping between them.
He paid attention to every detail; how she arched when he sipped at her lips, how her knees squeezed his outer thighs when he tangled his fingers in the curls at her nape.
His body strained toward hers as if he were a seedling and she the sun. It was becoming harder to breathe, harder to convince himself a kiss was enough.
He wanted his hand under her skirts.
Hell, he wanted to tear the damned things off her.
He wanted his fingers buried in her heat, wanted to hear her gasp his name.
Wanted to lay her backward, spread her wide, and finally stop wondering what she'd taste like.
That savage part of him—the one he'd spent years keeping on a short leash—was clawing to get out.
“I want to kiss all of you,” he muttered against her cheek, rocking against her thigh. “Every goddamn inch.”
“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes.”
He'd tried so damn hard to be a gentleman around her. To watch his mouth and keep his hands to himself. But she’d said yes. The leash snapped. Now, he would dine on her flesh. He would memorize her mewls of pleasure.
He would make her howl.
He straightened abruptly, shrugging out of his coat and spreading it on the worktable behind her.
“Lie back, petal,” he said, the term of endearment sliding free. Good. He wanted her to hear it. To know the name he’d called her in his mind for years.
“Petal?” she asked, staring up at him.
“You’ve always been my flower.” He slid one arm under her plump bottom and lifted her. “My rose, my petal.” She gasped as he laid her down. “Do you like it?”
Her eyes glittered up at him. “I love it.”
With shaking hands, he gathered the fine layers of her skirt, petticoat, and chemise, and lifted them slowly. When they were high enough, he guided her hands to hold them in place. His work-roughened hands went to the muslin drawstring at her waist.
“Lift your hips, petal.”
He tugged her drawers down slowly, inch by captivating inch, revealing a soft belly, strong thighs, and a thicket of dark, moist curls. The drawers slid down her shapely legs, and then they were off.
He sank to his knees.
His hands shook as he cupped her thighs and stroked the downy inner skin with his fingers. He leaned forward into temptation and breathed deep, a groan of satisfaction wrung from his lips as he learned her natural perfume.
“I’m going to kiss your cunt.”
“Yes, yes.” Her legs moved restlessly before hooking behind his shoulders. “Now.”
He leaned forward and dragged his tongue through her molten slit from bottom to top. She let out a screech, her knees clamping around his head. He chuckled, his breath washing over her flesh and raising goosebumps.
“Again. Again.”
He parted her folds with his thumbs and set to driving her mad.
He licked his way around her satiny cunt, learning each crevice and fold.
Puckering his lips around her nub made her twitch; flicking it gently with his tongue made her hips thrust. He tightened his grip around her thighs and lavished her with the attention he so badly needed to give.
He raised a finger to probe at her entrance.
Another shriek drifted to the rafters. Her hands dug into his hair, tugging sharply, pulling him farther into her flesh.
He fucking loved it. He would gladly suffocate in her cunt, gladly devote himself to her pleasure until she had enough or he expired.
She was a quivering, shaking mess, and she was all his.
Her legs went rigid and her cunt tightened on his fingers as she wailed her climax.
“Oh my God,” she moaned, going still on the table. “Oh my God, Drew. Your tongue—oh my God.”
He rose to his feet, tugged open his trousers, and took his pulsing cock in hand. Her face—oh God, her face was flushed and dazed and sated and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Look what you’ve done to me,” he rasped, nearly choking when she eyed his prick and licked her lips hungrily.
He angled his body, giving her the best view of his length.
He jerked his cock in hard, fast strokes, and then he was coming, his seed spilling over his hand in hot spurts onto the path.
He dropped onto the table with a long and satisfied groan.
He gestured, and she moved into his arms with loose limbs and contented sighs.
A sheen of perspiration dotted her brow.
He wiped it carefully with the cuff of his shirt, then tucked a stray curl behind her ear.
At last, he lay still beside her, content to watch the clouds drift overhead.
He drifted in his thoughts, lulled by Cecelia’s breath and the soft patter of an afternoon drizzle against the glass panes.
“This might be a silly question,” she murmured a while later, tilting her head back to meet his gaze.
Her palm settled over his chest, right above his heart.
He wondered if she felt how it sped up at her touch.
“But everything you said today…everything we did today…” Her fingers curled slightly into him. “Did you mean it?”
A laugh burst out of him before he could stop it. He hauled her tighter against him until she let out an offended squeak. "Yes, you daft woman," he said, chuckling into her mussed curls. “Every blasted word.
“Daft petal,” she corrected, her voice muffled by his shirt. He loosened his hold just enough for her to peek up at him, looking unbearably pleased with herself. “I’m your petal.”
“You are,” he assured her, pressing a kiss to her brow.
She slipped a hand free and combed her fingers through the damp hair at his forehead, smoothing it back with such impossible tenderness that his throat tightened.
“And it appears,” she said, her voice a curious mixture of solemnity and playfulness, “that my hypothesis was correct.”
“Oh?”
She leaned in until their foreheads touched.
“You, Drew Sutton, are mine.”