Chapter 40 Sydney #2
“Gabriel.” I slide my hands under the hem of his T-shirt to feel his warm skin.
“You know I love you. I adore you. I worship you,” he says desperately.
“‘Worship’ is a little blasphemous.”
He pinches my side gently in exactly the place that makes me shriek with laughter, then he leans down to speak against my mouth. “You couldn’t have told me you loved me somewhere private so we could go straight into a no-pants party to celebrate?”
God, I love him. He’s so Gabriel. “Do you wish I hadn’t said it now?”
“Never. I want you to say it again.”
“I love you.”
“Louder.”
I laugh and speak up. “I love you.”
“You can do better than that.”
I turn toward the lake, fling out my arms, and yell, “I love you, Gabriel McRae.” My voice is no longer hoarse, and my shout is loud and clear.
Standing in the distance near the cars, Troy hollers, “About time!”
“Look away kids. Mommy and Daddy are having private grown-up time,” Gabriel shouts back, then he turns to me with a grin.
“I love you,” I say again at a normal volume.
He kisses me again, no hesitation in sight. He’s a man without a single doubt that I’ll welcome him inside.
He’s right that we can’t do more than this here. Molten arousal floods through me anyway.
He positions me sideways across his lap. The iron bar of his erection digs into my thigh, but if he can ignore it, I can force myself under control too. Somehow.
“Need to hold you and feel your skin,” he says.
His palms cup my breasts under my T-shirt, and I groan quietly at the delicious temptation of his touch.
“You know,” he says conversationally. “You’re wearing my shirt again.” He slides down to caress my back and lower abdomen in lazy strokes.
I nod. “Yes.”
“I like it. It fits you like a tent. In fact, it’s dark enough that between this big black shirt and the distance, no one could actually see a thing if I—” He moves his hand, completely covered by the voluminous fabric, into my stretchy cotton shorts.
My core clenches as he cups me, pressing against my naked flesh, the heel of his palm applying pressure to my clit. I gasp and grind against him.
“No. Don’t move. If you can stay still, all anyone looking at us will see is the two of us cuddling. Can you do that?” He pinches my clit between two clever fingers, then flicks it.
I whimper.
“Yes or no?”
I turn my head to stare sightlessly at the water. “Yes,” I whisper.
“If you’re afraid you’ll get noisy, put your head on my shoulder and muffle the sound there.
” His hand hasn’t stopped moving, and the fact that he knows exactly the right amount of pressure to drive me crazy tells me everything about this man.
He pays attention. He listens. He studies my body like there’s nothing more fascinating.
I remember pieces of our sex lives, but I want to know more. What touches make him lose control? Does he like to be in charge, or would he like me to take over sometimes?
His fingers tease sensitive nerves, playing me like a musical instrument. Forcing myself to sit still and stay quiet becomes an exercise in erotic torture. The only thing restraining me is my own self-control.
His fingers dip inside. “So wet,” he says thickly. “After you come on my fingers, I’m going to lick them clean.”
The whimper that leaves me borders on too loud.
His free hand comes up to guide my face to his broad shoulder. “Shhh.”
Gasping, I cry out against his neck as he works my body. The scent and taste of him goes to my head. When I kiss and nuzzle his skin, he shudders beneath me, a low moan rumbling through him as his cock flexes against my thigh.
He crooks his fingers, and, Oh God, I remember this, and there’s no way I can stay still and quiet. No way. “I can’t. Not here,” I sob.
He withdraws immediately.
The loss of his touch is unbearable. The need for him to finish me turns my brain to static. I can’t think. “I want to, but I’m afraid to lose control here,” I say.
“Trust me. I won’t let anyone see or hear you. Give me your mouth if you want to come.”
I lift my lips to his. He reenters me with his fingers, massaging that place inside, and using his thumb to add steady pressure to my clit.
All sense of time and place evaporates. Then I’m shooting into space, a woman gone supernova as stars burst behind my tightly squeezed eyelids, and, through it, he keeps me restrained and steady, his arms tight and immovable as he angles my body away from any possible prying eyes.
He swallows every one of my cries and holds me as I drift slowly back to earth.
When I’ve subsided into relaxation and my muscles have turned to water, I drop my head to his shoulder and shiver with aftershocks.
He sucks his fingers clean as his cock throbs beneath me.
I shift. “You were good at being subtle. I’m not sure I’d be able to pull it off for you.”
He smirks, and it takes me a moment to catch my accidental pun.
“So mature,” I say, laughing.
“Nature-Time is over.” He rises then hauls me into his arms, this time facing him with my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.
“You don’t have to do this. No one carried me when I was a kid, let alone a grown woman.”
“You’re tired. I’m here, capable, and want to do it. Let me.”
I put my head on his shoulder and stop fighting something that feels so good. He crunches over the gravel. When we reach the steps to the porch, he sets me on my feet, and we climb them together.
He closes the door behind us, and I kick my shoes off.
The bed with the ivory wedding ring quilt waits for us against the back wall.
During that fall festival all those years ago, I made Gabriel apple pancakes in the kitchenette with the green painted cabinets to our right.
The brown leather sofa where he slept in front of the fireplace the first night we stayed here lies to our left.
“We spent our wedding night here,” I say, remembering it well.
He tugs the T-shirt over my head. “Yeah, we did.”
“We stayed a lot of weekends while Zack gave you your tattoos.” I work his belt loose.
“I may have asked him to go extra slow on those,” he says.
“Shocking.” I drag his belt from the loops and toss it away.
“I slept on the couch most of the time.” He reaches around me and pops the hooks on my bra open, then drags the straps down my arms.
“Most?” I pull his shirt up until he finishes the job for me.
“We did come in November twice. We banked the fireplace overnight and had to share body heat.” He leans down and sucks my nipple, swirling his tongue over the hardened peak.
It takes me a second to recover. To remember he said something. I point at the electric baseboards. “We couldn’t turn on the heat?”
He laughs, then slides my shorts and underwear down my thighs and groans.
I free his erection and wrap my hand around his hard length. “Gabriel?”
“The power may have accidentally, on purpose, gone out,” he rasps. “Fuck.”
“I remember those nights.”
The look in his eyes turns to pure mischief. “Do you?”
I tug him closer by his dick and he comes more than willingly. “I knew you tripped the breaker, and I may have forgotten to mention there was a generator in the shed.”
Both of us kick off the last of our clothing, and Gabriel hits the lights, leaving us in near darkness with only the warm yellow glow of a low-wattage bulb above the little stove still burning.
His hands circle my waist then slide down to cup my butt.
“We played a lot of stupid games to make excuses to be close to each other.”
“Games make it sound fun. We tortured ourselves because we were too afraid to trust each other,” I say.
Gabriel huffs a laugh. “You edged me for seven years.”
“You poor thing.”
He brings his mouth close enough that I can feel the heat of him against my lips. “You kissed it better.”
He pushes the quilt out of the way and guides me into the bed where we spent our wedding night, then works his way down my neck, to my breasts, and finally the center of my body.
Gabriel runs his palms under my thighs and arranges them over his shoulders.
I close my eyes, my hands first digging into the sheets beneath me, then into his hair, the strands cool against my touch.
When he lifts me to his mouth like a chalice, I forget how to think.
Gabriel works me until my entire body is a coiled spring, then mutters against my clit, “Give it to me, wife. I want to drown in you.”
I come hard, my muscles tightening. He rises over me before the spasms stop and slides inside. I cry out at the perfect fullness and the way my body flutters around him. He props a hand on the headboard, lifts my leg, and powers into me. Stroke after stroke, I rise to meet every one.
He pulls out and guides me to my stomach. “On your knees. Spread your legs.”
I do as ordered, and he drags his fingertips down my back, from my shoulder blades to my waist, before he circles me in a hug from behind, his chest against my back, and pushes his cock back inside. He brushes my hair away from my ear and rests his cheek against mine. “I love you.”
“I love you.”
His arm grows even tighter around me. Then his fingers find my clit and circle as he fills me over and over until my toes curl again, and I orgasm so hard that I can’t remember to hold my own weight.
I fall to the mattress, and he follows me down, his cock jerking inside me, his heat flooding into me as I spasm around him.
We stay like that for long seconds, until the bliss and, finally, the aftershocks fade.
He separates his body from mine and collapses beside me, rolling to his back, then dragging me down onto his chest. I lie with my cheek against the silky warmth of his skin and doze against him, occasionally slapping away at something itchy on my back to the rumble of laughter beneath my ear, only to realize it’s him, feathering light touches over my skin.
I drift to sleep, rousing briefly to my husband using a warm cloth to clean me, then patting me dry and covering me gently with the quilt. “Thanks, Gabriel,” I mumble.
His knuckles brush over my cheekbone. “You’re welcome, Sydney.”
He climbs in beside me and tugs me against him.
“Tomorrow, we’ll go over all the parts and pieces in our prenup. If you can’t remember our past, maybe you can remember I told you the story,” he murmurs.
If I don’t remember, your story will be good enough because what we have now is worth it. Sleepiness drags me into its cozy embrace. I lay my palm over the slow thud of his heart, and we sleep until the sunrise spreads orange and golden fingers of light through the windows and across the bed.
And we face the day.