Chapter Twenty-One #3
Mavis had been with men before she met Arden, though they’d been little more than boys, the experiences fumbling.
While there had been some pleasure, they’d left her more or less unsatisfied.
There had been other men since Arden, as well—exactly two, both blurry, nameless men she’d taken into her bed after one too many drinks during those stretches between cons.
Both times, she was driven mostly by a desperate hope that in taking someone else into her body, she could erase the hold Arden had on her.
Both times had proven monumental failures in that regard.
No one knew her body the way Arden did, and five years had done nothing to change that.
With every lick of his tongue and pull of his mouth, he proved that her body was his domain, a landscape he charted every peak and valley of.
He took his time, savoring her, his hands coming to grip her hips, lifting her higher to his questing mouth.
Only when Mavis was so desperate that her legs began to quiver did he slip a finger into her sheath, pumping into her with ease before adding a second.
When she let out a high, keening sound she barely recognized as her own, he focused his attention just where she was desperate for it, fluttering his tongue and pumping his fingers.
“Come for me, Mavis,” he murmured against her, not breaking his tempo.
It was too much—his mouth, his fingers, his voice saying her name like a promise.
Her hands tightened in his hair, her hips lifted toward his mouth, and a cry broke free from her lips as pleasure pulsed through her body like a strike of lightning radiating from his insistent touch.
She didn’t know if a second or an eon passed, her mind shattered into a thousand glittering pieces, but when she finally slumped back against the soft linen of Arden’s spread-out coat, staring up at the wide, sunset-streaked sky, Mavis felt entirely unraveled.
Arden couldn’t have moved if he wanted to—and he certainly didn’t want to.
He’d be glad to spend a lifetime between Mavis’s sprawled legs, the scent of her arousal heavy in the air and her taste on his tongue while her thighs bracketed his shoulders, still quivering with the aftershocks of her orgasm.
He was painfully aware of how hard he was, his length straining against his trousers, and he was sorely tempted to rise up from where he knelt and bury himself in her wet heat.
During their courtship, they had been forced to get creative in their intimacies, since they hadn’t had access to much in the way of beds or privacy, but after all this time, he wanted to be thorough, and he knew he couldn’t hold on to the invisibility that shielded them long enough to indulge in that luxury.
He sighed, pressing a kiss to her knee before freeing himself from the tangle of her skirts.
Arden sat up, allowing her hands to fall away from where they’d been buried in his hair.
In the instant she was free from his invisibility, he drank in the sight of her—flat on her back, wild red hair spread over his linen jacket, her chest heaving against the thin silk of her gown.
With her cheeks flushed and green eyes heavy and hazy, she had never looked more beautiful.
He idly circled her bare ankle, letting his invisibility fall over her once more.
He stroked his thumb over her anklebone as he tried to get a hold of himself.
“It seems my memory fell woefully short after all,” he told her, earning a surprised laugh. He wished he could see her, but he imagined her cheeks flushing and her smile turning suddenly shy.
“If it’s any consolation”—she reached for his free hand to lace her fingers with his—“my fingers were a poor substitute for yours, and I could never begin to replicate that thing you do with your tongue.”
Arden didn’t think it was possible for him to want her more, but his cock grew harder at her words, and he wavered in his resolve to take her now.
He released her ankle, grasping her other hand and letting her pull him down over her, arching up to catch his mouth in a kiss that drove every other thought from his mind.
As tempting as it was to slip inside of her, Arden was not quite far gone enough to ignore the risk of discovery that hung over them.
So although it felt like it might kill him, he pulled away from her, allowing a moment to savor the feel of her skin against his and the smell of lemons and something distinctively Mavis in the air around them.
“I’ll see you back to the hotel.” He forced himself to sit up and pull her with him.
“But . . .” Mavis started before trailing off, and Arden heard the confusion in her voice even if he couldn’t see it on her face. The music and revelry from the Benitez ball continued in the distance, and when she sighed, he knew she’d come to the same realization he had.
“I said I wanted to unwrap you like a present, Mavis.” He stood and helped her to her feet. “And I can’t do that tonight.”
As he picked up his jacket and shook the sand from it while keeping hold of her hand, Arden found himself hoping, for the first time since he arrived in Garlin, that his courtship of Oriana Mayles would move slower.