Chapter 31 #2
“I love you,” she said, pressing a hand against his heart. His entire body stiffened, and she smiled up at him. There was a first for him, too.
“How long?” he asked hoarsely.
“Mm, a little while. Perhaps since the first ball we attended together, although I didn’t know until later. It’s been some weeks.”
“Weeks,” he repeated, kissing the sensitive spot below her ear. “You have loved me for weeks? Even as I have been?”
“Love doesn’t choose.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, relishing the sensation of him on top of her.
Though she sensed his urgency, she appreciated that he hadn’t attempted to ravish her immediately. They had the space for this moment.
She could tell him what she needed to.
“I love you,” she said, pressing her face to his neck and inhaling.
His familiar scent—though she didn’t know when it had become so familiar—sank through her.
“But you can never retreat from me again. No more taking time making up your mind. I will forgive you this time, but another time it will take me longer to do so. At some point, I will no longer forgive you at all.”
His breath rasped free. “I deserve nothing less.”
“Now,” she said, smiling against his skin, “why don’t you show me how much you love me?”
“I thought you would never ask.” He slid his arms underneath her and rolled, seating her atop him, her knees on either side of his stomach.
“Since today is about you, I have found a way for you to take control here, too. This way, you may decide how quickly or slowly you would like the pace, and if it hurts, you will know and can stop.”
She linked her fingers with his, which were splayed across her stomach. “Will it hurt?”
“Possibly. I don’t know. This is my first time taking a virgin.” He said the words with utmost sincerity. “All I know is what I’ve heard, which is an imperfect guide. Men’s talk is not the most reliable source.”
“I expect not.” She reached down, found him, and stroked. His entire body went rigid underneath her.
Oh yes, there was definitely something to say about this position. He watched her with that same feral intensity, the same suggestion of coiled power and almost frustrated need. A sense that he would wait as long as she needed.
Well, she did not need long. Her need was almost as strong, and although sated in some ways, almost as frustrated as his.
They needed each other. They needed this.
“This is not what you told me would happen,” she said, one hand still on his length, still stroking, as she held his gaze.
A tiny half-smile crossed his face. “I changed my mind. Do you want me to tell you what to do?”
“I think I grasp the basics.” She squeezed and felt him flex in her hand in response. “Here we go.”
She sat up a little, leaning back as she placed him at her entrance.
Andrew’s hands clenched in the blankets, but his hips remained still.
She pressed a little. He was larger than her own finger, larger than she could have imagined, and for a moment, she wondered how on earth she would ever fit him inside her. It seemed an impossibility.
Then, with a rush of pleasure, his head slipped inside. He grunted, his knuckles turning white once again, and she let out a breath.
So this was what it meant to be full, and she didn’t even have him the whole way.
She sank down on him a little further. Further again. And again. The stretch turned into a burn, but the pain melted into the pleasure until she didn’t know where one ended and the other began.
Then finally she was seated fully on him. Sitting with him wholly inside her. He was watching her with the kind of hushed awe one might reserve for church. Then again, this did feel like a religious experience. Something that one might attribute to a higher power.
His fingers swiped reassuringly over her hipbones. “You’re doing wonderfully, sweetheart,” he said, his voice thick.
This was it; they were one. United. She had never felt closer to anyone, as though more than their bodies alone had melded. Their souls had, too.
Everything merged.
He reached up a hand to steady her, and she linked her fingers with his as she moved once more. Again, again. He held still until finally she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Move, Andrew,” she said. “I want you to touch me.”
It was as if he had been waiting for that one invitation. His hands came to her breasts, her hips. He touched her as though he worshiped her, and he held her with unshakeable reverence.
She loved him more than she could ever have put into words, and she knew he loved her, too. There could be no doubting it; he said it with his mouth as he kissed, with his hands as he caressed her with unspeakable tenderness. With every breath, she drew closer into him.
When her movements became choppy, he took over, rolling them once again so he lay atop her, one hand pushing her knee up and away, spreading her legs for him. His thrusts became faster, quick and sure. The moment for her control had gone, leaving nothing but his domination in its wake.
And he did. She opened her body and her heart to him, and he took everything she had.
When he brought her to the edge, he held her there with slow, purposeful strokes, until she felt as though her entire body tingled with pleasure and frustration. And then, finally, he brought a hand to her bud, and that was enough to tip her over the edge.
This peak was far greater than her previous, made all the more intense by the slow, methodical way he moved inside her, sending so much sensation through her, she couldn’t breathe.
All she could do was hold on as he rode her through it, and when the last wave faded into soft, peaceful bliss, he stiffened and emptied himself inside her.
Jessamine watched pleasure move across his face and held him tight and knew then that she would have done anything to live in this moment. Anything at all.
He stroked her cheek, damp with sweat, and kissed her forehead.
“And that,” he said, somewhat breathlessly, “was what I had been waiting for so long to do.”
Jessamine laughed. She laughed and laughed and laughed, holding Andrew safe the way she had always wanted.
And inside her, for the first time, was the potential for new life.