Chapter 22
PROPERLY ENCOURAGED
Marigold was barely standing up straight. If it weren’t for his massive body, she would have collapsed long before. And then again, she was on high alert, her whole-body humming, almost pulsating with need.
She felt his hands, palms flat, roam her body as Brandon slid them up. He cupped her breasts gently, as if weighing them, feeling them. She was past shame and arched into his touch. Then he used both thumbs to tease, circling them.
“Brandon!”
“You say my name so beautifully when I touch you like this,” he murmured in her ear.
Her nipples pebbled even more under his voice, becoming more sensitive.
A sound escaped her mouth, soft and pleased and surprised at the same time.
She could feel the soft fabric of his clothes against her naked flesh.
One soft kiss on her shoulder and another flick from his thumbs, and she almost collapsed.
“Not yet, sweetheart,” he teased her.
His right hand slid down over her rib cage to the dip of her waist to the roundness of her hip. She awakened, gooseflesh everywhere he touched. He gripped her by the hips and pulled her against him.
“Feel that?” he growled into her ear. “Feel what you do to me?”
The hand she had on his thigh dug into his flesh. She could feel him, all of his arousal pressing against her lower back. A gasp escaped her, as if she was desiring to touch him there, but she was also unable to move.
“Such a good girl,” he cooed. “You are doing so well, Marigold. Let me give you a little reward.”
He slid his hands between her legs. She shamelessly knew that she was already wet, and his low hum resonated against her skin as his fingers found the evidence of her desire.
“Look at you, already so wet for me,” he murmured approvingly. “Do you need me to touch you?”
Her body instinctively arched toward him. Need did not even begin to describe what she felt in this moment. His other hand pinched her nipple right on the verge of pain and pleasure.
“What have I told you about answering me?” he warned her. “Do you need me to touch you, Marigold?”
“Yes, please, please touch me,” Marigold begged.
“There you are,” he triumphed as he licked behind her ear.
His fingers parted her folds, and she shuddered, feeling all of it at once: his sting on her skin, his hand on her breast, and the other finding that small nub at the center.
Her hips bucked, reaching for something she knew she needed more than breath, as her inner walls clenched around nothing, almost lamenting the emptiness.
“Please,” Marigold whispered, not even knowing what she was asking for.
“You sound so sweet begging me,” he growled. “Let me see if I can make you beg for more.”
Without warning, he slid one finger inside her, slowly, carefully, and yet undeniably. She immediately tightened around him and cried out.
“Do you like this?” he demanded.
“I do,” Marigold answered promptly this time.
“Let me see if you can take more,” Brandon said. “Do you think you can take more?”
She felt his finger going in and out of her slowly, reverently, just unlocking something that she didn’t even understand.
“Yes, I can,” she decided. “Give me more.”
“That’s my good girl,” he breathed in her ear.
He added another finger very slowly, stretching her core gently, making her used to this sensation.
It was intrusive at first, her body clenching at the strange sensation.
Marigold felt as if she was losing the earth under her feet, and she grabbed onto his forearm with both hands, not to stop him but just to anchor herself because she was feeling as if she was going to float away.
And she really enjoyed being where she was.
Even when he chuckled in her ear, she didn’t mind. Not even when he moved his fingers slowly in and out. Even once she felt the burn of the stretch. And she was rewarded for that persistence because as he moved, making her gasp for breath as he entered her again, and again, she felt it.
Little by little, that sharp burn was replaced. It became minor discomfort as her pleasure rose inside her. She felt her core flutter, his moves managing to rub against her just the right way.
“Does this feel good, Marigold?”
“Yes,” was all the answer that she could give.
He hummed in approval, and his thumb circled her center as his fingers relentlessly moved inside her wetness. That was almost too much for her. That same coil tightened inside her. Her breathing turned ragged, and she brazenly moved her hips to match his rhythm.
“I can feel it, sweetheart,” he whispered in her ear. “You’re so close.”
And she was. Oh, God, she was. Her eyes closed, her body tensed, her hips rolled into his fingers with urgency. And then he stopped.
“Not yet,” he murmured. “You will not come just yet, Marigold. When you do, it will be with me inside you.”
And then he removed his hand altogether, leaving her empty and bereft, a whimper escaping her mouth.
Marigold was very close to begging when he spun her around and made her face him.
She had exactly one moment to look upon his eyes.
She felt on her skin that dark and tense look as if it were a physical touch.
There was no warning when her back hit the mattress. He followed her, resting on his arms and elbows, just a breath away from her.
“Tell me, Marigold,” he leaned into her ear, “do you want me to allow you to come?”
She gulped and swallowed and could not answer for the life of her. Brandon chuckled cruelly and gave her earlobe a soft bite.
“I asked you a question, Marigold,” he warned her.
She mustered all her courage and decided that pleasure was too close to linger on pride or sanity. Both were overrated when he looked down at her, ready to offer her the kind of intensity she needed.
“Please, Brandon,” she begged breathlessly. “Let me come, please.”
His lips came down on her mouth, deep, claiming, and hungry. She met his fervor, her tongue slowly gliding over his. A low growl was his response as her hands slid into his hair.
Brandon positioned himself and settled between her thighs.
It was so intimate and almost alien, but her body instinctively cradled him.
She could feel all of him, hot and hard, just pressed against her entrance.
Her breath could only come in short gasps, and she could hear in her ears her heart drumming.
He looked down into her eyes, searching. Despite his demanding voice, his look was soft.
“This will hurt, Marigold,” he said gently but firmly, “but I promise you it will pass. Do you trust me?”
“I do,” she said without a second thought.
Without ever taking his eyes off of hers, he pushed forward just slightly, just the crown of him that she was so familiar with pressing into her. Her body clenched on instinct, tightly, still untried.
“It’s just me, sweetheart.”
Somehow, this reassurance made her limbs relax just a little, just enough for him to push deeper. This time, the stretch was far more intense than his fingers, his girth not comparing.
“Mm,” she gasped and dug her fingers into his shoulders.
Instantly, he stopped, holding still although his whole body was trembling by the effort. Even so, she felt that sharp pinch at her core.
“Do you want me to stop, Marigold?”
She took a breath and listened to her body. The pain was already fading, and as he shifted slightly, it was replaced by a sensation of fullness that was worth every discomfort.
“Don’t stop!” She clawed at his back this time, not to stop him but to urge him on.
“You are doing so well, Marigold,” he said, impressed, one kiss on her forehead. “Just breathe, sweetheart.”
Another kiss on her nose, and then he pushed again. On the corner of her lips and then some more. He took her lips in a slow, wet kiss and pushed through the last resistance.
“Brandon!”
He was now fully seated inside her. She bit her lips, not from pain but because she felt impossibly stretched and full.
For a few moments, Brandon did not move. He just stayed inside her, connecting them, just breathing into her neck, letting her body adjust to his length.
“Oh, you’re so tight,” he murmured against her lips. “You feel so good against me, so perfect.”
Marigold looked up into his face, and she saw that he too was lost in the sensation of them together. It was so intense seeing him like this that her inner walls pulsated around him.
“You’re making it very hard to hold back, sweetheart,” he said with a tightened jaw.
And then very slowly, he withdrew almost all the way out. She gasped as she felt every inch of him sliding against her sensitive walls. Equally slow, almost achingly, he buried himself inside her.
The discomfort was just a distant sensation, drowned by something else, something deeper. It was a pleasure building inside her that surpassed everything that Brandon had made her feel up to this point.
“There you are,” Brandon said as he read her body.
He established a slow, deliberate rhythm. He dipped his fingers around her hips to keep her steady as he moved inside her. As if they had done this a thousand times before, her hips began to move with his, to match his pace.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Like that.”
Her hands could not stay idle and roamed to his back, his shoulders, down his arms, as if she could not touch enough of him. His response was a hot, burning kiss. When they gasped for air, he stared into her eyes.
“I can’t stop, Marigold,” he growled. “I can’t control myself anymore.”
Marigold had never felt more powerful in her life, and in response, she clenched around him. That was enough to unleash him. Every shred of his resolve shattered, and his breath became a ragged sound. He sighed and drove himself into her, surrendering completely to the moment.
And Marigold was right there with him. She could not hold back, her moans becoming louder, her nails digging into his flesh, and her thighs pulling him deeper.
“That’s it,” he praised her.
That was all she needed to feel the tension inside her reach a crest that made her body arc off the bed.
“Brandon!” she cried out his name, loud and uninhibited and raw.
“Come for me, Marigold,” he demanded. “I want to feel you.”
Her body yielded to his command almost instantly. She came around him in rhythmic waves that took her breath away. Her mind blanked with pleasure, her soul both settling and leaving her body. Her walls clenched deliciously, constricting around him.
“Marigold!” Brandon let out a guttural groan. “Yes, such a good girl. Look at you coming for me.”
She was still shaking and trembling while he thrusted uncontrollably. Her hands felt every muscle in his back lock tight. He arched into her one final time as he spilled inside her.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said almost in awe.
His head fell forward into the crook of her neck, breathless, almost crushing her with his weight before he shifted. He collapsed beside her, but not before he pulled her with him.
Drenched in sweat, both their essences running down her body, Marigold found herself half draped across his massive chest. For a while, all they could do was breathe hard. That was the only sound she could hear besides his pounding heart under her ear.
“Marigold,” his voice was rough and tender.
As if waking up from a good dream, she looked up at him.
“How are you feeling? Did I hurt you?”
“Only in the beginning, and only for a moment.”
He caressed her face and pushed the wet strands of hair off. His look was warm and yet bewildered, as if he had witnessed something that he was not expecting. Marigold found it extremely satisfying to see him like this.
“You did so well, Marigold.” He traced her lower lip with his thumb. “You are a very good girl.”
Somehow her cheeks became even more inflamed under his praise and the way his thumb toyed with her lips, a whisper of a promise.
She nestled deeper into his warmth, her body still thrumming with the echo of his touch, and for the first time in her life, Marigold felt completely and utterly claimed, not as a possession but as his.