Chapter Thirty-Four
“Andrew,” she moaned back. Della was awash in sensation, and somehow it still wasn’t enough.
Her hands wrapped around his neck, sinking into those curls she loved so much.
She pulled him down on top of her more fully, letting his weight rest on her body.
All the breath rushed out of her at the feel of him, firm and hard everywhere she was soft and pliable.
His skin was cool compared to hers, but the heat of his breath scorched her neck.
Della wanted that heat everywhere. For once, parts of her weren’t fevered enough.
Andrew lifted up, his body shifting off of hers.
She let out an audible groan, and he smirked.
She caught a flash of those dimples in the low light, and that almost made up for it.
She sat up, too, just a bit. Her shoulders were leaned against the pillows, her head against the headboard.
His mouth brushed her skin again, just over the neckline of her thin chemise.
Della closed her eyes. Her hands roamed over his chest, feeling the corded muscles of his shoulders underneath his shirt.
She felt him slide down her body in one fluid motion, his fingertips dragging wherever they went.
He found the backs of her knees again, and something shifted.
Her eyes flashed open and there he sat, on his knees on the bed in front of her, staring at the exposed skin beneath the hem of her chemise.
“Della, do you want me to—” he started.
“Yes,” she interrupted. The only thing she didn’t want him to do was stop.
With his hands on her calves, he shifted her legs, spreading them farther apart. Della let out a muffled hiss.
“I’m sorry,” they said at the same time. He laughed, she didn’t.
“I am sorry,” she repeated. “That damned hip is always—”
“Della.” He leaned over her again, kissing her lips and her cheeks. Her nose and her forehead. Her eyelids and the wrinkle between her brows. “What have we said about apologizing?”
She did laugh then. It barely counted as a chuckle, but it was enough to ease the tension.
“Are you certain?” Andrew asked. His tongue laved the shell of her ear and Della heard a sound, an agonized moan that she didn’t even recognize had come from her own body.
“Yes,” she whispered. There was little space between them now, and his hands began to roam.
At first, his knuckles just brushed her skin, down her arm and back up.
Then he drifted over her collarbone and followed the neckline of her chemise downward.
Those knuckles grazed the swell of her breast. His thumb teased her nipple and it drew out another one of those moans.
She was weighed down by the delicious pressure of his body, but she felt the need to move. Her ribs heaved and her hips jerked.
“Fuck,” Andrew murmured under his breath. Della didn’t know if that was good or bad. She was about to ask, but then he lowered his mouth to her breast while his hand still circled the other.
Della let out a guttural sigh, and Andrew’s mouth slipped away suddenly.
He slid down her body again, his left hand still stroking her skin.
His right hand pushed up her chemise, and he shifted her right leg, creating space for himself between her thighs while ensuring her fragile left hip remained still.
“Andrew,” she gasped. She couldn’t help it. All of her natural capacity for words went out the window. All she could see, hear, and feel was him. All she could think was his name. All she could do was tug on his hair.
Della felt his breath against her core, and she let out another rib-heaving sigh.
His wet, hot tongue stroked her skin and she finally gave into that compulsion to move.
She shifted her hips forward, seeking more of that contact, and a stab of pain ripped through her body.
That damned left hip. She must have done something, hissed or winced or tensed.
Andrew stopped for a moment, and as if he knew exactly what she needed, his right hand came to rest on her left hipbone.
The strong pressure eased the pain, and she tried another roll of movement.
He held her steady, even as she rutted against him, and that rush of pain faded to a dull roar.
Andrew gripped her hip tighter as he sucked on her skin.
His tongue speared in and out of her body, his left hand rising back up to knead her breast. Della felt a mounting pressure, increasing with each stroke of his tongue.
Losing herself in the moment and being swept away in pleasure was something Della had never done before.
As if realizing that fact, she decided she wasn’t savoring the experience enough.
Her eyes flew open and her fingers tightened in his hair.
Her other hand wrapped around the wrist he still held against her hip.
He paused for a moment, withdrawing his tongue and teasing her with his fingers instead. Their eyes connected as he looked up, and Della nearly gasped at the raw need in his gaze.
“You are perfect, Della.” He licked the corners of his lips, and she watched him lower his head between her thighs again. “So fucking perfect,” she felt him whisper against her skin. After one long, slow lick, he returned with renewed vigor.
Della gasped. She moaned. She lost all sense of control over her own body.
With each point of contact and every roll of her hips, she inched closer to a peak she’d never before reached.
She heard her heartbeat in her ears and the sounds Andrew made.
She was almost certain he was still mumbling, rambling words she couldn’t hear, but she felt the press of them against her wet skin.
He sucked on a spot at the apex of her core that he’d previously only glanced over, and Della groaned his name.
He did it again, long, steady streams of pressure on the center of her pleasure.
She tugged on his hair again, and he moaned.
They were lost in a sensitive awareness of each other, of themselves.
Della had never felt such pure, white-hot ecstasy in her life.
Andrew moved. His right hand dug further into the skin of her hipbone. His left hand pressed into the skin of her thigh, right by his head. Della thought she might have bruises there shaped like his fingertips. She certainly wouldn’t mind.
All it took was one more swirl of his tongue, and she went over that peak she’d so been anticipating.
Her eyes slammed shut again, flashes lighting up behind her eyelids.
She transcended her body for a moment, sparks shooting down her spinal cord until she was made of nothing but numbness and tingling.
When she regained her faculties, Andrew was right there.
His hands had fallen away from their stalwart grip on her, and Della missed it already.
He’d rested his head on her torso, his chin digging into her skin just above where he’d previously held her hip.
That damned hip. She ran her fingers through his hair again, just because she could.
He stared up at her from his perch near her waist, and he looked almost shy.
His wide eyes were soft and longing, and the touch that had been bruising was now achingly gentle.
“Stay with me,” she whispered. He could take that to mean whatever he liked. For the night or forever, she meant either or both.
He softened even further, and he rearranged her chemise as he stood.
Della took that as a silent but polite refusal, even as she noted the hard length pressed against the trousers he still wore.
He walked around to the other side of the bed and pulled back the coverlet.
He climbed over toward her, enveloping her in the warmth of his arms in one swift motion.
She shifted her hips to allow him to fully pull the blankets over her, and Della let out a contented sigh as her head found the solid block of his chest. After the numbness and tingling faded, they’d left her with a soul-deep exhaustion.
Her eyes fluttered closed and her hand rested under his half-buttoned shirt, just above his heart.
She heard the steady beat there, and it almost matched hers. It was strong and secure. Constant, just like him. Della thought he might be saying something. She felt his breath disrupting single strands of the hair at the crown of her head, she thought that air carried words she couldn’t hear.
Andrew would tell her in the morning, she hoped.
Just before she had to leave.