He nipped at her bottom lip, then soothed it with a kiss. “For yourself.” His lips dragged down her neck, and he lashed his tongue on her pulse point. “For me.” A scrape of his teeth along her collarbone. “For us.”
For us?She wanted to question him, to bombard him with queries about what those two words might mean to him when the very notion ofuscould only last for a few hours, but one hand had left her bottom and now cupped her breast with the same tenderness he’d handled her,allof her. Her nipples tightened to impossibly hard peaks under his palms, and when he pinched one between his fingers, the sensation arced to her sex and her knees gave out.
Will caught her with one arm in the small of her back, lifted her against him, and he was nothing but strength, solidity, supporting her soft places. He backed her up to the bed, then set her down on the edge. His eyes blazed as he looked her over, taking stock of every inch of her trembling body. “Lie down on the bed, Adelaide,” he said.
With a nod, she shifted backwards, and once her head touched the pillow, he was over her, propped on his elbows with his weight to her side as kissed down her neck, across her collarbone and the swell of her breasts. When he reached the tie holding the neckline of her chemise in place, he paused, met her eye. “Yes?”
An utterly unfamiliar warmth spread through her. For all his strength and power, he wanted her consent, to ensure she was in control of every moment. After spending her life attempting to make her voice heard, he took a time when she was at her most vulnerable and listened.
For now, she could hand the control safely to him. “Yes,” she whispered, then repeated with more enthusiasm. “Yes!”
A smile pulled at the edge of his mouth, then vanished as he tugged the silk ribbon loose and lifted the fabric away from her chest. He revealed one breast, then the other, and her breath fractured in her throat. His lips parted as he cupped one soft orb in his hand. “Perfection,” he purred. “You fit my hand just like I thought you would.”
“You—you’ve thought about this?” Why was it so hard to breathe when this man looked at her like that, the utter concentration and reverence tangible in his gaze?
He leaned down and pressed a lazy, open-mouthed kiss to the side of her breast, then the underside, covering the soft flesh but never touching the aching peak. “Since the moment I saw you.” His attention switched to her other breast. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
His thumb flicked over her nipple and she cried out, arched her back to press herself further into his touch, but he pulled away, stroking her hair from her brow instead. She wanted to kick him.
He chuckled as his lips drifted over the shell of her ear. “Patience, my sweet. Can you be patient?”
“No, I can’t,” she whined, bucking her hips in a desperate bid for friction, something to ease the ache that thrummed between her thighs. “Please, Will, touch me.”
His fingertips dragged down her arm, and goosebumps erupted in their wake. “I am touching you.” Another kiss along the inside curve of her upper arm, then a gentler one to her lips. “You deserve for me to be patient with you.”
“I’m not a virgin.”
He froze, leaned away.Dammit, Adelaide!
“If that matters to you,” she continued, unable to stem the flow of ridiculous, humiliating words. She clamped her eyes, but not her mouth, shut. “Not that it should, but it was only one time, with a friend. We were both virgins and—”
“Adelaide.”
“But you don’t need to worry about it being my first time or anything, or that you’ll hurt me or—”
“Adelaide.”
She opened her lids, one at a time, to find him watching her with a furrow between his brows. “Yes?”
He exhaled in a rush. “That… that was a lot.”
“I know,” she whimpered, burying her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t control it sometimes.”
“Control what?” He smoothed a lock of her hair and curled it around his finger.
“My words,” she breathed, taking her hands away. “I talk too much. You know I do.”
He slid his knuckles down her cheek, caught her chin in a delicate touch, and turned her to look at him. “Stop saying you’re too much. If you want me to know something, say it. Trust that I’ll listen.” His lips brushed over hers, then again more deeply, leaving her breathless. “And I will be careful with you, even if you don’t want me to be gentle.”
With care so deliberate it was excruciating, Will explored her with his hands and mouth, lips and tongue, every moment intentional and calculated, as though he’d spent weeks, months planning them instead of mere hours. Soon she was writhing, arching into his touch, except his blasted fingers hadn’t yet roamed to where she most needed them, where she ached.
“Will,” she moaned, “please…”
He lifted his mouth from her breast and smirked. “Please what, my sweet?”
“There is more of me to explore.” She gasped as he pulled her nipple into his mouth, suckled, then released. “An entire southern hemisphere, in fact.”
The skin between her breasts muffled his laugh, the coarse hair of his beard making every nerve stand on end. “Patience, remember?”
