Her fingertips dragged down his cheek. “I love you.”
He rubbed his nose against hers and took the hem of her shift in his hands once more. “May I?”
“Yes,” she said with a gravity and confidence that made his heart swell.
When he’d lifted the chemise over her head and tossed it aside, he exhaled in a rush. With their proximity, he couldn’t see her clearly, so he explored with his hands, his lips. The heavy swell of her breasts, the flesh around her middle. The silvery lines on her thighs and belly. All of it a sign of her womanhood, her resilience and strength.
“Do you realize you’re humming?” she whispered.
He paused with his mouth on the side of her breast. “I am?”
She smiled, a soft huff that might have been a giggle escaping. “You are.”
“Ah, yes. Whenever I find something new that I like—” His thumb brushed over the tight furl of her nipple and she gasped, arching her back to press herself into his hand. “I must show my appreciation somehow.”
His lips closed over the peak, and her gasp became a low moan of pleasure, increasing in volume as he swirled his tongue, sucked, then razed his teeth over sensitive skin before giving the other breast similar attention. Her hips were rocking, the bare, heated flesh of her mound pushing against the ridge of his cock, and hethought he might die like this, on the edge of a precipice so intense he worried he wouldn’t survive it.
“Love, I can’t—” He swallowed hard, pressed his brow to her sternum as she shuddered against him, and another wave of electric pleasure arced down his spine. “Lay on the bed, darling, please. I need to taste you again.”
She blinked and nodded, then he helped her off his lap. He stood then shifted on the mattress and, focused as he was on protecting his injury as he moved, he didn’t immediately see the vision Marigold created. When he did, his entire world stopped.
She was propped on her elbows, her lush body completely nude except for her silk stockings, the yellow satin ribbon of her garters brilliant against her skin. She was curves and angles, strength and fragility, everything he’d never known to want, but what he could never again do without.
“You’re not humming,” she said, a nervous smile pulling at her lips.
“Hmmm, I will be,” he said as he lifted one knee then the other, spread her thighs and kneeled between them.
His first taste of her was like sampling ambrosia, how she arched her back and cried out heavenly music to his ears. “Do you like this, darling?” he mumbled against her thigh, rubbing his beard there and earning another gasp of pleasure. “I could spend my life worshipping you like this.” He licked a long stripe through her intimate skin, pausing to flick his tongue over the bud at the peak of her sex.
“Yes,” she breathed. “So good. More, do that more.”
“Anything you ask for.” He continued to work the nub a moment longer until it swelled under his tongue, then slid a finger into the heat of her channel. “Anything I can give is yours.”
Her breath caught, but then she was moving, shifting her hips to take him deeper.Christ, but she was wet, ready for him. He joined another finger with the first and thrust slowly, twisting his fingers to reach the rough circle of flesh behind her clitoris, and she bucked.
“Yes, oh please, yes!”
“You don’t need to beg,” he said, “never. Ask and I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“I want you,” she keened, “I want…”
“I’ll spend my life between your legs,” he murmured against her swollen labia, “sucking your perfect pussy until you come, again and again.”
But her internal muscles were fluttering around his digits, and he lapped at her clitoris, pulling it between his lips to suck. He removed his fingers and held her thighs wide to keep them from closing on his head, and soon her body tensed, everything stilling before she burst, a hot flood of her release soaking his tongue as she trembled, cried out and shook.
Archie crawled up the bed, ignoring the ache in his side and head to drag her into his arms, stroking her hair and kissing her, again and again. His cock seemed to have a mind of its own as he ground against her thigh, but he was close to making a fool of himselfagainover this woman.
He’d do anything for her. Sing from the spires of York Minster, dance in the middle of St. Helen’s Square, profess his love from the top of the castle—but the world had to know how he felt about her, how she’d cracked open his chest and filled a void he hadn’t realized was there.
“Archie,” she said, “you’re hurt, you should rest.”
“I’m not too hurt for this, not for you.” He was kissing her neck now, tracing the tendon where her neck met her shoulder with his tongue, nipping at her clavicle.
She hummed but shook her head, nudged his arm until he rolled with a pained groan onto his back. His cock was a dangerous thing, and he palmed the length, but she caught his hand and took it away. “Let me,” she said, straddling his hips with her knees.
This was it. He was going to die like this, watching this incredible woman unbutton his trousers while wearingonly her stockings. He might come just from the sight of it.
When she had his placket open, his cock surged and he moaned, throwing his head back on the mattress. Her slim fingers skimmed over the swollen tip before she wrapped her hand around him. He pressed his eyes closed, knowing that if he saw this, he’d finish far too soon, and he wanted this to last forever. Not merely how she held his cock (although that was pretty damned delightful) but being withher, nothing between them, honest and vulnerable and authentic, and—
