He clenched his jaw, his hands going down to the laces, jerking away the constraints with both ache and relief. He tugged the fabric down, pushing away any last barrier to her visual innocence, to any claim that she did not fully understand what she did to him and what he was going to offer in return.
She stared, her eyes falling immediately to his erection, a hand circling her throat as it flexed around a labored swallow. She studied him, drinking in the full effect of him, his whole body at times, and just that particular part at others as her hand loosened and traveled down over the front of her dressing gown, passing over the swell of her breasts in the process.
He would not move. He could not, until she spoke.
“Ambrose,” she said at last, weak and thin, “please. Please, I need you. Please.”
It was enough. It was more than enough. He could barely account for crawling onto the bed, for pulling her under him and ripping away that pink fabric, pushing his hands inside as he dropped his mouth onto hers with a ravenous hunger. He stroked her breasts, her stomach, he used his knee to push her thighs apart and slide his fingers over her entrance, nearly collapsing at how ready she was for him, how utterly perfectly prepared.
He still watched her as he pressed against her, as he eased himself into her for the first time. He held her eyes despite the crumbling relief of every solitary cell in his body.
“Mine,” she said softly, brushing her fingers over his hair. “You are mine.”
He heard himself curse, his hips stuttering as the weight of what she’d said propelled him forward. He cradled her hip, kissing her again, consuming the claim she’d made as he rocked himself into her, as he finally released the hold he’d put on himself in graduating, desperate thrusts.
Sensation took him, falling into the softness of her body, the sweetness of her movements as she rose to meet him, as she gripped him and murmured against his ear.
“This is what I wanted,” she told him over and over. “This is what I needed you to do.”
She slid her thighs along his hips, learning his rhythm, matching it, arching into it and letting herself whimper and moan at the sensation. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I desire you. Do you feel how badly I desire you?”
It tore a moan from his own throat, his mouth seeking hers, his pace going frantic. And still she met him, still she moved with him, still she climbed and sighed and sought her own pleasure within his.
“Yes,” she said at the final moment before she broke. “Yes. Please take me. I am yours. I belong to you, Ambrose.”
It destroyed him. It fragmented whatever was left of the gallantry and civilization in his bones. The world went opaque but for the way she squirmed and cried out as she came undone underneath him,onhim, her body pulsing around him in a warm, unbearable burst of pleasure.
He heard the climax tear from his throat, felt the rush of it cracking through the core of him, shattering all he was. He pushed it into her; he gave it to her like an offering at her altar, filling her and emptying himself in the process.
For a moment, there was nothing at all. No bed, no body, no room. Nothing but relief suspended in his body above her.
And then he collapsed, off to the side, with a shuddering gasp of air and a full-body tremble.
She rolled over onto him immediately, cradling his face, showering it with kisses, her mouth brushing his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, and his mouth, all while he gasped and panted for air.
And then she collapsed too, curled into his side, holding him so tightly, he thought she might never let him go again.
PART V
THIS IS NOT TRUE LOVE
CHAPTER 19
Vix did not want to loosen her hold, but after a time, her arms began to ache. Slowly and with great regret, she let the muscles in her back and down the length of her biceps loosen; she let her hands go slack and trace along the glistening, damp expanse of his skin.
She listened to him breathe.
But she didn’t let him go. She didn’t release him completely.
She didn’t look up at him either.
She wasn’t sure she could bear it just yet. She wasn’t sure she was brave enough. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut and breathed him in, marveling at how her cheek fit into the hollow of his shoulder, at how easily his arm curled around the naked expanse of her back.
Instead, she worried that her hair would dry like this, frizzy and tangled, and everyone would know what she had done. She focused on that, pulling air in through her nose, and when she opened her eyes again, they fell on the tray she had prepared before all of this.
The one she’d brought up before he got home.
“There is water, Ambrose,” she said, her voice soft and a little jagged as she peeled herself up and off his body to go retrieve it. “And grapes. The purple ones.”
