He did not mind being the one to debauch her. In fact, it would be his greatest pleasure. In this moment, there was no pain, no danger, no impediment to them both getting what they so badly wanted and needed—each other. What they had been denied all these years.
“I am attempting to keep you here with me for as long as possible,” he admitted, moving a hand between them.
His fingers parted her, found the bundle of flesh that was so deliciously responsive, and stroked. She bucked over him, a gasp tearing from her throat. Aye, this was a dream to be sure. A dream to be waking up with her in his bed, with the chance she could be his again.
But he could not rush either of them, he knew. So, he focused on this simple truth between them: pleasure. His need for her. Her need for him. It was the one thing that had never dimmed, despite the betrayals each thought the other had committed. It had always been there, humming beneath the surface of their every interaction. And now it was theirs to unlock.
“Oh,” she said as she rocked over him, dragging his hard cock over her seam.
Oh indeed.
He was going to spend all over her if she continued this torture. “I need to be inside you, Ara.”
No sight had ever been more beautiful or more arresting than Ara nude and astride him. Her hair was a vibrant cascade of curls down her back, her full, pink-tipped breasts thrust forward like ripe offerings. He could not resist sucking a rosy nipple into his mouth.Perfection.
“Clay,” she gasped, undulating her hips again as she shuddered against him, finding her release as he rubbed her pearl and gave her breast a gentle bite.
He waited until the waves of pleasure had subsided for her, and then he gripped his cockstand, positioning himself at her entrance. “Do you want this?”
Her blue-violet eyes were steady on his, her pupils dark, large, and glazed with desire. “Yes.”
No hesitation, and thank God for that. He thrust upward and brought her down on him at the same time. In one breath, he was deep inside her, and she was hotter and wetter than she had ever been. She clenched on him. It was just so bloody good.
So bloody…
Damn it, he could not even think. His entire world became the connection between their bodies. The pleasure burst open inside him like a firework display on the inky canvas of a night sky, one moment blank and the next color, spark,boom. They found their rhythm, his hands on her hips helping to set the pace. Showing her how to move, how to ride him.
Bursts of memory shot through him as he rocked beneath her sensual onslaught. He remembered the first time he had seen her watching him in the trees. He remembered their first kiss. Remembered the night he had made love to her before the crackling fire when he had been certain he would be her husband in two days’ time and the future was theirs. Recalled their goodbye kiss in the moonlight, the way it had felt to love Ara, as if the sun shone only for him. As if he were as lofty as a cloud.
He shook himself from the past. Her cunny was so slippery, tightening on him so deliciously it took his breath.To hell with the past.He wanted her future. He wanted her mornings, her days, her nights. He never wanted to leave her bed, her side.
Because he had not stopped loving her.
The realization hit him. He did not just want to make a life with Ara and Edward. He loved her. Had always loved her. Would always love her. Araminta Burghly was his, and he wasn’t going to let her go. Not ever. Soon, she would be Araminta Ludlow, just as she was always meant to have been.
The thought made his ballocks draw tight, and he almost spent inside her then and there. He surged deep, and she clenched around him once more, a shudder of release sending her collapsing to his chest. Their mouths fused, and he rolled them both to their sides, withdrawing from her body at the last moment to fist his cock and spill his seed into the bedclothes.
In the aftermath of their swift passion, they lay together, their sweat-slicked bodies intertwined. Their gazes locked and held. A small, shy smile curved her full lips.
“Good morning, Clay.”
He kissed her nose, adoring the smattering of freckles on the delicate bridge. “Morning, Ara mine.”
Her lips parted. Sadness clouded her gaze. “I never thought to hear you call me that again.”
He ground his jaw against the reminder of what had been robbed from them. “You have always been mine, Ara. From the moment we first met beneath the shade of the trees until this very moment. Nothing has changed.”
And yet, everything had.
Truth could be so strange, as freeing as it was confounding.
Tears shone in her vibrant eyes, clinging to her long, dark lashes. “I am so sorry, Clay.”
The tears spilled down her cheeks in slow, fat droplets.
He kissed each one, licking his lips, tasting the salt of her pain. “Do not cry, darling. And do not be sorry. I am not sorry at all. Rather, I am glad.”
“Glad?” Her brows arched.
