She released him and looked up the expanse of his exquisite body—all hers. “Tell me what pleases you. I want to bring you pleasure.”
“Holy God, woman, if you bring me any more pleasure, I will spend like a callow youth down your throat,” he rasped.
Oh.
That meant she was doing something right. She took him in her mouth once more, alternating between sucking and licking. Listening to the cues of his body—when his hips pumped against her, when his breathing became harsher, when growls of pleasure emerged from him, she knew she had found her stride.
“Ara.” Her name was a moan on his lips.
Her mouth was filled with him, and she could not speak. Wetness kissed her tongue, and it was not just her saliva, she realized, but a part of him as well. He was coming undone. Losing his control. Humming her satisfaction, she touched the heavy sacs beneath his cock, gently testing their weight.
“Ara, I’m going to come in your mouth if you do not stop,” he said.
She did not stop. She wanted his seed in her mouth. Wanted to taste him, to swallow him. She wanted every last drop, as much as she could get. The flesh between her thighs swollen and needy, and he had yet to even touch her there. She moaned and instinctively took him deeper, bringing him into her throat. His fingers sank into her hair, tightening.
“Damn it, Ara,” he gritted through clenched teeth as he seemed to give in.
He guided her, showing her how to set the rhythm he wanted. She savored him, reveled in her ability to make this big man give in to her. He had stripped away his dressing gown for her. Had lain on the bed for her. He allowed her to have her way with him.
And she loved it. Loved him in her mouth, hard and tart and thick. Loved the sounds he made, the restless pumping of his hips. Loved his fingers tugging at her hair. Loved it when he surrendered completely.
“Ah, fuck.” He pumped harder, his cock surging so deep her throat constricted around him. “I’m going to…”
His warning was cut short by a flood. Wet heat spilled inside her, tangy and earthy and heady. She swallowed it, took all of him he could give until the last spasm rocked through him and he caught her upper arms in a gentle yet firm grip, hauling her atop him.
His breaths were harsh and ragged, his heart pounding with a fury she could feel against her breast as she draped herself over him, relishing the way their skin came into contact, so that there was not an inch of her that didn’t touch him. This was what she had been made for, loving this man.
“You did not have to do that,” he said softly.
She cupped his scarred cheek in her hand. “I wanted to. I love you, Clay Ludlow, so much it hurts.”
“I love you too, Ara mine.” A gleam entered his eyes. “Where does it hurt?”
His fingers traced her seam, parting her folds to tease her pearl. Her breath left her. He rolled them suddenly as one, until she was on her back on the bed, him settled atop her. He intensified the pressure and pace ever so slightly. “Does it hurt here, love?”
“It aches,” she whispered.
“Perhaps I can ease the pain,” he murmured, kissing her throat and then making his way down her body to the curve of her breast. First one nipple, then the other, his tongue flicking out to swirl around the sensitive buds before sucking. Lower still, over the curve of her belly to where she yearned the most.
She was so starved for him that when his mouth met her slick flesh, a small tremor coursed through her. She was on the precipice, ready to spiral into the abyss. A finger entered her, gliding with ease. She tipped her hips, bringing him deeper as he suckled her, and then added a second finger, working them in and out her slick passage as he worshipped her.
She came undone in a flash, the pleasure so violent and intense that as it rollicked through her, tiny pinpricks of light burst in her vision. He made a low sound of approval, not stopping his sinful torture until he had wrung the last ripple of pleasure from her body.
He fell to the bed alongside her, drew her into his arms, and they lay together, sated and happy. She wrapped her arms around him, vowing inwardly that she would never let him go. No one and nothing would ever tear them apart again.
“Ara,” he said tenderly. “My Ara. Just as you always were. Just as you were always meant to be.”
She kissed his chest. “At last.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Finally.
One fortnight later—andeight bloody years laterthan he had originally intended—Clay was Ara’s husband.
He could scarcely believe it was true. That the goddess seated at his side was now his wife seemed an implausible dream. An impossibility he could have never hoped to attain. And yet, she sent him a beaming smile, radiant in her happiness and in her unfettered love for him both. A river of gratitude washed through him, leaving him momentarily breathless. It was a hell of a thing.
“Felicitations on your nuptials and to the future Lord and Lady Stanwyck,” Leo said with as much warmth as Leo was capable of mustering.
