He chuckled, his fingers coming to her cheek and pulling her down for a kiss. “My little defender,” he murmured against her mouth. “Hearing you leap to my defence does things to me, little bird.”
“Good things?”
His lips moved to her earlobe, giving it a nip that sent heat through her. “Oh yes,” he said, his voice so low she barely heard it. “I would say they are good things.” When he drew back, she saw yearning flicker across his face as clearly as she felt it melt her bones.
The feeling inside her was too big to be contained. A rabid, possessive need to make this man hers, to ensure he never looked at anyone else the way he was looking at her now.
Every movement awkward, she rose and half collapsed on his lap, straddling him the way she had on the sofa, her knees pressing against the leather.
“Annabelle.” His hands caught her waist, drawing her down onto him, and then he was kissing her. Kissing her as though his world had ended and she was the light that beckoned him on; as though the only thing that existed in his world was her.
He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth and bit down, just hard enough for her to gasp with the sting and pleasure of it. Her body went molten, sinking into him. His hips moved and she dragged at her skirts, moving them out of the way, raising them to her chest until her legs were bare.
There.There.
He groaned, a sound that skimmed across her senses, pressed against her skin. With one hand, he gripped her hip; with the other, he ran a hand up her calf to the crease of her knee, tickling the sensitive skin there until she moaned and wriggled against him.
“Careful, love.” His eyes were bright when he broke away to look at her, so bright she could hardly bear to meet them. Heat and want that burned her inside out. Such a delicious ache. “We’re in a carriage.”
“I don’t care.” She kissed him again, coaxing his tongue with hers until he returned her caresses with an enthusiasm that bordered on filthy. His hand cupped her bottom, grinding her against him, and she laughed.Laughed.
“One of these days,” he said between kisses, “we will find a bed. And when we do, I won’t let you leave it for days.”
“Days.” The word sounded dreamy. She could stomach days in a bed with Jacob and his wicked mouth, his capable hands, his seductive voice as he told her how much he loved her.
His hips thrust up into her and although he was still wearing trousers, the friction of his erection against her core was enough to make her dizzy. This alone could bring her to that bright peak, but she was still aching and empty inside.
Her need tightened at the thought of him sliding inside her the way he had before.
“Jacob—”
He met her gaze blindly, lust clouding his eyes, and she cupped his face in her hands. “Tell me what you want, love, and I’ll give it to you,” he rasped. “Tell me how you want me, and you can have it.”
“I want all of you.”
“Christ, Annabelle.” His eyes were unfocused as she rubbed herself against him again, emboldened by the way he responded to her, as though his control was barely hanging on. As thoughhewas barely hanging on. His fingers squeezed her bottom in a silent plea, asking for the thing he would never beg her for.
“I want all of you,” she repeated. “Because I love you.”
His mouth was on hers, and he tasted like desire, like need. She wanted to capture this moment for her memory forever, so she would always know what it was like to be wanted more than life itself. The feeling of being loved was in the shape of his lips, the gentle scrape of his fingers, the taste of his tongue. If ever she had doubted it, she could not now, not while he worshipped her mouth and her body as though she were made out of precious gold and diamonds.
As though she were an angel and he were a shepherd guided by her light.
As though he was lost and she were the path to salvation.
As though she was Annabelle and he loved her.
“Annabelle.” Desire was thick in Jacob’s voice, and he raised his gaze again, looking at her with eyes that had become more familiar than her own. “I want you to look at me. I want to see your face.”
When she looked at him, he urged her up with his hands at her waist, and obediently she lifted herself free of him. He unbuttoned his breeches, freeing his length and positioning himself in preparation for her.
“Here,” he said, his voice rasping a little as she sat back on his lap, letting him find the place she needed him to be. “You might need a little—” he started, then as he slipped easily inside, he groaned. “No, I should have known. You’re ready for me.”
It was a reckoning between them, this moment. A beginning of something new, the end of what had come before. Yesterday, she had thought she would never see him again; now they were tipping headfirst into the future, and that future was wrapped in each other.
There was no mirth in his face, no wicked seduction or gentle mockery. Gone was the teasing, the easy smile that felt as though it had grown on his face the way muscles had wrapped around his arms. Now he was serious, deadly so, everything about him tensed as she sank all the way down.
Deliciously full. Deliciously his.
