This is what I was made for.
She’d been foolish to think love somehow beneath her. Because when love looked like this, stripped bare of pretence and malice and artifice, only beauty remained. Soul-deep beauty that had them silent as they watched one another, the rattling of the carriage fading into the distance until there were only their mingled heartbeats. His and hers. Theirs.
Jacob leant forward, pressing a butterfly kiss to her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, her eyelids as she closed her eyes over tears that refused to stay inside her chest.
She turned her head, finding his lips with hers, and for another deliciously extended moment, they were still in everything except their breathing. He linked his fingers through hers and brought them to his chest.
Home.
She shifted against him and his attention focused razor-sharp on that point of contact. The carriage bench gave her more room to spread her legs, take him as deeply as she could, and experiment with angles. Shallow, rising and lowering herself, the sensation not quite enough, more of a tease than a relief. Need spiked, but she forced herself to remain slow, tilting her hips and angling herself so he brushed the spot inside her that sent her vision dimming.
“Annabelle . . .”
“Say my name again.”
“Annabelle.” It was a plea, a prayer, a blessing. “Annabelle. Annabelle, Annabelle, Annabelle.”
Her climax came so quickly upon her that she didn’t have time to prepare; it slammed into her in forceful waves. Endless, weightless. She was soaring, she was tumbling, she was suspended in glorious, wild, overwhelming pleasure.
“Annabelle.” Jacob’s voice was hoarse, and when she collected herself to look into his eyes, they were dark and wild. He was breathing heavily, on the brink of control.
“Arms around me, sweetheart,” he said, guiding her arms from his shoulders to his neck. “Hold on tight. Tell me if it’s too much.”
At his words, her body, which had been languid after her climax, heated once more. Her core pulsed, her need almost agonising.
“Yes,” he murmured. “Just like that.” His hands gripped her hips, lifting her, setting his own rhythm. Her weight seemed to mean nothing to him, and it was all she could do to hold on.
* * *
Jacob had once thought that he would never again fall for a woman’s charms.
That had been before he’d met Annabelle.
She consumed him and he drove into her with single-minded purpose. He was lost to the demands of his body and hers. They were in a moving carriage for heaven’s sake, but he was animal first, man second.
No matter what she deserved, she had chosen him despite his flaws. He would endeavour to be worthy.
Her arms were tight around him, her breath hot against his neck, the tiny gasps and moans that escaped her lips driving him closer to the brink.
He slowed, not wanting it to end so soon. He was alive with desire, every nerve singing a song that sounded like her name.
Her fingers found his hair, nails scraping his skull, hands tugging, and the shock of it, bordering on pain, spurred him on.
All his life, he had been searching without realising; he had been an empty vessel, rejected by a family he could barely consider his own, and she had been the one to fill him.
For her, he would learn to be the man she had always wanted. It felt like a blessing to be finally free of his family’s curse—not because he had destroyed the family name, but because through Annabelle, he would turn it into something good, something beautiful.
Underneath her skirts, his thumb found her slick centre, pressing and drawing slow circles. She tightened around him and his vision darkened. The pressure at the base of his spine tightened.
“Annabelle.” He raised her and brought her back down on him, loving the little gasped moan she gave. “Annabelle, sweetheart, I need you to look at me.”
Her eyes tilted up to his again. Blue, such a stark, lovely blue, like the sun against the clear sky. It reminded him of those hot summer days when he was a boy, before he knew how hard life could be. It reminded him of innocence, of happiness, of barely acknowledged joy.
He would acknowledge it now.
“One more time,” he urged her. “For me, little bird. For me. Once more.”
“Jacob.” Her voice cracked.
