“Yes,” she said, and canted her hips. He slid in, just a few inches, and both their bodies tightened at the intrusion. The pleasure. The overwhelming sensation of being stretched. “Please.”
“I should have readied you,” he said hoarsely. “I intended to go slowly and show you everything, but—” He slid in another inch, and she ground against him, needing more, needing so much more, needing everything he had to give.
“I’m ready, I’m ready for you.”
He gave a shaky laugh, forehead against hers. “You barely so much as know what that means.”
She had vague, undefined memories of Percy readying her before, using his fingers on her—and on one occasion, his mouth, until she had wiggled away from him and begged him never to do that again. She also recalled the way her body had reacted. Its wetness. The dull edge of desire that she’d tucked away, trying to force herself to forget.
Now, that edge was honed and sharp.
“I’m ready,” she insisted, and shifted closer, that final movement seating him fully in her.
They both took a moment to breathe, sharing each other’s air. Then she kissed him—or perhaps he kissed her—with enough clumsiness that their teeth clacked together. They both laughed a little, but breathlessly, their bodies undulating as they found a rocking rhythm. Him inside her, filling her and stretching her, the pressure just enough that she thought she would explode, the sensation gathering in her lower belly. His kiss mimicked the roll of his hips, the give and take, the slick pleasure of it. They were joined so deeply, she lost track of where she ended and he began, and perhaps that was the beauty of it—beauty she’d never considered before, because her marriage to Percy had never felt like aunionuntil recently. And this, she understood now, was the greatest union of all.
Once, she might have been ashamed of the noises she made, the way she sank her teeth into his shoulder, and the way that only inspired him to take her faster. Harder. More and more until her vision blurred and the tension in her limbs tightened beyond all reason, until she hovered on a precipice, coiled so tightly she knew she might snap.
“Cecily,” Percy groaned into her skin. Dimly, she registered that it was damp, and that they were both covered in a fine mistof sweat, but it seemed an unimportant detail at the present. “Are you close, my darling?”
Yes.She hovered on a knife’s edge. Every small, vital movement bringing her closer, but she didn’t want to fall.
“Cecily.” His voice was more urgent now, fingers digging into her thighs as he brought her to move still faster against him. “I need you to come for me.”
Her inner muscles trembled, and again as though he held the reins, at his command she tumbled off her cliff into somewhere weightless and empty, filled only with pleasure so bright and shocking, she hardly felt the way she shuddered around him, or the way he said her name and thrust into her one final time as he found his own release, spilling inside her.
When she back into herself, she found him stroking her hair and smiling faintly. Her thighs shook, and he held her tightly.
“That was . . .” She didn’t have the words to describe how that had been.Incredible, awe-inspiring, wonderfuldidn’t quite seem to do it justice. “Thank you.”
“No need to thank me, love.” He kissed her hair. “I enjoyed myself as well.”
“And now I may be in danger of conceiving a child?”
“Danger isn’t perhaps the word I would use, but there is a chance, certainly. Have you changed your mind?”
She shook her head. “No. I think it would be charming to have a child with you.”
He laughed, open-mouthed and delighted. And she laughed with him, enjoying the shudder of his chest, the way his mirth reverberated through her body.
“I think I must be dreaming,” he said, and kissed her again. “Can this be real?”
“I don’t think my imagination is so vivid.”
“Nor mine, though it comes close.” His fingers trailed up and down her spine. “I’ve dreamt about this so many times.”
“Then perhaps we can make those dreams come true?” She raised her brows.
“Perhaps, though you must afford this old man a little time to recover.”
“You have not behaved like an old man much of late.”
“You make me feel young again,” he said, and the smile that spread across his face was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen. She traced the lines that flared from the corners of his eyes. To think she’d ever assumed she could not want him, crave him, love him.
“I love you,” she said quietly, and his gaze turned serious, though no less lovely. A warmth so bright that it bathed all the parts of her life she would rather forget. Even if she had the choice, she would not have exchanged it for a thousand years, for a younger husband, for anything other than this, right here, with him.
He touched the ring on her finger, the one she had always worn even when she thought she didn’t want to be married. Then he returned his gaze to her face. “I, Percy Somerville, take thee, Cecily Somerville—”
“What are you doing?” she protested. “We’re already married.”
