––––––––
TAYLOR KNEW THE STUFF ABOUT his past and his police record had been weighing hard on Matt, especially when he’d had to relive it all in front of her cousins. She hadn’t realized how much it affected him until she turned to face him in the dim light of Jude’s old place and saw the pain etched on his face. When he asked her if she was sure she wanted to marry him, his expression held the same aching hurt it had when he drove away from her all those months ago.
Back then their separation had been necessary. It wasn’t now and if she had anything to do with it, it never would be again. She was going to marry Matthew Thorne on Saturday and then they were going to spend the rest of their lives building a family and a future. Together.
“Good,” she said, reaching for him again.
She didn’t have to pull him to her; he was already there, his lips claiming hers, his breath and hers moving in tandem. He stroked her back, his hand hot and demanding through the thin fabric of her dress. When he palmed her ass, hauling her against him, she gasped and he caught it with his mouth, not leaving space for even a breath between them.
He lifted her, his strength overwhelming her in the best possible way, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Every step he took as he carried her to the bedroom pressed the long, hard length of his cock against the tight V of her body. Clinging to his strong back, she rode him, scrambling to get closer to him, to take more of him.
By the time he lowered her onto the bed, she was spiraling toward her climax and desperate to show him with her body exactly how much she wanted to be with him. To be his wife.
She sat, wriggling to pull her skirt out from under her so she could peel the dress over her head. His eyes heavy-lidded with desire, Matt watched her as he worked at the buttons of his white dress shirt. He wasn’t fast enough to suit her. Clad only in the navy lace panties and bra she’d bought especially for him and the three-inch strappy heels she’d caught him staring at all night, she crawled toward him, batting his hands away so she could undo the buttons and get to his bare chest.
Pushing the shirt off his shoulders, she ran her palms over his skin, feeling the muscles bunch at her touch. The edge of the raven tattoo was just visible, and she traced the ink with her finger.
“Turn around,” she said, needing to see all of it. To touch all of it.
He turned, and she pushed up on her knees, resting her hands on his shoulders so she could press her lips to the ink covering his shoulder. She felt the barely restrained power under his skin and knew that despite his stillness, he waited, letting her take the lead. She laid a trail of kisses over the feathers of the wing. The ink was beautiful, alike and at the same time so different from the painting she’d done of it. She couldn’t look at it without seeing how hard Matt worked to be the man who stood in front of her. The good man who made her a better woman. She needed him to see that too, to know she wasn’t settling for anything, that his past made him even more desirable to her because it showed as clearly as the raven on his skin the kind of man he’d become.
“I love you,” she said, picking the straightest, most direct path between her heart and his. “I love everything about you. I love your scars and the strength you’ve earned getting them.” She kissed her way across the back of his shoulders to whisper the words against his ear. “And I will spend every moment of every day for the rest of my life showing you how much I love you and how blessed I am that you chose me.”
The words barely left her mouth before Matt spun in her arms, crushing her mouth with his, stealing her breath and the last of her control. Her frantic hands tugged at his belt and yanked at the button keeping her from him. His lips curved against hers in a smile as he pushed her hands away so he could strip off his pants. Catching the delicate lace of her panties in his ironworker’s hands, he ripped them from her body, baring her to him. With his hand on the center of her chest, he gently pushed her back onto the bed and then he was over her, covering her body with his. Sliding inside her and claiming her as his own.
He knew her body as well as she did and despite his obvious desperation, he shifted his hips and slowed his pace, dragging the swollen head of his cock over the spot inside her he knew would set her off. She was so close; it wouldn’t take much to tip her over the edge. Pinning her hands beside her head, Matt drove into her, binding them together with every thrust of his body. She wrapped her legs around his hips, digging her heels into his ass, spurring him on, urging him deeper. Harder. Faster. More.
“More.” The word slipped past her lips and caught on a loop. She repeated it like a mantra, like a prayer, over and over in time with the movement of their bodies.
Matt drove into her, arching his back and filling her. Sinking as deep as he could go, he ground his pubic bone against her aching clit, matching his rhythm to the shallow catch in her breath. She spiraled into her orgasm, winding tighter until the coil turned back on itself, sending her flying, loose, unmoored but for Matt’s hands in hers and their bodies joined together.
He strained against her, the tendons in his neck bunched tight, and then he fell right alongside her, holding her against him as he emptied himself into her.
“I love you.” She repeated the words as soon as she had breath, needing to know he heard her and that he felt it too.
“God help us both,” he said, resting his forehead against hers, still struggling to catch his breath. “But I love you too.” He pulled back just enough to meet her gaze and his eyes burned dark in the dim light. “Will you be my wife?”
She didn’t hesitate. Her answer slipped past her lips without any thought other than to claim him the way he claimed her.
“Always.”
