She smiled against his teeth, knowing by the tender heat in his gaze and the passion in his kiss what he felt for her.
She couldn’t help but rub herself over him. It felt instinctual, and primal, irresistibly good. She thought she might lose herself just from touching him.His fingers left an indelible brand everywhere they traveled over her, undressing her. When she lay beneath him in nothing but her thin chemise, she wondered with trembling bones if she was really going to do this with him?
She helped him pull his night shirt over his head, then ran her palms down the sinewy muscles in his arms. He was offering himself to her, and she was doing the same, so grateful for so many past decisions not to use her body to get what she needed.
As she had guessed, he moved and kissed, and touched with slow, deliberate ease. She could have stopped him at any time, but she didn’t want to stop. She wanted to devour him–be devoured by him.
She raked her fingernails softly across his flat abdomen and felt him respond between her legs. He tugged on the laces of his night breeches and yanked them down. His cock sprang forth like a trumpet announcing this was indeed a man.
Fable closed her eyes and waited for him to stick it in her. When nothing happened, she opened her eyes. He was watching her. “Am I rushing you? If you’re not ready–”
“I’m ready.” She coiled her arms around his neck and pulled him down to kiss him.
He splayed his palm on the ground then worked her chemise up over her bare belly with his free hand. He paused for an instant and traced his fingertips over her belly before pushing the chemise up further, over the twin mounds of her breasts, her head, her hands. Freeing her, he leaned down and tasted her nipple with a few licks first, then gently kneaded her and sucked until she cried out.
She knew she wanted him inside her. It was almost too shocking for her to consider. Sex. Finally, after twenty-six years of holding on to the only thing that was hers, she offered it up to him.
“Don’t doubt me, Fable,” he commanded in a husky voice. “I’m going to marry you.”
So many twenty-first century men would think nothing of saying that if it meant they’d get sex. But she believed Ben was saying it to reassure her. He wouldn’t leave her when they were done. She meant something to him. What they were about to do meant something to him.
“I don’t doubt you,” she vowed. His eyes drank in every inch of her face then came to rest on her gaze as he lowered his head to kiss her. No longer was his kiss patient, curious. Now he was hungry, and the hunger wanted to be satisfied. He nibbled her bottom lip and drank her in as if she were an elixir he needed to live.
His deft, broad fingers moved between them and unlaced her drawers. She yanked them off the rest of the way and kicked them aside.
His naked body covered her like a blanket. “Do you want to move to the bed?”
She shook her head. Something about being on the floor felt feral, like his kiss, his teeth, his tongue. He licked a traildown her chin to her throat and kissed the curve of her jaw, the small hollow between her neck and chest. Every touch set more of her on fire. She tunneled her fingers through his hair, over the width of his shoulders. The heat of his mouth made her legs spread wider.
Nestled between her legs, he moved with sensuous steadiness, rubbing the length of his desire over her, using the heat and heaviness of it to coax her to open further.
“Lady,” he whispered against her ear, “have I told you that I love you?
She smiled, gazing into his eyes. She hoped he saw all that she felt for him. “Your eyes tell me everytime you look at me, Your Grace.”
“Then I shall always look at you,” he promised and used his knees to spread her wide. He kept his promise as he gently pushed his way into her. But then when the searing pain waxed and she broke their gaze and cried out into his shoulder, she felt him sink into her. Not just inside her, but everywhere. Had he fallen asleep? “Ben?”
When he lifted himself up on his elbows, he looked like something completely different than a doe-eyed duke with the elegance of a prince. His eyes appeared darker, glassy, as if he–
“Are you crying?”
“Not anymore,” he said, looking down at her. He moved himself deeper into her.
She ran her hands down his back and fought through the pain. “Tell me why you were crying. Don’t hide anything from me.”
He stared into her eyes and she understood what he was telling her.
“I was overcome with feelings for you,” he confessed tenderly while he broke through completely. He stopped moving, giving her time to relax. She was thankful for it.
“Have I told you that I love you?” she asked softly and began moving under him.
He closed his eyes and bit his lip then opened them with a smile on her. “Your kiss has told me.”
She laughed softly and then found herself shockingly smiling at how he was making her feel. When he stretched upward above her and he panted like some wounded beast, Fable watched him release himself full-force into her.
For an instant, pure, unadulterated delight swept through her, and her eyes opened wider and the blood drained from her face.
“What is it?” he asked, falling onto his back.
