His arms wrap around me. Solid. Sure.
Home.
28
NICK
The outboard motor oftheIcarus’s tender fades into silence as we watch Rusty cut a pale line across the dark bay. He didn't linger. A firm handshake and congratulations, a quick reassurance that we’re securely anchored and safe for the night, and then he was gone. Now it’s just Avery and me, finally alone, standing at the rail under the moon and stars.
My wife.
The gold band is foreign on my finger, yet it feels right. I glance beside me, drinking in the sight of my bride. The loose fall of her pale hair is luminescent in the gathering darkness, the pearls at her throat gleaming faintly against her creamy skin. Her sundress skims her curves in the warm breeze, making her look like an angel. My angel.
I married this woman. Thirty minutes ago, on the deck of the boat that's been the backdrop for more than one important turning point in our life together, Avery became my wife.
She turns to meet my gaze. Her cheeks are still damp, her smile unguarded. Her palm slides into mine. Her fingers thread through my fingers, her touch light as she strokes the raisedridges of scar tissue on my right hand. She doesn't flinch from those scars. Never has. She holds my hand tighter in spite of them. Because of them.
"Take me to bed, Nick." Her voice is quiet. Steady. "I want my husband to take me to bed."
“With pleasure.”
I bring her hand to my mouth and press my lips to her knuckles, to the gold band that marks her as mine, and then I lead her toward the companionway.
Below deck, the cabin is dim, lit only by the amber glow of a single lamp I left on hours ago and the wash of starlight through the portholes. The berth takes up most of the space, expansive for a yacht, dressed in crisp linens. The faint rock of the boat is hypnotic, a rhythm that brings Avery up against me as we stand together in the quiet.
I capture her face in my palms and bring her close for my kiss. Her lips part, welcoming the sweep of my tongue. The urge to have her beneath me, to lose myself inside her, is strong. But I don’t want to rush this night. We’ve made love countless times, but this is the first time I’ve claimed her as my wife.
My hands find the hem of her sundress where it brushes her thighs, and I gather the fabric slowly, drawing it upward over the curve of her hips, her waist, her breasts. She lifts her arms and the dress clears her head, her blonde hair spilling back over her shoulders in a wave of gold. I let the cotton fall somewhere behind me.
Beneath it, she’s wearing a white bikini from our swim this afternoon. If I thought the red was hot yesterday, tonight the innocent looking white ignites a hunger in me I can barely hold. The strings and small triangles barely contain her. The pearl choker rests against her collarbone, the diamond infinity symbol catching lamplight between the twin strands. The combinationof pearls and bare skin and the flush rising across her chest makes my cock throb hard behind the linen of my pants.
I trace the line of one pearl strand with my fingertip, following it from the hollow of her throat to where the clasp rests at her nape. "This stays on tonight."
She smiles up at me, a sexy curve of her kiss-swollen lips.
I reach out and untie the strings at her neck first, then the ones at her back, letting the top fall away. Her breasts are full and perfect, nipples already taut. I lower my mouth to one, drawing it between my lips with a slow pull that makes her gasp.
“Nick…”
Holding the weight of her other breast in my hand, I circle my thumb over her nipple, loving how it tightens even further under my touch. She moans softly, arching into me.
I skim my hands down her sternum. Along her delicate ribs. To the flat plane of her stomach, where I let my touch linger, an acknowledgment of what's growing there, before I continue lower.
The bikini bottoms come off with a tug of both strings. She's bare now except for the pearls and the ring. A surge of possessiveness fills me as I gaze at her beauty, satisfied to see her dressed in a gift few other men could afford, and a simple gold band that proclaims her as belonging to me alone.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous. My wife.” I ease her back onto the berth, her head finding the pillows, her hair spreading across white linen.
I move onto the mattress with her, kneeling between her legs. She opens for me without being asked, her thighs parting, and the scent of her arousal is enough to make my hands unsteady. Her pussy glistens for me, already wet with need.
"I have wanted to taste you all goddamn day." My voice has gone rough, stripped raw by the hours of restraint that started when she wrapped her legs around me in the water thisafternoon and I had to remind myself that Rusty was twenty feet away. "Spread wider for me. Let me look at you."
She does as I command, and I press my mouth to the inside of her thigh, dragging my lips over the tender skin there, teeth grazing just enough to draw a sharp inhale from her. Then I'm where I want to be.
The first stroke of my tongue through her folds draws a sound from her throat that goes straight to my cock. She's so sweet and hot, her tender flesh searing my mouth. I flatten my tongue and lick her folds with a slow, deliberate pressure that has her hips lifting off the mattress.
"Oh, God—"
"I know, baby." I seal my mouth over her clit and suck, then ease off, reading her body with knowledge learned over countless nights like this. I know the way her thighs tremble when I've found the right rhythm, the way her breathing fractures when I push her close to the edge. I slide two fingers inside her, curling them forward, and she clenches around me so tight that the thought of what she'll feel like around my cock nearly undoes my patience.
