But he didn’t gift her with that pleasure. Not yet. He lifted his head, his mouth glistening from her body, and smiled. Even with his face bruised and battered from the earlier attack, he was still the most handsome man she’d ever known. When he smiled at her like that, not a charming mask he wore for the world, but a real smile, her heart fluttered.
And she never wanted to lose that. Never wanted it to end. Even though she knew it must. And that made her desperate.
She reached for him and he surged toward her, his mouth finding hers as he settled between her legs. She tasted her essence on his tongue as he kissed her, salty-sweet, and she shivered with renewed pleasure.
He was shifting now, moving over her, his hand sliding between them as he positioned the head of his cock at her entrance. She waited for him to thrust, to take, to claim, and braced herself for the moment.
Instead he withdrew from her kiss and looked down at her. “Are you sure you want this?”
She blinked. Here he was on the cusp of claiming and still he asked her for permission.
She reached up to cup his cheeks, smoothing her thumbs across his skin as she stared up into those beautiful brown eyes. “I wantyou,” she corrected softly. “And I’ve never been more certain of anything in my entire life.”
He stared at her, his lips parting slightly, as if he was surprised by that answer. Then he nodded slowly and tipped his hips forward.
She expected resistance as he took her. Past experience said there would be. But there was none. His cock slid past her outer lips, into her wet body without a fraction of opposition. And though she felt herself being stretched, slowly and gently, the resulting experience of that was not pain.
It was something…magical. He fitted himself into her all the way to the hilt and then rested there, unmoving as she grew accustomed to his invasion. She flexed around him gently and he made a pained little sound in his throat.
“You do know how to test a man’s control,” he whispered before he leaned in to kiss her. She relaxed beneath him a fraction more, losing herself in that gentle kiss. And it was only then that he moved.
One long thrust, almost all the way out of her clinging body, then back in until she took him completely. She gripped his arms as he did so because the sensation was electric and alive and oh, so very good. She realized in this moment thatthiswas what she hadn’t understood about all those happy marriages that surrounded her. This was what this act was all about.
Because it felt intimate and warm. Connected and powerful. It didn’t change her love for this man, but it did magnify it, place it in purely physical terms that meant so much. This was…everything. And as he thrust again, she lifted to meet him and accept the beautiful gift he offered. The beautiful one she could give in return.
He took and took, gently and slowly, grinding his hips against hers with every thrust and stimulating the same tingling clitoris he had been licking a few moments before. She rose to meet him, seeking the pleasure, finding it over and over again. It increased in volume and intensity as he increased his own speed. She gasped out against it, trying to find breath and purchase, losing control as she watched the same thing happen to him.
And then it was there. The soaring sensation that hit her in intense, powerful waves. She jolted against him and he caught her keening cries with his mouth so no one would hear them and interrupt this beautiful moment.
Only when she collapsed in exhausted satisfaction beneath him did he grip her hips, pulling her tight as he increased his pace even further. His neck strained, his face turned red, and then he grunted out her name and pulled away from her. She watched, fascinated, as ropes of release spurted from his cock while he stroked himself to completion.
He collapsed over her then, kissing her damp neck and her mouth, whispering incoherent sounds of pleasure. She folded her arms around him, tracing little patterns on his back. And all of them wereI love you, written over and over again on his skin until she slipped into sleep in his arms.
It had been almost an hour since Elizabeth slipped into his chamber, into his arms, into his bed. Since she’d given herself to him with sweet abandon. And Morgan held her, balancing them both precariously on the narrow bed as she dozed.
He had seen something in her eyes as he made love to her. He’d seen something he welcomed and feared all at once. It was that connection he knew was there, but had tried to ignore since his arrival here in Brighthollow. It was…well, perhaps some people called it love.
He’d seen it there, and he’d known he shouldn’t do what he did next. Which was take her. Take that connection. But how could he resist? How could he when she was tempting and overwhelming and…everything. Elizabeth was everything.
He wanted to give her a garden and make her smile. He wanted to make her come until her body quaked and she begged for more and less all at once. He wanted to catch those moments when her strength was on the surface and she was braver than she believed herself to be. He wanted to hold her and have it be for more than just one night.
He wanted to…
No, he had to stop these thoughts. This was foolishness brought on by powerful pleasure. That had to be all it was. Anything more was folly.
In that moment, she rolled over into him, onto his chest. Their legs tangled as she placed her folded hands onto his sternum and then rested her chin on them. She looked up at him with a sleepy, satisfied gaze.
“Youare punishing yourself,” she said softly. A statement, not a question. Because she could see through him.
He considered denying the truth. Trying to put a wall up. But he didn’t want a wall. “How could I not?” he asked as he pushed a tangled lock of hair from her forehead.
She smiled softly and leaned up to kiss him. Just a soft brush of her lips on his that soothed every hurt he’d ever felt for a flash of a moment.
“Because,” she said as she drew back, “I’m not sorry, Morgan. But I do think I should go.”
She pushed from the bed, dropping the sheets as she did so. His body did a little pulse of longing as he watched her pick up her nightrail and tug it over her glorious body. She looked around for her dressing gown and smiled as she found it bunched in a pile halfway under his bed.
She didn’t speak as she swirled it over her shoulders and tied the knot back in place. She padded to the door, and there she turned and blew him a kiss.
