The carriage slowly came to a stop in front of her home, and she sighed. “Think about it, will you? Perhaps we can talk about it after this situation with Imogen is resolved.”
He stared at her. “Do you think I’m leaving?”
She nodded. “I…you escorted me home. I’m home. I didn’t expect for you to—”
He laughed. “I haven’t touched you in days, Aurora. I have no intention of leaving…unless you don’t want me here.”
She looked into his face, that face she loved so desperately, and smiled. It seemed he would accept her terms, that he would allow them to hold off on decisions about the future until his hopes and dreams were secured at last.
“I want you here,” she whispered. She leaned in and wrapped her arms around his neck. His mouth came down on hers, soft at first, then harder, more insistent as he nearly brought her into his lap. They were both panting when they broke the kiss.
“Come in,” she gasped. “Please.”
Nicholas followed Aurora into her bedroom and looked around. Like the rest of her small home, it was an austere chamber, devoid of almost all decoration. It didn’t fit her vibrant spirit or her bright personality. But it had a bed big enough for two and right now that was all that mattered.
She glanced at him over her shoulder, her pupils dilated with a need that echoed his own. With shaking hands, she locked the door. Her breath was short and harsh, her hands shook as she flattened one palm against the barrier.
He edged up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her back against him so she was flush from shoulder to hip. Their bodies molded naturally, beautifully, just as they had from the beginning. Made to be together. She made a soft sound of pleasure, one that ricocheted through his body like lightning through his bloodstream.
“I missed you,” he whispered against her ear before he traced the shell with the tip of his tongue. He felt her body react, felt the heat of her rise.
She nodded. “I-I did too.”
He tried not to think about the fact that they’d been parted these past few days out of her attempt to protect him. That she couldn’t see a future that didn’t involve secrecy or distance. He could think of those things later. Right now…
He slid the buttons along her spine open and pushed her dress down. She tugged it away as he leaned in, pushing the loose bun at the base of her nape to the side and kissing there. She tasted like summer.
She shivered, made an incoherent sound of pleasure. Her hips bumped back against his and the sensation shot up his cock.
He pivoted, drawing her with him, and now they faced that bed he’d noticed earlier. He edged her forward, kissing her neck the whole time, and bent her down, placing her hands against the edge of it. She clung to the coverlet with both hands, spreading her legs a little wider, as if she knew his plans exactly.
He pushed her chemise up with one hand, reveling in every inch of soft flesh he revealed. She was a goddess and he wanted to worship at her shrine until he forgot everything else in the world. With a shaking hand, he loosened the placard on his trousers. His cock bounced free and he took himself in hand even as he pressed a hand against her lower back, flattening her further against the bed. Her pink, wet sex taunted him, and he groaned as he stroked the head of his cock back and forth against her. She was hot and ready and he ached, he burned, he was lost.
“I had so much in mind in terms of pleasuring you,” he gasped. “But…”
“Just do it,” she pleaded. “I need you.”
He didn’t have to be asked twice. With one long thrust he slid to the hilt inside of her tight, wet heat. She pulsed around him and he was nearly unmanned at the otherworldly sensation of their joined bodies. He drew back, almost all the way out of her clenching sex and then glided forward again. She let out a wail that she buried in her coverlet, then snaked her hand between her legs. He felt her fingers stroking her clitoris, the tips slick against the root of his cock when he fully seated himself.
That she pleasured herself while he pleasured her was too much. He gripped the soft flesh of her hips to balance himself and took her. Hard and fast until he was nearly undone, then slower, slower, circling against her as she moaned and flexed, her fingers stroking wildly.
When she came, she pulsed around him, gripping him hard as she called out his name. He jerked against her in time to the rhythm of her orgasm, letting her milk him with her pleasure until he could take no more. With a grunt, he pulled out of her just in time and let his seed splash over her bottom and lower back before he collapsed over her, their sweat mingling, their breath matched.
He had no idea how long they leaned against the edge of her bed, but at some point she crawled out from under him, up onto her pillows. She reached back for his hand and he followed her, cradling her into his side and reveling in the remarkable feel of her.
He could have this forever. He wantedherforever.
And yet…he couldn’t help thinking of what she’d said before they made love. She wanted to protect him, give him what he’d wanted for years. Her answer to that was to make herself some kind of dirty little secret. What would he do? Come here to her home three times a week and tup her? Put her up in some finer house like she was his mistress? They could be careful as they liked, but people would find out. His friends would know.
Hewould know that he was treating her as a shame to be pulled beneath the covers so no one would know about her.
“Oh, don’t go doing that,” Aurora whispered.
He jerked from his thoughts. “Doing what?”
“Thinking,” she said with a husky laugh. “I can practicallyhearyou thinking, and right now I don’t want to think. I want to just…feel.”
She didn’t say anything more. Instead, she trailed her mouth along his chest, unbuttoning his shirt as she went, reawakening him so quickly he was taken off guard. And so he pushed away the troubles in his mind and simply sank into the pleasure of her lips as she closed them around his length and brought him back to the ready.
