“You don’t love me,” Dalia said a little desperately, taking another step toward the door to put some space between them. “You couldn’t love me and hurt me like that. You couldn’t love me and not forgive me.”
“How do you know?” he asked quietly, following her step for step.
“Because ... I just do. I know that when you love someone you don’t expect them to be perfect and you love them in spite of their mistakes.”
He shrugged. “I do not know. I never had love before. I never felt love before. You will have to teach me.” He braced his hands on either side of her head as she flattened herself against the door, unable to open it.
Chapter Seventeen
Reuel bent his head, kissing her cheek when she twisted her face away, then nuzzling her ear. “How is it that you understand it so much better than I, little flower?” he whispered huskily, tugging at her earlobe with his lips.
A shiver of sensation skated over Dalia’s flesh. Warmth followed it and a dizzying weakness that made it necessary to lock her wobbly knees. She swallowed. “I’m so horribly swollen. How could you want me, now?”
He pulled away from her and looked down at the huge bulge that kept them apart. Lifting one hand, he skated it lightly over her distended abdomen, as if testing the circumference. When he looked up and met her gaze once more, his eyes glowed with passion. “You are as beautiful to me as you were when I first saw you. This only makes you more beautiful to me, more desirable, not less.”
She was more inclined to believe he was too desperate to join his body with hers to care, but she felt much the same. This time when he lowered his lips to hers, she tilted her head up to meet him. Heat seared her as his lips met and clung to her own once, twice. Then he brushed his lips lightly across the sensitive surface of her lips in a tentative caress, as if he was testing his welcome. She inhaled sharply, sucking his breath into her, tasting him on her tongue. The effect was far more devastating to her senses than she remembered. Sighing in defeat, she lifted her hands to his chest and skated her palms upward, clutching his shoulders.
It was all the encouragement he needed. Groaning, he covered her mouth with his own and thrust his tongue inside her to explore her intimately. Another rush of stinging pleasure sparked along her nerve endings. Her skin flushed with sensation.
Her belly clenched painfully with long denied desire.
The baby kicked reflexively.
Reuel jumped back as if he’d been scalded. He stared down at her stomach with such a look of stunned surprise that Dalia burst out laughing.
He glanced at her and slowly a grin dawned. He placed his hand on her stomach tentatively. Sensing the pressure, the baby kicked again. “I felt him.”
Dalia laughed. “I’d have been more surprised if you hadn’t.”
After a moment, he slipped a hand behind her back, bent and put his other arm beneath her knees, and lifted her up. Turning, he strode across the room and set her on her feet beside the bed. Without a word, he caught hold of her gown and pulled it off over her head. Dalia covered her stomach self-consciously, but he pushed her hands away, skimming his own hands over her belly.
Dalia sighed, feeling the heat of burgeoning desire slowly dissipate.
He glanced at her and a slow smile dawned. “This will require some experimentation.”
She felt a rush of pleasure. “Will it?”
Stripping his tunic off, he tossed it, grasped her, and climbed into the bed with her. Pushing her flat against the mattress, he levered himself over her and covered her mouth in a kiss that spoke of a hunger that matched or surpassed her own. Instantly, she lost awareness of everything but the feel of his mouth on hers, his taste, the scent of his flesh. The heat that had scarcely waned surged back tenfold as she stroked his chest, his back, his arms, relishing the feel of his bare flesh. He skated his hands over her in a restless caress of his own, massaging her swollen breasts and distended nipples, caressing her belly and thighs.
When at last he broke the kiss, it was only to follow the path of his hands, to caress her already sensitive flesh with the heat of his mouth. She had missed his kisses most of all, she thought as she watched him moving along her flesh. Whatever he said, whatever he did, he loved her with each hungry kiss, adored her, and it made every touch, every kiss, exquisite, profoundly satisfying. “Tell me you love me,” he whispered hoarsely.
She kissed his shoulder, slid a hand along his hard belly, searching for the distended flesh she could feel digging into her thigh. He shifted upward and it skated along her palm, a heated, throbbing, hard length of flesh that filled her hand and made her heart labor even harder, made her lungs struggle to drag air into her chest. Closing her hand around his erection, she stroked him, nipping love bites along the bulging muscles of his upper chest. He groaned, surging against her clenched hand as he sought her lips once more. “Say it,” he murmured against her lips before he covered her mouth with his own, kissing her deeply.
Abruptly, he tore his mouth from hers and rolled, carrying her with him until she was straddling his belly. She looked down at him in surprise. He placed his hands along her thighs and surged upwards and she felt his cock slipping along her cleft. “Say it.”
She gasped, closing her eyes and focusing on the luscious feel of his hard flesh, relishing the heat and length and breadth of it.
When she opened her eyes to look at him once more, she saw that he’d tucked an arm behind his head, lifting his shoulders off the bed so that he could watch her. Her mouth went dry, moisture and heat flooded her sex with anticipation. Holding her gaze, he looked down at the place where their bodies met. She followed, rising up slightly at his urging and watching as he reached for his cock and rubbed the head of it along her cleft, nudging that place where she desperately wanted him teasingly.
“You love me.”
She nodded dizzily, rotating her hips in an effort to fit their bodies together.
“I need to hear you say it,” he ground out.
Dalia opened her eyes to look at him as she felt him push the head of his cock past the mouth of her opening. “I love you.”
His features went taut. He swallowed convulsively, his gaze searching her face. She smiled, lifting her hand to stroke his cheek. “I do love you.”
