“Tilly, I can’t take much more,” he uttered…pleaded…begged. “I’m about to spend.”
Slowly, she pulled back, her mouth sliding off him, dragging a tortured groan from his parted lips. Again, she met his gaze up the length of his body. “Then spend, my lord.”
And she took him in her mouth and used her hand until she felt him tensing and reaching for the place he’d taken her tonight—the ether of release. She slid her mouth off him just as, between one heartbeat and the next, he tensed, then he was shouting with climax.
His eyes slid open, and he lowered into the water, facing her. He reached out, cupped the back of her head, and brought her mouth to his. Long and deep, he kissed her, her body swaying forward, slick and soft and hot against his night-air cool skin. He reached for the soap and smoothed the lather over her breasts, washing where he’d spilled. Oh, the ache between her legs… It was near excruciating.
“Tilly, your breasts are perfection.” He rinsed them, then angled forward to trail kisses across them…softly sucking…swirling his tongue around her taut nips. She was on the verge of release, only from this. But, oh, she wanted more…was nearly mindless with the need. “Rhys, I want you inside me.”
He lifted his head and met her gaze, his pupils flared, the irises pushed to thin deep-gray rings. Then he did something unexpected. He stood. “Come with me to my bed, Tilly.”
He stepped out of the tub and offered her his hand. She took it, then she was in his arms and he was carrying her into his bedroom, where he lowered her onto his square, canopied bed and followed with his large body, hovering above her. Eyes locked, their choices made, slowly…deliberately, he entered her.
As they made love, as they clung to one another with a ferocity bordering on desperation, it was as if they existed in some place outside of time. It was that magic Rhys carried inside him. It translated here, too, like a spell was being woven around her, layer by invisible layer. No less powerful for its imperceptibility to the eye. It was there, nonetheless, binding her to him all the same.
Desire.
He’d given her access to that.
Pleasure.
He’d given her access to that, as well.
And now, he was granting her access to something else…some other part of him—not just his body.
A place beyond desire…beyond pleasure… A deeper, more intimate place beyond where one body spoke to another. For what they were doing with their bodies was simply the key turning in the lock…the door opening. But what they found beyond and who they revealed themselves to be…that was the space they occupied now.
Two souls, entwined.
But it was so very of the body, too, wasn’t it?
The pleasure his large shaft was delivering to and exacting from her cunny, relentless, as he penetrated her and poured pleasure through her. That feel of him, heavy on top of her… How very much she loved this feeling. Even the scent of him—amber, citrus, Rhys—amplified this pleasure.
How at one she felt with him.
This act had never been so.
She’d never had the slightest inkling it could be.
But this was Rhys.
Everything was possible with him.
His hot, ragged breath in her ear sent little sparks of lightning through her, and she moved her hips to take him deeper, as deep as she could. That feeling was beginning to build inside her—release taunting…teasing…making her reach for it. He threaded the fingers of one hand through hers as he relentlessly drove in and out of her, their joined movement becoming more frenzied…becoming almost an entirely animal act—almost.
With every stroke, he pushed her toward an edge. She sensed release beyond that boundary—and oblivion, too. Her breath caught in her lungs, and she hung suspended in a moment that felt so very fragile and so very fraught with uncertainty and so very necessary… Her body tipped over the edge and an explosion of light flared behind her eyes and she was crying out as she fell and flew, her quim pulsing its release, her soul freed from its physical form. Then he, too, was tipping over that brink and groaning his climax as his head arced back, exposing the vulnerable column of his throat, joining her in this exquisite ether they’d created together.
He collapsed down, but not fully onto her as he rolled onto his back, bringing her with him, so her head was nestled into the hollow of his shoulder. “Tilly, will you stay with me tonight?”
She nodded, knowing she shouldn’t agree.
Knowing she had more sense than to agree.
But it was Rhys asking and somewhere along the way she’d lost all sense when it came to him.
He’d asked her to stay.
So, she would stay.
