He pulled away from her but didn’t argue. Her hands were on his body, and she was naked before him, still flushed from her own pleasure. So he taught her what he liked. He wrapped her hands around him until his entire body hummed to the movement of her grip.
She worked him as she did everything—with complete attention and a brusque kind of love. He enjoyed that in her. He had never wanted a delicate flower of a wife, but a lady hewn in Scotland who could give as good as she got.
And so she worked him and he surrendered to her ministrations. He watched her study his form and knew when she understood what set him on fire. All too soon, he was ramming himself into her fist. The peak hit him like a lion’s roar made all the more powerful because he held it back. It bounced around inside him growing stronger with every second’s delay. In the end, he set his face to her neck, pressing sound into her as it shot through him and out.
Heaven.
And when it was done, she grinned at him as if she’d won a great prize and was well pleased with herself. It couldn’t be better than what he felt. He was suffused with pure happiness.
“Not so bad, is it?” he murmured against her skin.
“Not so bad,” she agreed.
They lay there together for a time while he caught his breath. Then she helped him clean up the mess, and he eased the embarrassment of it by murmuring how beautiful she was to him. Compliments stored in his mind from years of envisioning this very moment.
“Ack, enough,” she said, but he could tell she was well pleased.
But then time began to tick between them. An awkwardness appeared. Did he lay next to her now? Were they to be wed? He knew the answer to the latter. With her, it was always “not yet.” But tonight, he realized that it wasn’t him she feared, but herself. And that no man could fix. She had to grow comfortable with her own desires.
Best to leave her wanting. Best to go now and let her think on their time together as perfect. But he couldn’t make himself leave. The house was silent, thank God, so no one was listening except the two of them. He stretched out on her bed, tucked her close to his side, and forced her to speak truth to him.
And she let him.
