That gave her pause. “Well I…I’m not sure.”
“When you find out, do let me know. In the meantime…” He slid his hands under her legs, fitting his wide palms to her deliciously round derriere and tilting her hips so that he could enjoy her sweet nectar with abandon. She arched her back at the first touch of his mouth, and he welcomed the weight of her heels as her calves wrapped around his shoulders.
For a small eternity, he lingered between her thighs. Licking. Kissing. Breathing in the intoxicating scent of her. The act, in and of itself, wasn’t new to him, but it felt new with Rosemary. Everything felt new with Rosemary. He was a blind man opening his eyes for the first time. A painter seeing his first sunset. A composer idly running his fingers across the ivory keys of a newly made piano and thinking,“What beautiful music we shall make together”.
When her breaths began to quicken and her legs quivered, he kissed his way back to her neck, bracing his weight on his knees as she gradually became accustomed to the weight of his body enveloping hers.
Her eyes flew open when he nudged at the entrance of all that tight, silky heat. She was slick from his tongue and her own desires, her skin dewy with a light sheen of perspiration, her dusky nipples swollen with arousal.
He’d never seen a woman more ready to be loved.
“Are you certain?” he rasped, his teeth grinding at the effort it was taking to hold himself in the in-between. That devilish space between anticipation and fulfillment. The rounded edge of his cock was as damp and hard as a railroad pike. He’d never experienced anything like it. Every inch of his body pulsed. His heart threatened to pound out of his chest with every loud thump. He felt both clammy and flush, exhilarated and yet somehow nervous.
Beneath him, his little wife-to-be gave a very serious, very Rosemary-like nod. “Yes. I read all about fornication in a journal of research collected during the voyage of theH.M.S Beagleto the Galápagos Islands. I know exactly what to expect.”
The unexpected admission, so frankly spoken, brought on a husky chuckle. “God, I hope not.”
As it turnedout, reading an article on the mating habits of Galápagos tortoises hadnotprepared Rosemary for lovemaking. What she’d read was scientific in nature. Observations and hypothesis, with a diagram for scale. But this…with Sterling…it was heat and emotion andfeeling. So much feeling.
Every cell was vibrating. Every fine hair was standing on end. Her heart beat madly, pumping blood through her veins to places that trembled and tingled and demanded to be touched. To be filled.
The bold nudge of Sterling’s manhood sent an electric shock through her; a bolt of lightning sizzling across a sky of midnight blue. There was a pressure, an intense warmth, and then only pleasure. Waves of it.Mountainsof it. Tumbling down all around her as his hips established a steady rhythm and his mouth settled on hers and his hand reached between them to stroke and pet and fondle.
When release came, they claimed it together. Each taking a part of the sun as they clung to each other and shuddered. Sterling’s back flexed beneath her fingers, the powerful muscles coiling and clenching right before he threw himself to the side and spent his seed (thatshe knew about, courtesy of the tortoises) into the coverlet. While she laid on her back staring dazedly at the silk canopy over their heads, he remained turned away, his breath echoing harshly in the stillness that had filled the void left in the wake of their copulation.
Just as she was beginning to worry that she’d done something wrong, he rolled towards her and wrapped her in his arms, burrowing his face in the crook of her neck as her bottom fit snugly against his loins and his hand came to rest over her heart.
“Was that what you were expecting?” he asked as he caressed her breasts.
“No,” she admitted ruefully. “In the twelfth volume of Darwin’s Naturalist’s voyage, there was no mention of…ah…what you did with your tongue down…down there–”
“Cunnilingus is the proper term, I believe.”
“Yes. That. There was no mention of the tortoises performing–performing cunnilingus on each other.”
“Turtles?” Sterling’s fingers stopped mid-stroke. “The journal you read was about bloodyturtles?”
She turned over so that they were facing each other and cushioned her head on a feather-stuffed pillow. “Actually, contrary to popular belief, all tortoises are turtles but not all turtles are tortoises. The difference, you see, is in the shape and design of their shell. A tortoise has a more domed covering, while a turtle–”
“I love you,” he said.
“–is more streamlined for…what?” She blinked in rapid succession. “What–what did you say?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he reached out and brushed a tendril of hair behind her ear. “I said that I love you, Rosemary Stanhope. Even though you have selected quite possibly the worst place and time to give a lecture on turtles. But then, I suppose that’s one of the reasonswhyI love you. Your delightful unpredictability. I never know what’s going to come out of that beautiful mouth, but I do know that it will never be boring.”
“You love me,” she said numbly.
He leaned on his forearm and frowned at her. “Rosemary, I’m wild about you. I’ve been wild about you since we first met. Which, by the way, Idoremember. Vaguely. Are you really that surprised?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean…I’m not sure what I mean.” An incredulous smile stole across her lips. “Say it again, please.”
“I love you.” He kissed her forehead, her nose, her mouth. “I. Love. You. I’ve never said that before to a woman who wasn’t my mother or my sister. I just…I think you should know that.” His gray eyes delved deep into hers.
In them, she saw a touch of sheepishness, a glimmer of vulnerability, but more than that she saw a man who had fought his way back from the hellish brink…and was ready to embrace all of the light and the goodness and the sheerjoythat the world had to offer.
He had changed for the better.
Theyhad changed for the better.
