Page 59 of Bride Under Contract

She raised herself higher, her bottom pressing backwards.

‘Are you still sore?’

‘No,’ she said, as he slid in his fingers.

She had been prepared to perfection, and his deft check was soon completed, fingers replaced. She felt the nudge of him.

‘Maybe a bit,’ she gasped, realising she was still a little raw from their first time. But the return to bliss was swift. ‘Don’t stop!’

‘Shh,’ he said, as if he were concentrating, and then she realised the effort he was taking to enter her slowly, felt the tension in his body and heard it in his breathing as he eased in.

Certainly it hurt less than the first time, and it allowed her to fully feel the stretch. And then he repeated the thrust, and repeated it, until it was she who moved her hips back a little, wanting more, ever more. Because he’d moved deeper, and she felt him nudge at her cervix, and she groaned at the decadent places he took her, slowly and very deliberately,

Each thrust had her closing her eyes tighter, and then he took her hips and moved her, and Grace found that she was back to looking in the mirror.

‘You like watching?’

She nodded, as he confirmed another thing she hadn’t known about herself, and then he pulled out, enough to move them so that she was kneeling facing the mirrored wall, with him behind her. He entered her again, and there was nothing to lean on, but he guided her arms behind her, so they were locked under his, and she watched as his hands explored her body, both saw and felt the pleasure he gave. And then his cheek came to hers, and he watched them for a moment, his hand in her most intimate place.

‘My knees hurt,’ she told him, because there was pleasure in every other pore.

And he laughed. And, carefully holding the sheath, removed himself again, spinning her to face him.

‘I’m going on the pill,’ she blurted out in her frustration.

How she wanted his skin...even the tiniest of barriers felt too much.

For Carter, her words took him back to the feel of her naked and tight around him, to the one time he’d been careless, and he adored how his inexperienced lover already craved that again.

He had never, ever wanted this closeness, this much of another person—not just the press of her naked on his chest, her hands on his shoulders, but on his back, where the scars were no longer a novelty, or something to avoid, just a part of him.

He kissed her hard, relieved that she did not know that he did not always kiss as passionately as this, that she was unaware that the feel of her wet hair on his face and sex on the bathroom floor, as inconvenient and hard as the marble felt, was a new discovery for him too.

He was a controlled lover, although he was losing control now—but then she could not know how rare this was, because she was falling apart too.

Her arms were locked around his neck, and she could feel his hot breath. His movements were urgent and intense, and then there was an incredible sense of being still. She was trying not to tremble, she felt the energy that was coming, and yet her body was already alight.

Grace gasped and screwed her eyes closed as he held her steady, moaned as her orgasm met his. He shuddered in a breathless shout and then moved her slowly, tender and aching, the length of him.

She could hear their breathing, her own heart and possibly even his. It was the most incredible, selfish feeling. Such a rich, giddy pleasure, and yet it felt like a shared one.

‘You’re cold...’ he observed, and it took a moment for Grace to acknowledge that she was.

For the first time since she’d landed in Malaysia her skin was cool, and with her hair still drenched she really was shivering.

‘Finally!’

Her legs were almost numb as she stood, and he took her hand and led her through the stunning rooms.

The bed was already turned back and it was such a relief to sink into it.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked as he went to the dressing room.

‘I meant to...’

He came out with a box—a flat black velvet and rather large box—and sat on the bed and unclipped it.

There were so many things about Grace that surprised him, thought Carter, and her reaction to the black velvet tray did too. For even though there were diamonds, sapphires, emeralds and rubies, and even though most of the women he’d dated would have squealed, she just stared.

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