Page 66 of Meadowsweet and Marigold
Her body has made its preference clear, but her mind still struggles to catch up with the rapid evolution of their relationship.
"We can stop," Meadow says, though the strain in his voice belies the casualness of the offer. "Just say the word."
She should say it.
Should ask for time to process, to think clearly without the intoxicating cloud of pheromones scrambling her brain.
But the word sticks in her throat, unable to push past the wall of need that's built inside her.
Instead, she finds herself leaning into his touch, her body making decisions her mind isn't ready to verbalize. The movement causes her dress to ride up slightly, exposing more of her thighs to the cool air of the car.
The contrast between the chill and the heat radiating from her core makes her shiver.
Meadow's gaze drops to the newly revealed skin, a muscle in his jaw twitching with restraint. His hand on her knee tightens fractionally, his thumb tracing small, maddening circles on the sensitive inside of her leg.
"Tell me what you want, Marigold," he says, his voice deeper than she's ever heard it. "I need to hear you say it."
God…
The sound of her name on his lips, rough with desire, nearly undoes her.
The logical part of her brain is drowning in a sea of pheromones and want, unable to formulate the reasons why this might be a bad idea. All she knows is the ache between her legs, the painful sensitivity of her nipples, and the growing, desperate need to feel his hands on her bare skin.
Her dress feels constricting now, the fabric an unwelcome barrier between his touch and her body. The white flowers printed on it seem to mock her with their innocence, at odds with the primal hunger coursing through her veins.
She is anything but innocent in this moment — she is elemental, reduced to pure sensation and need.
The scent of their combined arousal hangs thick in the air, an invisible cloud that wraps around them, binding them together in shared desire. It's intoxicating, overwhelming, and making her dizzy with want.
Each breath she takes is filled with him — his scent marking her from the inside out.
Marigold meets his gaze, finding her courage in the naked hunger she sees reflected there. The intensity between them has built to a point where words seem superfluous, where their bodies are already engaged in a conversation more eloquent than speech.
Yet still he waits, patient despite the evidence of his desire, giving her the power to decide.
It's that restraint, that cares for her agency despite his Alpha nature, that tips the balance. She reaches for his hand on her knee and slowly, deliberately guides it higher up her thigh.
“H-Here…I want…your hand…between here,” she says as slowly as she can, hoping her trembling voice doesn’t make it seem like she doesn’t want this.
Her body is begging for this.
His hand moves steadily, and she dares take a trembling breath at the mere idea of what this can lead to.
Are they going to fuck in this car?
She’s never been so bold…so adventurous. She wasn’t very intimate with Rowan or the others in the pack now that she thinks about it.Did they fuck? Sure, but it was more one-sided.Not with all these moments of foreplay she’d read in books or watch in those heated movies and dramas."
"Should I slow down?" Meadow asks, his voice strained to the breaking point, each word seemingly wrenched from some deep place of restraint. His hand hovers over her entrance, fingers curled into a half-fist as if physically holding himself back.
The tendons in his forearm stand out in sharp relief, a map of his control etched beneath his skin.
Marigold's breath comes in shallow pants, her chest rising and falling rapidly beneath the rumpled white flowers of her dress. The question penetrates the fog of desire clouding her mind, offering a lifeline back to reason, back to propriety.
A chance to step back from this precipice they've approached so suddenly.
"No," she whispers, surprised by the raw need in her own voice. "Please don't stop."
The words hang in the air between them, impossibly fragile and irrevocably binding. She has never begged for anything in her life — has prided herself on self-sufficiency, on never needing to ask.
