Page 71 of Beloved Enemy
“Come,” she repeated, and quickly understood the terminology might be different in this century. “Come to life, come alive. Come, as in arrive,” she explained. “Arrive atdecadent, toe-curling pleasure,” she said with some drama, knowing it would happen, that Reid could and would bring her there.
Reid nearly leapt from the mattress, standing beside the bed, his hands going for the ties at his waist.
And for a split second, bereft of his heat and touch, Charlotte knew a moment of doubt, wondering if this was going to lead—in addition to decadent, toe-curling pleasure—to a broken heart.
Little time had she to examine this worry. With fluid movements, Reid kicked off his boots and shed his pants and men’s hose, and stood before her in all his magnificence.
Reid Nicholson was nearly criminally sexy. Seriously, it should be outlawed to look as he did, all brawn and manly virility, so large and formidable. His stiff cock, thick and long, jutted out proudly from a nest of dark hair.
Charlotte sat up at the same moment Reid returned to the bed. Like bees to honey, her fingers reached for and closed around his wine-colored, rigid shaft. Reid hissed, pushing her onto her back again. She allowed herself to be laid down but kept her hand on him. He covered her mouth again and danced his tongue around hers. Charlotte stroked him experimentally, pulling a deep grunt from Reid’s chest. His thighs tightened and he pushed forward into Charlotte’s hand. She knew a sense of power and briefly thought herself seductive, as she never had before with the too-few partners she’d known.
Charlotte was amazed that touching him sent jolts of pleasure coursing through her body.
She kept on, increasing her pace, loving the way he clung to her hair while he ravaged her mouth. The thrusting motion of his tongue was insanely sexy, imitating the sex act until Charlotte was filled with an overwhelming desire to take him in her mouth.
Normally, she resisted, wasn’t ever entirely comfortable with her ability, her knowhow—or lack thereof. Too often she was afraid she’d be judged on poor technique, being a relative novice at blow jobs. But this was different, this was Reid, and she wanted to tease and pleasure him that way. She wanted to drive him wild. She was filled with some mysterious certainty that he would never laugh at her.
Pulling her lips from his, she began to lower herself along his hard body.
Sensing her intention, Reid groaned. “Christ, nae,” he refused her almost immediately, his voice hoarse, taking hold of her arms and bringing her upward again. “I’d rather nae spill my seed with humiliating haste.” Effortlessly, he shifted, turning her onto her back.
The action was nearly clumsy so that he was fully atop her and she couldn’t move her legs, couldn’t open them to accommodate him as she so desperately wanted to. But this had barely registered before he joined their mouths once more and shefelthim. His kiss was sweet and slow, as if he were savoring the taste of her but it was the feel of him that thrilled her and enlivened desire to greater heights. He let himself fall against her, his hard, broad chest blanketing her bare and sensitive nipples and breasts while his hard penis strained against the flesh of her midsection. Charlotte gasped in wonder against his lips.
Reid lifted his hips and thighs, which grazed his chest over hers and Charlotte knew why he did so, bending and repositioning her legs so that he could settle between them. Her inner thighs met with his lean hips just as his cock met with her wet, swollen sex. Her entire body shook with need.
“Too late,” he muttered.
Somehow, she knew what he meant. There was no turning back.
“You can’t stop now,” she urged, tilting her hips, signaling what she wanted.
He slid deep with one thrust and groaned brokenly as Charlotte whimpered a tiny laugh of delight, for this, what seemed a long-awaited moment.
Reid cursed unintelligibly, adding, “So hot, so bluidy tight.”
Neither needed nor wanted to spare any time to get used to the feel, but moved simultaneously. She shifted her hips again and Reid obliged, answering her silent request, pushing into her again, moving in and out.
She kissed his lips and his dear face as a fresh wave of heat thrummed through her body.
He lifted himself off her, onto his knees, looming over her, still connected with her. And he renewed their slick coupling, sliding slowly in and out, watching her. His irises shown black in the bare light, his gaze intense, studying her with a dark hunger that both terrified her and aroused her.
Did he understand what he was doing to her? How provocative his stare was at this moment?
He settled his hands on her breasts, kneading and caressing, his thumbs gliding across her nipples. Pleasure shot through her. She reached for him at the same time he crashed down upon her again, kissing his way around her nipple while Charlotte clung to his hair.
Arching her back, she closed her eyes, wanting to feel and acknowledge every tiny pulse of life that thrummed where their sex met. Reid withdrew slowly and thrust again as his muscular arms came down around her, caging her in. Charlotte slackened when he withdrew and lifted her hips and clenched her walls around him when he thrust forward, did it faster and faster, in time to the growing tempo of his plunges. And it grew wondrously, the soaring need and the tingling nerves. She was quickly spinning out of control but thrilled by the ride.
Her nipples grazed against the short fur of his chest as he moved in and out of her. She lifted her back and pushed her breasts at him and whimpered his name as she leapt off the precipice and felt she was flying, weightless, while her body spasmed with relief. She shook and shivered and felt both exhilarated and numb all at once.
Reid held on for half a dozen more thrusts, until he finally exploded, gruffly calling, “Jesu, Charlotte,” while he continued to pump into her, until finally his movements slowed as his head nestled into her shoulder. She inhaled the scent of him, his signature musky scent, closing her eyes while her breathing slowed.
A thought, a sense offinallyinhabited her. It had only been two weeks since she’d met him—just fourteen days—yet it felt like a lifetime had passed between them. In his arms, she felt whole in a way she hadn’t imagined. As if some invisible piece of herself had been drifting, untethered, waiting for this moment with Reid. Every inch of her body pulsed with pleasure, but more than that, her heart melted.
It defied logic, defied time itself, how deeply he’d woven himself into her heart. The years she’d spent alone, guarded, and searching for something she honestly believed she might never find—all of that melted away.
With Reid, she didn’t just exist. Shebelonged.
And she knew, deep down, that he felt it too. No man caressed a woman so tenderly without emotion. The way his hands moved over her skin, as if memorizing her, as if she were something precious—those touches weren’t born merely from physical want. They were from something deeper, something real. She could feel it in every brush of his fingertips, in the way he held her as if she was the only thing keeping him anchored.
