Page 82 of A Dark and Stormy Knight
“I know,” she whispered, drawing her hands down the splendor of his skin. “I feel it too.”
The uneven struggle of his breathing called to her, and she twined her arms about him, pulling him in for a searing kiss. Tasting her pleasure on his lips. The essence of his skill and her unending desire for him.
Then he moved.
He set a deep, primal rhythm, angling into her with maddening proficiency. She felt the heavy weight of him inside her, against her, over and around her, cocooning her body with his.
Though her limbs felt liquid with the torpor that followed such a consuming climax, she couldn’t bring herself to remain still beneath him. She lifted her knees to his sides, wrapping her legs around his pistoning hips.
His cock touched something inside of her, eliciting an instant pleasure so keen, it bordered on pain. She arched toward it. Or maybe away, feeling as though he’d thrust a rod of lightning against her spine and the currents lifted her into thunderclouds where a storm shook her asunder.
She was dimly aware of his own breath catching before a sound ripped from him, something like a growl snagging on velvet as his muscles built upon themselves. Tightening. Trembling. Seizing. Before the warm rush of his release spread inside of her.
It took her a while to find her way back from the stars. Her husband, as was his way, took care of everything. He washed her, then himself, pausing at the lamp to turn down the light, melting the shadows down the walls until they were only encased in a dim amber glow.
He settled them both beneath the coverlet, resting his shoulders against a pile of pillows, and pulling her to lean back against his chest so he could rest his chin on her head and twine his arms around her. Big hands encased her tightening belly, and he idly stroked her as she lazed in the aftermath. Their limbs entwined and the fine down on his legs tickled her bottom, but she was too spent to care.
Prudence tuned to the aftershocks of their joining, the twitches and throbs of her body, the resonant beats of her heart. She loved the scent of them, the bloom of sweat and heat and come, subtle and alluring. Tempting and erotic.
He’d never held her like this before. He’d…never stayed.
Lanced with a sudden anxiety, she swallowed. “If you’re going to leave, you’d better go now.” She injected a teasing note into her voice. “I’ll be cross if you wake me later.”
“I would stay…” he hesitated. “If you’d have me.”
“What about the Knight of Shadows?” she protested, angling her head to look up at him. “Doesn’t he have somewhere to be?”
His hands coasted up her ribs and gently palmed the weights of her breasts, testing the thin, silky skin beneath. “He’s exactly where he should be.”
She relaxed against him, her heart swelling until it felt two times too large for its chamber. This was bliss. This moment. Were she a cat, she’d be purring.
“I’m going to be a better husband to you,” he murmured, his voice full of self-approbation as he curled around her as if he could create a buffer of skin and muscle and blood from the rest of the world.
Nestling deeper against him, she turned to press a kiss to his jaw, feeling the tug of sleep against her lids. “You already are.”
Chapter 18
What they needed was a honeymoon, Morley decided.
He’d eschewed the very idea at first—no—that wasn’t right. He’d never evenentertainedthe notion for obvious reasons.
But now…
Now he’d lost all ability to focus on his work.
Reports needed briefing, men required orders and permissions, warrants begged approval to go to the courts. He had half a dozen active crime scenes in this borough, alone, and an iron worker’s strike waiting to happen right on London Bridge.
He signed the correct papers, assigned the appropriate investigators, listened as best he could to debriefings and such. But now, as he waded through reports, he realized he’d read the same paragraph going on fifteen times now.
He wanted to just send it all to the devil and climb back into bed with his wife.
He’d been late to work for the first time in fifteen years this morning, because he’d lost track of time just watching her sleep.
Though he usually kept the blinds pulled dark and tight, Prudence preferred to sleep with them thrown open so she would appreciate the light as it played across the city, and wake to the sunshine beckoning her out of bed.
He balked at the idea, at first, but then he’d woken to the pillars of dawn painting the lavish dark waves of her hair with the beautiful iridescence of a raven’s wing as it trailed across the white silk of the pillow. She might have been some mythical heroine of a fairy tale, locked away in a torpor spell, awaiting him to slay her dragons and kiss her awake.
He might have done it, too, if little smudges of shadow hadn’t lurked beneath her fluttering eyes. Her breaths had been so soft and deep, her onyx lashes a stark contrast over cheeks paler than he liked.
