Page 43 of A Baby to Make Her His Bride

“You scare me,” she admitted as he released the zip on her culottes and they started to slide off her hips.

He paused. “Stop?”

“No. Keep going.Pleasekeep going.” Her voice was jagged.

But leave me something. He was stealing every inch of her soul, one kiss and caress at a time.

“What scares you?” His mouth was on her collarbone, his clever fingers tracing the satin and lace of her underwear.

“How you make me feel...it’s too much.” But yet also not enough.

She couldn’t bear the anticipation. While her flesh cried out for the caress of his, she yanked at his belt and opened his fly, then slid her hand inside his briefs. Velvet over steel met her questing touch. Hot, fierce arousal and a tender tip that made his breath hiss when she caressed him.

He yanked up his head to reveal the way lust had shattered his vision before he crushed her mouth with his. His arm around her held her tight as he rocked his mouth across hers while one fingertip quested beneath satin.

When he found the moisture, he spread it around, sliding his touch upward, parting her, lifting his head to watch desire diffuse her vision. His tongue licked flagrantly along her bottom lip while he caressed her in the most blatant ways.

“How close are you? Let me watch,” he rasped. One finger invaded, two. The heel of his palm pressed against the knot of nerves at the top of her sex, making her shake. Making her rock her hips in craving.

She clung one arm around his neck. The other squeezed him in a fist while her hips lifted into his touch. She couldn’t help herself. Sheneededthis.

“Softly, softly,” he whispered, but this was too profound to be soft. Her body clamped onto his intruding fingers and her hips rolled, trying to catch the wave that would take her to the top. That one...? That one? Oh, yes,thisone.

With a tortured groan, she gave herself up to the rapture.

She’s here. She’s not going anywhere, he kept telling himself, trying to dull his greed, but the wolf in him was hungry, so damned hungry and horny and howling.

The clothes between them were an affront. He dealt with them while she was still limp on the bed, catching her breath.

Oh, he liked being responsible for that flush on her skin and the glassy haze in her eyes. When he stretched out atop her, the only thing that kept him lucid was her slight flinch as his arm brushed the side of her breast.

He had to be careful with her. He knew that. Not because her pregnancy was delicate, but because she was. She was sensitive, her heart easily bruised. She was so damned good at hiding it that he forgot at times, but she was an artist in her soul, feeling everything.

A ferocious rush of tenderness and a need to protect overcame over him, the kind that felt so juvenile he instinctually shied from letting it fully envelop him. He had to protect himself, too, right?

Yet, as her legs brushed his and her fingertips stroked his shoulder and neck and her abdomen quivered under the weight of his splayed hand, he knew she was already in possession of more of him than he was comfortable giving up.

He wanted to devour her. Fill himself up with her. But when he set his mouth on her trembling lips, he lingered, drawing out the kiss, taking his time to deepen it and slowing each of his caresses. He was putting off the moment when he would lose himself in her while stealing more of her, drinking in the way her arms curled around him.

He needed these signs that her defenses were utterly vanquished. It was the only way he could let down his own shields. He reveled in the way she opened her legs, inviting him, while her mouth pressed damp, desperate kisses across his chest. She set her teeth against his biceps and rolled her tongue across his nipple and her nails grazed his buttocks in helpless urging for him to press inside her.

Condom, he thought once. But they didn’t need one.

He shifted her beneath him. She was more than ready. He slid deep in one thrust.

It felt too naked. Too profound. A harsh groan left him at the delicious, melted heat of her, but he was stripped to the very essence of his being. Elemental.

His arms shook when he braced himself over her, trying to physically hold himself apart, but she threw her head back, throat exposed, skin damp and glowing. His. All his.

He fought to keep it slow. He surged into her with careful power, luxuriating in the sheer perfection of her, enjoying the way she writhed beneath him and released throaty noises of anguished joy with each thrust.

This was what he had been craving in the weeks since they’d parted, this evidence that she was as powerless against this desire as he was.

And powerless he was. Despite taking it slow, despite his focus on driving her inexorably toward culmination, his grasp on control grew slippery and weak. Electrified tingles worked their way down his spine. It took everything he had to hold on and wait for her.

This gentle lovemaking should have resulted in a gentle release, but when she twisted beneath him, and her mouth opened in a silent scream, he felt the intensity of her climax in her convulsive squeezes.

Her pleasure triggered his. An orgasm crashed through him with cataclysmic force, brutal in its strength and unrelenting in its duration.

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