Page 25 of A Baby to Make Her His Bride

She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry.

“I’m really scared,” she admitted. “All I could think about was getting out of the cage, not realizing how much protection those bars offered. If I were here alone right now, I would be drowning in bleak terror. Maybe I would have lost my nerve and not gone through with the divorce. But you’re here and...and you’re showing me what I can have if I believe I deserve it. I really want to keep sleeping together. If you do.”

The blue in his eyes turned to the heart of a flame.

“I do. I very much do.”

Jasper had never taken ayahuasca, but making love with Vienna had to be what a hallucinogenic trip felt like. His senses were acute, making each touch and moan and taste that much more intense.

Vienna was right here with him, the connection between them exactly that: a connection. They occupied a plane of synchronicity where she seemed to know that the swirl of her tongue exactlytherewas precisely what he needed. That the sweep of her hair across his stomach would both soothe and incite him. She knew when it was time to roll beneath him with exquisite welcome because he was going to die if he wasn’t inside her.

This was life at its most basic. Everything made sense when he was thrusting into her, lost to the magnificent, addictive madness. Her orgasm was swift and sharp and so powerful, it could have been his own.

He dragged her fist from his hair and scraped his teeth on the heel of her palm, waiting for her eyes to flutter open before he sealed his mouth over hers again, all of him screaming at himself to capture and conquer andkeep.

He couldn’t. The sheer power of this desire for her told him they were a dangerous combo, but he couldn’t get enough of her. Even as her lips softened and parted beneath his, he withdrew so he could feast on the banquet of her.

“Where are you going?” She clawed at him, grimly sweet in her panic.

“Here,” he rasped, sliding down so he could worship her breasts. “Everywhere.”

Soon she would leave and he wouldn’t have this. The sense of a clock ticking made him urgent and greedy. Demanding. He ran his mouth everywhere on her trembling body, until she was once again making those helpless noises that sent pleasurable shivers down his back.

“I can’t bear it...” she gasped.

“What’s wrong?” he crooned, rising over her again, cupping her cheek and pressing a tender kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“I need you inside me. So much.” There was something chagrined in her pleading gaze.

“Take me, then.”

Her hand slid between them, guiding him to sink back into her.

He shuddered with pleasure. His heart began to slam in his rib cage. He wanted to envelop her. Crush her. A flood of thick heat threatened to burst from him as he plunged into her molten core once more, now with more power. More need.

This isn’t real, he insisted to himself.

Their response to each other was heightened by their isolation and their strange circumstances. They had been thrown into the same lifeboat and were clinging to each other out of desperation.

But when her nails curled against his skin and her breath broke, when her thighs clamped to his hips and she clenched around him like a fist, he reached the limit of his self-discipline. He abandoned control and thrust unevenly, taking her with him as he launched them both into oblivion.

Jasper swore, stiffening atop her even while Vienna was still enjoying the floaty afterglow.

They’d come back to bed after breakfast—or rather, she’d been admiring his physique while sketching him and he’d swooped the way a raptor snatches up a bunny. She still felt as though she was soaring.

He wasn’t so mellow, though. He withdrew with less than his usual tenderness, setting an apologetic touch on her thigh when she flinched.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“The condom split.”

“Really? How old are they?”

“I never checked. I should have.” His expression was grim as he shifted to sit on the side of the bed while he discarded the broken latex.

He stayed there gripping his knees, profile forbidding.

“Jasper.” She touched his spine. “I can’t get pregnant,” she reminded, not bothering to hide the anguished pang in her throat. He knew this about her, the longing and the disappointment. It was who she was. “I’ve had every test you can imagine. There’s nothing for you to worry about unless...?”

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