Page 122 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

“Will…will…” A soft laugh leaves me. It’s not the first time I’ve encountered the linguistic challenge of having a partner named Will whom you want to ask “will you” questions. Between the two of us, I’m the one with words always at the ready, but right now,I’m tongue-tied, searching for how I could possibly articulate how much I love him, how much I want to marry him.

“William Campbell Montag Orsino…” I clear my throat, smiling up at him, feeling tears start to prick at the corners of my eyes. “Will you—mmph!”

I’m cut off by the warm, firm press of his mouth on mine, his big, heavy body gently pressing me into the mattress. I gasp against his kiss as he cups my breast and thumbs my bare nipple.

“Let me,” he whispers against my neck. His lips graze my jaw, my throat.

My heart skips. Did he sense what I was about to ask him? Does he mean what I think he means? I want to press him for an answer. I don’t want to wait a second longer, but Will Orsino is a connoisseur of my body, and as he settles his weight between my legs, every word on the tip of my tongue dissolves.

“I love you,” he rasps as he reaches between us and feels me, wet and hot, my hips lifting toward his touch.

“I love you, too,” I tell him, my voice breaking to a whimper as he tenderly strokes and teases me. His hard length presses into my hip as he curls a finger inside me, then another. I moan, loud and hoarse as he grinds his palm against my clit.

“Please,” I whisper. “Please don’t make me wait.”

He holds my eyes as he gently draws away his hand and grips himself at the base. “I won’t.” He fills me with each hard, hot inch of him, his gaze never breaking from mine, and I know he knows, that while at first it was such a frustration for him, now he reads between the lines of my words better than anyone. “I won’t make you wait,” he says roughly, stroking deep inside me, drawing back, then rocking in again. “Promise, Juliet.”

I’m too sore and soft-limbed to bring much to the table physically, and Will knows. It’s not the first time I’ve wanted sex but needed him to do the heavy lifting. He hoists me up at the hipseffortlessly and shoves a thick pillow beneath my backside. Then he curls his arms around me and holds me close, and fills me again and again, so all I have to do is all that I can—be held, be loved, be given everything he wants to give me.

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I press my lips to his, our breaths jagged, our kisses slow and deep. Heat licks through me, tight, coiled pleasure in my breasts as they rub against the coarse, springy cinnamon hairs on his chest, deep inside me where he strokes and fills me so perfectly, in the aching, sweet pulse between my thighs that he rubs with each grind of his hips.

Our skin is slick, the sheets stuck and twisted around us. We’re how I always want us to be—enraptured and entwined, as close as we can be. Hearts pounding, we move. My hips canting frantically, helplessly into his, Will’s grip on my ass wide and possessive, moving me with him.

Deep, ragged groans leave him as I gasp his name over and over.

“Jules,” he whispers against my kiss, “easy, baby. Let me,” he says again, “let me give you what you need.”

I bite at his lip. “You said you wouldn’t make me wait.”

“Woman.” A hoarse laugh leaves him. “I’m going as fast as I can.”

A laugh leaves me, too, but it morphs into a cry of pleasure as he drifts down just far enough to take my nipple in his mouth, biting lightly, then biting the other, sending glorious sensation bolting through me. I clutch his hair, rake my fingers down his back. He lifts his head, kissing at the exquisitely tender spot on my neck beneath my ear, and drives into me, then seats himself, not pulling back, only grinding his hips to mine in tiny, terrifyingly perfect circles. My eyes roll back, then fall shut. Pleasure strikes me like lightning, flying through my body, arching it up into his.

I scream his name because all of this—the bliss, the shock of its intensity, the pure, thrilling euphoria of release—can’t possibly stay inside me.

Will jolts as he feels me come around him, each tight, hard spasm that wracks me and makes me gasp. “Jules,” he says, rough and low, pulling back to meet my eyes. His face tightens, his jaw locks, his chest heaving. “Love you. I love you—”

I watch him, the pleasure breaking across his expression, his mouth falling open, the tremor that shivers through him as he spills into me. And then I draw him down, his weight over mine, and kiss him as he rocks into me, riding out every last wave of his release.

“I love you,” I whisper against his lips.

He shivers again as he falls over me, then brings me with him as he rolls onto his side. “We…” he pants, “are so twisted up in these sheets.”

I smile up at him, sleepy and sated, cupping his face. “I know. But I don’t mind one bit.”

He sighs heavily and draws me tight in his arms. My eyes start to drift shut. I feel his lips press, warm and soft, to my forehead. “Sleep, baby,” he whispers. “And, Juliet?”

“Hmm,” I mutter drowsily.

“When you wake up and get dressed, can I ask a favor?”

“Sure,” I tell him, barely managing the words, I’m so dazed and deliciously tired. “What is it?”

“Wear the purple dress.” He presses a tender kiss to my hair. “You know the one.”

—

This time, when I wake up, my eyes aren’t even open, but I already know what’s different. Will isn’t here. His words, broken and whispered, however, still are, like the lingering light filling our bedroom, warm and sparkling with promise.

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