Page 53 of Ardently Yours

I drop my weight slowly, an inch at a time, aching in the best way possible at the stretch.

He lifts possessive hands to frame my face. “God, Charlotte. I—” He shakes his head, his brow furrowed in what almost looks like pain.

Thenhis mouth is on mine, and we’re moving together in a rhythm that doesn’t require words. Sweat beads. My heart pounds. Muscles strain. Arden’s chair squeaks lightly as we give it a workout it was never designed to take. My knees dig into the buttery soft cushioned leather. The hair on his thighs and chest gently abrade my own smooth skin. Pleasure and fullness vibrate through me, until every part of me is consumed by it. By Arden.

He smells like sex and the shirts I sleep in and likeforever, if I could only believe in something so impossible.

Arden buries his face in my shoulder and wraps his arms around my waist until not a molecule of air exists between our torsos. Then he jackhammers up into me, finesse and patience gone.

I cry out, tension winding tighter inside me as release becomes inevitable.

“You’ll be coming stuffed full of my cock,” he says, voice rough. “It’s me. Not a fucking toy. Not a fantasy.”

I don’t need the reminder. He’s ruined me for anything else.

“I know those sweet little sounds you’re making. I can feel you squeezing me. Give it to me, Charlotte. Come.Now,” he grinds out.

The moment my release drags me under, Arden loses his rhythm. He jerks inside me. Once. Twice. We both submerge into breathless pleasure. On and on. For long moments, it feels as though it will never end. Infinity exists inside a minute.

The orgasm fades, and real life intrudes. Sweat dries on my skin. Muscles unused to activity ache. My inner thighs grow cool and sticky. Arden softens inside me, and, still, we hold on, neither of us ready to let go.

I don’t believe in fate. If she exists, she’s a thoughtless and cruel mistress. But this—we—are as close as I’ll get to believing that some things were always meant to be. We’ll fall apart tomorrow, but I have Arden tonight.

He shifts beneath me. When I hold him tighter, he brushes his palm over my head and down my back. “I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.”

“We can’t stay like this forever,” I say glumly.

“Why?” His voice is as gentle as his hand.

I keep my head on his shoulder as I speak. “Because you’ll eventually lose circulation in your legs, one of us is going to have to pee so she doesn’t get a UTI, and our kids would miss us.” Ipause, then tack on as a sheepish afterthought, “And we’d miss them, of course.”

“Goes without saying,” he agrees.

“Good. Because putting them at the end of the list sounds bad. I didn’t organize it by priority. If I had, they’d have come after bladder infections, but before pins and needles in your legs.”

He laughs.

I sigh. “Can you believe my family doesn’t get my humor? And Rochelle only gets my jokes half the time.”

“There’s something wrong with them.”

“Obviously,” we say in unison, the word colored by the same inflection.

We stay as we are a little longer. Then he brushes a lock of hair behind my ear. “I have a bedroom upstairs. It’s the strangest thing, but there’s a bathroom attached to it.”

“Is there?”

“There’s also a bed. Plenty of room for both of us.”

I climb off, and he passes me a handful of tissues. Heat curls up my neck, and I make a spinning motion with my finger. “Turn around while I clean up.”

His eyebrows lift. “You realize my mouth was on—”

“Yes. I know. Turn around.” My face has to be the color of a tomato.

He grins, then gives me his back. I put myself back together as quickly as I can but leave my hair down.

“All done,” I say.

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