Page 124 of You, As You Are

Her thumb swiped across his mouth, and he lifted his chin to meet her dreamy eyes.

“That was amazing,” she said.

“It’ll be even better next time,” Iain promised.

Maisie shook her head. “It was already enough.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

MAISIE

Maisie burstinto a fit of giggles when Ted came sulking out of the bathroom, completely unimpressed with the events he’d overheard for the last hour from the other side of that door. One glance at Iain and his bouncing stomach and she knew he was trying not to laugh too. She watched him cross the room and drop the fluffy bed back at the foot of theirs.

In the space of an hour, Iain was a completely different person. Cheeks still rosy from the truly wonderful exertions he’d just delighted her with, he looked so open. He smiled,grinnedeven, and Maisie’s chest expanded without him needing to even look at her, still hungover in her post-sex haze.

It had been … perfect.

All of her needs, Iain listened to. He hadn’t urged her to do something she wasn’t comfortable with yet – which in truth was the bare minimum she should expect, though more often than not hadn’t been met by men before him. She was a little sore, but the good kind. The kind caused by the afterburn of Iain’s beard scratching over her skin.

Andgod –his mouth. The way he spoke to her and talked her through everything was just as stimulating as the way he’d used that mouth down between her legs.

There are other ways that we can enjoy one another.

Other ways, indeed.

Whathadhappened between them had been an unconventional surprise. Maisie never expected that Iain’s extremely adequate self –beyond adequate,really – and her would fit together like that so pleasurably. For starters, she’d actually orgasmed.With a man.He’d gotten her there first before letting go himself.

Maisie could count on one hand how many times that had happened to her.

Skin touched by the warm yellow glow of the bedside lamp, Iain moved to the door and peeled back the drape to look outside. What for, Maisie didn’t know. All she knew was that she looked at him with soft eyes and a heart so full of fuzzy feelings it might actually burst out and yell ‘surprise’. Which would be appropriate, because her head still tried to wrap itself around everything that had happened today. She could still smell him all around her on the sheets she’d crawled beneath, body still buzzing with how they’d gotten to this place, as Iain glanced at the darkness.

Neither had wanted to drag themselves away to shower again, which was the perfect excuse for Iain to run a damp cloth all over her sensitive body, wiping up the creamy-white stream he’d left on her stomach with the smug look of a man who was proud of what he’d achieved.

This wasn’t fake anymore.

Iain said he didn’t know when he’d stopped pretending that it was, and neither did Maisie. It was obvious, really, and she’d just been trying to avoid getting her hopes up for the eventuality that he didn’t want her the way she wanted him. But he did, and their feelings were shared and real and …

Maisie flopped back on the bed and smiled so broadly at the ceiling that her cheeks began to hurt. She was purely and utterlyhappy.

Because she’d found him.

She’d found the one who wouldn’t break her heart.

Fingers curled around her knee and gently jostled her back to the present. She opened her eyes to the sight of Iain smiling down at her, his head cocked and hair ruffled.

Maisie smiled harder.

“I don’t want to leave your side, not for a second,” he said, “but Ted has needs I can’t neglect.”

Her fingers danced through the air to sweep down his arm. “It’s okay.” Ten minutes to silently scream out her giddiness and kick her feet under the duvet were acceptable.

Iain pulled on his boots and coat with his pyjama trousers – a very odd combination to see, especially when he wore no underwear and the outline of him swung beneath the?—

“I’ll be back as quick as I can,” he said before leaving the cabin with Ted in tow.

Maisie forced her eyes upwards to his face. “Mhm.”

The door clicked shut, and her outward glee crashed. The overwhelmingness of how full she felt for the first time in years hit her like a wall. Behind her smile, Maisie held back her emotion as tears.

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