Page 63 of The Lady Tempts an Heir
Only after she came down did he place a kiss on her stomach and remove himself from her by degrees as he slid off the bed.
“Max.” Her plaintive voice followed him to hisdiscarded dressing gown where he retrieved the tin of rubber sheaths he’d brought with him. His hands shook as he opened it and drew one out, letting the tin fall to the floor in his impatience. Fitting it on, he turned back to her, and she held her arms out to him, her eyes wide in the same desperate excitement that had him shaking with need.
He crawled over her and took a pink nipple into his mouth. After laving it with sufficient attention, he moved to the other one. By the time he was finished, she writhed beneath him, holding him against her as if afraid he might change his mind.
“Jesus, Helena,” he whispered as he settled between her thighs.
He’d hardly dared to imagine he might have her again. As he looked down at her,I love youwas on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t say it because she wasn’t ready to hear it for reasons he couldn’t fathom. Reaching between them, he reverently caressed her with his thumb, eliciting a gasp of pleasure, before guiding his cock to her and pressing inside. He groaned at the sheer bliss of the tight heat surrounding him. White stars exploded behind his eyelids as he gave a thrust of his hips to fully seat himself within her. When he opened his eyes, she stared up at him with such a look of awe and affection on her face that he knew he’d remember it forever.
“Max.” Her breath caught as she reverently touched his face, her thumb sweeping over his brow in that way he was coming to like so much before cupping his cheek. “I...”
He kissed her palm. It might have been the scotch flowing through his veins, but he would have sworn she almost said she loved him. “Shh... let me love you,” he whispered when a sheen of unshed tears brightened her eyes. He didn’t know if he meant sex or what would happen afterward. It didn’t matter, because all his focus was on her. On showing her how he felt about her. Tomorrow fell away and it was just them. Now.
He moved within her, slowly at first, drawing soft sighs from her lips, but as with everything between them, the heat quickly burned out of control. His fingers laced with hers, holding her hands captive and pressed in the sheets above her head as he thrust into her over and over. The way she said his name on a gasp as she tightened her legs around his hips added fuel to the fire within him, building their desire into a firestorm of need, until nothing existed but her tight grip around his cock, the salt of her skin on his tongue, and her sweet cries of pleasure in his ears. Finally, she trembled around him, the frenzied and tight clenching of her body nearly sending him over the edge as she came apart in his arms. He held back, letting her writhe on him as she came, waiting for her to come down. Only then did he follow her over, need twisting and coiling inside him until it erupted, and he poured everything he was into her.
Chapter 21
Even in my dreams, I never imagined that I should find so much love on earth.
Prince Albert
Max left her and moved to the edge of the bed, presumably to dispose of the sheath. Helena couldn’t see anything beyond his wide shoulders. She wanted to pull him back to her, but she felt weak and disoriented, her body still quivering in the aftereffects of their lovemaking. Sex had been a pleasurable experience before, in the early days of her marriage, but it had never held this intensity that somehow managed to succeed in separating her soul from her body. If he left her as quickly as he had the first time, she didn’t know how she would make it. She honestly felt that she might never be whole again.
When he left the bed completely, she heard a sound of disappointment escape her, and she managed to push herself up a little in dismay, but she settled when he stopped at the washstand. Gathering up the cloth hanging from the wrought iron rod off the side, he wet it and proceeded to wash himself. She was aware in some remote corner of her mind that she should look away and give him a modicumof privacy, but she couldn’t make herself obey. Her eyes were greedy for the sight of him. The flex of his buttocks as he walked. The way he moved the cloth over every ridge and sinew before finding his semi-erect manhood, washing himself.
“Max,” she whispered as he doused the cloth in the water again, fearful he meant to dress and leave now. But the smile hovering around his lips and the obvious intent in his eyes when he looked at her settled her worries. She didn’t recognize this needful creature she became with him.
Wringing out the cloth, he brought it back to bed with him. Her breath lodged in her throat at how he effortlessly seemed to draw all the air from the bed, overwhelming it with his mere presence and making it feel smaller than it actually was. After turning down the lamp and untying the bed curtains so they swished closed, cocooning them in their own world, he leaned over her, kissing her ear and her neck as the hand with the cloth found its way between her thighs. She gasped at the lukewarm wetness as he washed her inner thighs and then that part of her that still felt achy and swollen with need.
He tossed the cloth away to land on the floor near the end of the bed and teased her with his fingers. She closed her eyes when his mouth found her nipple and desire flamed into an all-encompassing need that blotted out everything else but him. His scent, his touch, the sounds he made in the back of his throat when she reacted the way he wanted. Quicker than she would have imagined possible, she was trembling around his fingers, her body splintering into a million different pieces as he played her with the skill of a seasoned musician.
As she came down, he gathered her into his arms and threw a leg over hers, anchoring her within the shelter of his embrace as she found herself again. She pressed her nose into the soft cave of his neck, breathing him in and knowingthat he would be a part of her forever. What existed between them was too precious and rare to ever go away.
She knew that, and yet overwhelming guilt accompanied the thought. She should have told him the truth about herself the very moment she had suspected this obsession between them was more than mere attraction. Even tonight she had let her desire for him suppress her better sense, somehow convincing herself that once more wouldn’t change anything.
In a way it wouldn’t. She’d felt connected to him from the beginning, and nothing would change that. But in a much more harmful way, she had probably made him believe that this could lead to something more. That wasn’t right of her.
“Max, we need to talk.”
When he didn’t answer right away, she lifted her head to peer down at him. It was very dark in their little nest, but his light snore confirmed what she had begun to suspect. He was asleep.
“Max, there are things we need to discuss.”
Taking hold of his shoulder, she shook it lightly and then with more vigor when he didn’t react. His response was to grab her in his arms and hold her more firmly against his chest. His leg tightened around her until she was held against him like a child’s prized blanket. Even though she knew it was the scotch making him sleep so deeply, his arms really weren’t an objectionable place to be. She felt warm and secure, wanted in a way she hadn’t felt in such a long time, perhaps ever. Perhaps it would be better to talk in the morning anyway without the fog of alcohol to dull her words for him. She snuggled into his embrace and savored the feeling of being held by him.
She awoke much later in the night. His hot breath was in her ear and his teeth were at her neck, biting in a way that sent shivers of longing pulsing through her. His hands wereeverywhere and had to have been for some time to make her body light up with such a throbbing and violent need.
“Max.” Her fingers searched behind her, finding the firm globe of his bottom as she pressed her hips back into him, searching and then delighting in the push of his erection against the small of her back. But that was not where she wanted him.
“Tell me you need me.” His voice was a trembling growl that vibrated across her already raw nerve endings.
“My God, yes. I need you inside me.”
His breath rushed past her ear. “You’re such a good girl, Helena. You do everything I ask of you.” He plucked at her nipple before rolling it between his thumb and forefinger.
She had no idea why his words intensified her need, but they did. “Please, Max.” She canted her hips, hoping to find him.
And then he was there, his hard length buried inside her to the hilt from behind. He withdrew only to fill her again, sending her plummeting headlong into insensibility as he took her hard and fast. Even though he was behind her, she felt him all around her. He caged her with his body, his fingers finding every responsive part of her as he pushed her over the edge, tumbling down into an abyss of pleasure mixed with possession. She fell back to sleep with tremors still quaking through her body, but his arms were around her keeping her whole.
