Page 58 of The Virtuoso
“Valentine…”
“Yes.” His voice was a satisfied growl as he moved more strongly inside her, intensifying the orgasm even as he manacled his own lust in self-discipline. He was excruciatingly careful with his timing, and already he’d shown her how not to struggle against the pleasure, to go with it, to embrace the drowning glory of it, and even seek its greater depths.
As he let her catch her breath, Valentine waited above her, his hips moving in a slow, relaxed undulation. Her body could accommodate him now, easily and eagerly, because he’d been patient and careful. His fingers brushed her hair back from her forehead in a slow, tender caress, and then, sensing her emotions welling, he cradled her head against his shoulder as he kissed her temple.
“All right, then?”
“Undone. Hold me.”
“Bossy.” Val tucked her closer and hiked one of her legs higher on his hip. “I’ll distract you, good sort that I am.”
He rocked and petted and teased her from one orgasm to the next, balancing his caresses to both soothe and arouse. Then he shifted rhythm and angle and hooked one of her knees in the crook of his elbow, startling her into another orgasm. After another pause for Ellen to catch her breath, he went still, just studying her face for long moments as he traced her features with his fingers while his cock was hilted in her depths.
He gathered her close and twined his fingers with hers on the pillow. Knowing he’d already asked much of her, Val shifted to firm, measured thrusts. Beneath him, Ellen began to pant as her hips rose and fell in counterpoint to his.
“You too,” she got out, not yet having the sophistication to hold her pleasure at bay. She turned her face into his shoulder, and Val felt her teeth, not biting but pressed to his flesh in a hungry, silent scream.
“Ah, God… Ellen…” Val hilted himself against her and pushed hard repeatedly, spending in the depths of her body as his ears roared, his body shook, and his soul sang. The relief of it was tremendous, to not merely dally but tojoin.He thrust on and on, swamped by a transcending pleasure of not just the body but the heart, as well. And God bless the woman, she held him tightly through it all, even as his movements ceased and his world gradually righted itself.
“You won’t be able to breathe unless you let me go, love.” He kissed her temple. “I won’t go far, but you need a little room.”
Her hands unclenched, her legs slid down his flanks, and her body eased from his. He shifted up, maybe an inch, and immediately felt her cling more tightly.
“Not yet,” she said, pressing her face to his sternum.
Val went still and realized the unjoining was going to take as much forbearance and finesse as the joining had, particularly as he wanted nothing so much as to flop to his side, drag Ellen over him, and stay in that bed until Judgment Day.
Joinings, he corrected himself. Where he’d found the stamina to go on as he had was a mystery, as he’d never in all his years of dallying and swiving and carrying on been quitethatvirtuosic before. After weeks of abstinence, he should have been on a murderously short fuse, but with Ellen, the sheer pleasure of being inside her had been tremendous, and the pleasure of bringing her to fulfillment even greater.
Val’s own orgasm had come along as a rousing cadenza, a flourish at the end to dazzle and delight, but completely beside the point of the larger composition.
Ellen had been the point, and she still was.
“I’ll be back,” Val assured her, “but we’re going to leave a mess if I don’t bestir myself for a moment now.”
She went pliant in some indefinable way, letting him ease himself from her then from the bed. As he crossed her bedroom to a basin and pitcher on her hearth, his body felt looser, his skin more comfortable to be in than it had in weeks. He dipped a flannel, wrung it out, tended to himself, and dipped it again.
He sat on the edge of the bed, holding the dampened cloth in one hand as he tossed back the covers with the other. “Knees up, love.”
She lifted her knees, drawing in her breath as Val gently pushed them open and held the cloth against her most intimate parts. He watched as he did it, staring at her in frank appreciation as he first held the cloth against her then swiped at her in slow, careful strokes.
“You’re going to be sore. A soaking bath might help, but I do apologize.”
“Sore how?” Ellen asked, her gaze on his face as he refolded the cloth and placed it against her again.
“Here.” He reached over with his free hand and ruffled her pubic hair. “I am a greedy pig, and I belong in your hog wallow.”
“You are a tiger,” Ellen corrected him, pulling him down against her midriff. “Lovely, fierce, and not afraid to take what bounty you find before you. You belong in my bed.”
Her hands stroked through his hair, calming him, helping him adjust from passion to reality. But the leap was long and fraught, in part because Ellen had taken to lovemaking with stunning enthusiasm.
Lovemaking, withhim. Val smiled against her stomach and crawled up her body to rest his cheek against her breast.
“Hold me,” he murmured against her breast. Her arms came around him, tentatively, as if she were just now considering he might feel the same need for comfort and cuddling she did.
She settled in to the embrace, spelling on his back again, and Val closed his eyes to picture the letters she made. Earlier, she’d been bold and naughty with her vocabulary. Now, she spelled his name, which pleased him. She spelled the whole thing, not just the conveniently brief “Val.” He let his mind drift toward slumber until he realized she was repeating a pattern on his back in the soft gray light of the rainy morning.
Like a finger exercise or a scale.
