Page 70 of Ordered Home for the Holidays
She raised herself to her elbows. “Are you asking me to catch up?”
“We’ll do it together. I can remove the last of my clothes if you help me stand.”
She gently scooped her arm around his neck. He grunted at the pressure applied to the wound, but managed to stand.
“If you’re shy, Wildflower, I can watch you in the mirror.”
There was a shaving mirror propped on the dresser, and Deirdre approached it in trepidation.
She watched as he stripped behind her.
His body was harder, leaner. Taut with a strength that hadn’t been there when they were young lovers. Her body had changed too - two pregnancies and nursing her children had made her hips wider, and her breasts heavier. There were rows of silvery white on the insides of her thighs, fanning from her navel. As she slowly undressed, the mirror seemed to magnify all the changes that had felt minuscule a quarter of an hour ago, and she had a sudden bout of shyness.
When she turned to face him again, her hands flew up to cover those vulnerable spaces. He hobbled forward and tugged them away.
“You steal my breath, Wildflower. You always have,” he said as he kissed her knuckles.
The first time he’d called her that had been in Hayes Orchard. He’d picked a daisy, stuck it in her hair just behind her ear, and spun her into his arms. His voice had been soft and rough when he murmured his new name for her.
Now, when he called her that, she knew it was because he saw the life she’d built from her sorrow.
“Come to bed.”
She went gladly and when he pulled her on top of him again, she was determined to seek out all the marks the last seven years had left on his body.
He thwarted her exploration when he pulled her head down and began pulling out the long pins that held her hair in place. After he’d loosed it to cascade wildly over both of them, he sighed and rubbed their noses together.
“This is where we were always meant to be.”
“Yes,” she said as she dipped her head. When their lips met, she tasted a faint hint of coffee, and the peppermint tooth powder he’d used that morning. “No cigars,” she murmured.
“No, I know you don’t like them.”
“Not particularly,” she said as she nuzzled his collarbone. When she dropped her head further and grazed the coppery flesh of his chest with her teeth, he groaned and lifted his hips to grind against her.
“I should be the one doing the sampling, not you,” he protested.
“If you can do it comfortably, you’re welcome to indulge.”
He rolled them over, until he was the one leaning over her. His mouth went to her breasts immediately, and he lavedher nipples into tight points with his tongue and teeth. When she was writhing beneath him, he skated his knuckles over her center, rubbing her in the place that was taut as a spring and begging for release.
She threw her head against the pillows and arched her body as he brushed her clitoris with his thumb before dipping two long fingers inside her body.
“I want to taste all of you, but I don’t think I can manage the position I’ve dreamt of. I’ll save it for our wedding night.”
“I haven’t said yes,” she gasped as he hit a spot against her inner walls that made her whole body quake. “You haven’t even asked me.”
He removed his fingers and lifted his body, taking himself in hand. As he slid into her, he peppered her cheeks and nose with light kisses. He pulled out and thrust home again. “Find your release with me, Wildflower. Marry me so I can make up for all the hurt I caused you. Love me as much as I’ve always loved you.”
She brushed his lips with her own. “I do.”
“We’re getting married on Christmas Day,” he vowed as he thrust in again. “And I want you to wear bells and holly in your hair. And I want our children to walk with us down the aisle. Right here and now I’m vowing to you that I’ll be a father to them both - that I won’t try to replace Paddy’s memory, but I’ll give them new ones.”
Deirdre’s eyes filled with tears. “I love you so much.”
“Not as much as I love you,” he said as his lips claimed hers and his body tensed in release. “And I know you didn’t find your release because I was too impatient. I promise I’ll make it up to you,” he mumbled drowsily as he slid out and rolled onto his back.
As he fell asleep, she dropped a kiss on his forehead. “Even if you and your father never make amends, I’m glad youwere summoned home and we got another chance. Nothing compares to you, Cass, or the way you make me feel. Merry Christmas.”
