Page 63 of The Trouble With Titles
Simon gripped the hem of her rail, yanking it up with impatience until it was gathered around her narrow waist as he continued to suckle on her heated flesh. Rising, he divested her of the garment to reveal the beauty of a goddess before him. She was curves and shadows. Her breasts, bountiful and pert, beckoned like a siren’s call, but his gaze dipped lower to find her rounded hips, then settled on honey-blonde curls that shielded her womanhood from his eyes.
“You are more beautiful than I imagined.”
His lips found the fragile skin of her nipple, and soon she was mewling like a kitten as she tried her best not to howl out loud. Simon swirled his tongue around and over, savoring the sweetness of his love and shifting to the neglected breast. She quivered and shook beneath him until he settled onto the bed over her to paint a path down her creamy abdomen. As he approached her lower belly, she bucked, and he swiftly sank lower to lash his tongue against her cleft and taste her essence. Her thighs fell open in invitation, her hips rising as he explored the swelling folds with the tip of his tongue. Hearing her passion mount up, while his own lust gathered to make him harder than he had ever been, he swiped his tongue over the pearl at the apex of her crease.
Madeline’s commitment to keeping quiet broke as she squealed her tortured ecstasy, but Simon continued mercilessly to lap at the sensitive nub until the waves of climax broke across her dainty form.
Slowly, she sank back onto the mattress as he rose above her to take in her dazed expression. Amber eyes flickered open, amazement reflected in their depths as he lifted himself off the bed.
His fingers tugged at the knot before he cast his robe aside without regard to where it fell. Madeline gazed up at his chest in curiosity, and he realized she was cataloging the condition of his muscles. The sculptor in her was clearly fascinated by his masculine form.
“YouareEros,” she declared in admiration, her eyes falling to the bulging front of his cotton trousers which were tied at the waist. “That is new.”
Simon looked down at his hard length tenting the fabric and burst out laughing. “All that art you studied did not include any …” He winced, seeking an appropriate word.
“Erections? They did not.”
He shook his head, shuddering with suppressed mirth. Madeline was such a strange mix of innocent and worldly because of the work she did.
“Are we going to finish this?”
“No longer nervous?”
She licked her lips. “I suppose … it is time?”
He grinned, divesting himself of the cotton trousers to move back to the bed. Her eyes dipped with fascination to his engorged shaft, but he was done waiting, so he moved to stretch over her, capturing her mouth in a searing melding of lips and tongues as he settled between her legs.
Taking hold of his cock, he guided himself to her slick entrance to tease her until Madeline’s legs parted to wrap around his hips. With one decisive motion, he buried himself in her quivering heat as she hissed in brief pain, coming to a halt while she grew accustomed to him and panting at the discovery that paradise was being wrapped within her warm clasp.
Seconds ticked by and then Madeline gyrated against him. It was all the invitation he needed, reaching out an arm above her head for support as he began to thrust into her tight sheath over and over again, and she moaned and undulated beneath him. Hecould feel her passion mounting in new waves, so he slid his free hand between them to toy her into new peaks of pleasure. As he felt the quiver of her climax, he lost control to reach new heights of sensation hitherto unknown before spending in an agony of ecstasy.
After Simon had collecteda cloth to clean the two of them, he lowered himself into the bed and drew her into his arms. Madeline cuddled her head into place beneath his chin, listening to the sound of his heart thudding within his rib cage.
“Are you well?” he drawled as one who was heading toward sleep.
“Very well. Can we do that every night?”
His chest heaved beneath her cheek in a huff of laughter. “We can try.”
“Will there be a scandal, do you think? Your mother expired a few weeks ago, and now you have wed in the middle of the night.”
“That is probable, but I think news of one of the renowned Bigsbys marrying a Scottish viscount will be the bigger event. The other will fade away.”
Madeline considered this, trying to determine what she thought of it. “I suppose I do not care as long as we are together.”
“Forever, fair Psyche.”
It was at that moment when Madeline caught sight of a small sculpture of Eros sitting on a side table, positioned to stare toward the garden—their garden. It was the one she had carved for Simon more than a decade earlier, and this was not a dream. They had finally united, and he was here to stay.
They fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms, and Madeline was the happiest she had ever been. All their troubles of the past receded into nothing as the longed-for future of her dreams began.
EPILOGUE
“Take care, Psyche, for the road ahead is filled with more dangers than you can foresee.”
Lucius Apuleius, Metamorphoses
NOVEMBER 29, 1821
