No Ordinary Gentleman

“Maybe there is such a thing as being too honest,” he says with a sly grin.

“—but it never worked.”

“It sounds like you’re trying to tell me that this belongs to me.” He groans as he teases me with his fingers. “That you’re so wet and so ready, and you’re all for me.”

“Yes.” This time, my agreement carries more force. It sounds more like a demand as my hands curl around his shoulders. I gasp as his hand dips under the satin, his fingers parting me.

“You’re mine. Say it.”

“Yes,” I rasp. “I am.” I buck up against him, my body offering no resistance, wet and spread, as he thrusts two fingers inside.

“You belong to me,” he asserts. “You always were.”

I’m too far gone to hear the implication of his words.

My legs stiffen, and I cry out in frustration as his fingers withdraw before I realise he’s slipping down my body, dragging my panties down my legs with him. The room falls quiet, but for the sound of my beating heart and my staccato breaths. I push up onto my elbows as his big hands slide my thighs wide, the look on his face more Lucifer than Adam as she shoots me a swift and wicked smile a moment before the flat of his tongue meets my inner thigh.

“So soft.” A bite follows the lick. “And you smell heavenly.”

Oh. My. Lord.

I want this so badly.

So badly that tears form in my eyes as he draws his tongue the length of my pussy.

Oh my God, yes.

I think I might . . .

My hands fist the sheets as though to hang on to the sensation as he repeats and repeats as though I’m the taste he craves as he absolutely savours me, drawing me closer and closer to the unseen edge as I cry and sob. As I moan for more.

“Please, Alexander,” I beg. And I plead as his tongue begins to circle my clit. Circle, pet, tease until I’m pressing up into his face, my fingers twisted in his hair.

Until.

Until . . .

My body bleeds sensation, and I’m melting into the bed.

Spent and empty, I scarcely have time to come down before he’s over me, his broad shoulders crowding out the light. His lashes flutter closed as my body accepts him, and as he fills me, my responding cry as tender as his thrust.

“I never . . .” Words go unfinished as he undulates above me, pressing up on his hands, his expression a mix of pleasure and pain. Of agony and ecstasy as he stretches out, throwing back his head and baring the strong column of his neck.

To watch on is almost bittersweet, yet to feel him so hard and long inside me is everything.

“I have imagined . . .” Alexander swallows thickly, then blesses me with a small stab of his hips. “My imagination could never conjure anything close to you. You feel like velvet, and I will never have enough.” He punctuates his words with his thrusts, his eyes dark and his expression so fierce. His fingers tighten as he begins to impale me again and again. And I love every second of it.

So close, I slide my legs around his waist, desperate to hang on to every perfect snap of his hips as, with each thrust, I rock up to meet him until I’m not sure where I end and where Alexander begins.

“You are mine, Holland,” he grates out, burying his face in my neck. “Body and soul. I love you, and I’m never going to let you go.”

Everything inside me draws tight, my orgasm springing to life almost at his words. I want to watch, watch him reach his peak. Want to see the truth of him.

But I can’t.

I can do nothing but give. Give myself over to this moment. Give myself over to him as he begins to come undone.

46

Alexander

Idiot. You told her you loved her while you were coming inside her.

Talk about making things hard for myself.

Difficult, I mean.

It’s not quite morning, and Holland is still in my bed, lying beside me. Asleep, I think. Meanwhile, I haven’t slept properly for the fear that I might wake, and she’d be gone. I have so much to say, and we’re not leaving this room until we’re done.

I trail my hand down her back as something swells inside me, too strong to be ignored. Love. I know now what that feeling is called.

I want to be the first person she sees when she wakes and the last person to hold her attention before sleep carries her away. When she trembles, I want it to be from my touch or from some joke I’ve told or even, goddammit, from the anger I’ve caused her. I want to be the author of her joy and the banisher of her sorrows.

I want to hold our children—if she wants them—but that’s a conversation for another day. I want to hold her hand always and make her blush daily for the next forty years. And if she’s the last face I see as I leave this world, I know I’ll go with a smile on my face. Because there’s never been another woman like her, and I know I’ll love her always.