‘No...’ He barely recognised his hoarse voice. ‘You can’t.’
‘Why not?’ she murmured, and the heat from her breath rushed over his sex, making him tighten and ache desperately.
He could scarcely form the words. ‘You’re pregnant, zvyozdochka.’
‘Ah...’ she murmured, twisting her hands from under his and releasing him from the confines of his boxers before he could even react. ‘And somehow that makes me fragile and innocent in your book?’
‘Saskia...’ he warned, trailing off as she coiled her fingers around his sex and stroked all that velvet and steel.
‘Let me assure you, Malachi, that there is nothing fragile about being pregnant. If anything, it makes me bolder than ever.’
Then, before he could answer, she tipped her head forward and took him straight into her mouth. Hot, and deep, and positively indecent.
When he looked down she was looking right back at him, his sex in her mouth and the naughtiest of smirks curving her lips.
He meant to stop her. To pull her to her feet. Instead he found himself lacing his fingers through her curls and holding on as though he might topple if he didn’t.
He thought he was going to explode right there.
Again and again she tasted him, licked him, sucked him. Her tongue, her teeth and her wicked little fingers were all working in perfect lazy synchronicity to stoke that fire in him, hotter and higher.
It was incredible. She was incredible.
Malachi had never felt so wholly at someone’s mercy and he found, with Saskia, he rather liked it.
And then suddenly it wasn’t lazy any more. He was catapulting towards the edge. Closer and closer. Her mouth was so damned wet and hot.
‘No,’ he ground out, pulling himself out of her mouth although it was delicious agony to do so. ‘Not like this.’
Scooping her up, he carried her to the bed and threw her down, shedding his clothes as fast as he could.
Finally—at last—he was covering her body with his, skin to skin, as he dropped his head to her jawline and trailed kisses all the way along it and down that glorious neckline, with deliberate care and attention. And then he turned his attention to her collarbone, and the sensitive hollow at the base of her neck. First one side and then the other.
Malachi could feel her nipples, hard and proud, chafing against his chest. He revelled in the way her breath hitched in her throat with every slide of his tongue. And still he took his time.
By the time he’d worked his way down her chest, to draw one exquisite nipple into his mouth, Saskia was gasping and locking her arms around him, trying to pull him down onto her properly.
It took all he had to resist her.
This was her moment, and he wanted it to be perfect.
He drew whorls around her nipples with his tongue. First one, then the other. Then he propped himself over her and let his hands take over.
He was so damned hard it was almost painful, but still he didn’t let her touch him, however much she arched and writhed beneath him.
And then he was reaching down between them. Letting his fingers dance over her belly, over the softest of curves where his baby lay within her, over her hip and down her thigh.
His. All his.
‘Malachi...’ she groaned. ‘Touch me...’
‘Patience, zvyozdochka,’ he rasped. ‘All in good time.’
The truth was, if he touched her too early he feared he wouldn’t hold out.
It had never, never been like this before. Only that first time with Saskia, and he’d been fantasising about this moment ever since.
He built up the rhythm in her. Higher and faster. Until eventually he reached down between her legs and let his fingers sink into all that sweet, molten heat.