"You're not a saint," she breathed.
"No. I'm not." He pulled off her gown and everything under it, his fingers shaking as he untied her silk drawers, drew them down her legs and cast them to the floor. His hot gaze swept over her, devouring every curve and hollow, lingering on the dark cloud between her thighs.
With fire blazing in his eyes, he met her gaze. "Your beauty defies words."
A seductive smile curved her lips. "But not actions, I hope."
"Oh, no. Not actions." His fingertips skimmed over her thighs, moved between them to caress the dark nest, then sank lower to part the delicate folds, to find the core of her femininity with his touch.
Bursts of pleasure exploded deep within Noelle, and she gasped aloud as drenching heat pooled between her thighs, made her body clamor for more. She lifted against Ashford's hand, burning, throbbing, wild with a longing she'd never imagined and couldn't withstand.
Sweat broke out on Ashford's brow, his chest heaving with each labored breath. He entered her slowly with his fingers, feeling her intensifying moisture, her swelling flesh, her hot, clinging passage as it welcomed him.
"Noelle." Her name was an endearment, a discovery, a wonder, and Ashford lowered his head, covering her mouth with his as he continued to awaken her. "So soft. So warm. Open for me, sweetheart," he urged. "Let me have all of you."
She complied instantly, parting her thighs and whimpering at the resulting jolt of sensation as Ashford's fingers slid deeper, caressed her inside and out, starting a rhythmic motion that matched the gliding presence of his tongue against hers. She clung to him, her arms wrapped fiercely about his neck, drowning in pleasure and a bottomless need for more.
More, more. The plea echoed inside her head. She didn't think she'd uttered it aloud, and yet she must have, because Ashford groaned a wordless assent into her lips, quickening the motions of his fingers and finding the bud of her desire with his thumb, rubbing it once, twice—then again and again and again.
This time Noelle did cry out. She heard her own sob, her broken words of need, and she arched, restless with a void that grew, rather than diminished, with each of Ashford's heightened caresses. "Please," she breathed. "Please."
Ashford seemed to sense she was pleading for something far more profound than release, because his head came up, and he stared deeply into her eyes.
"You promised me everything," Noelle managed, her words a breathless whisper. "And everything is what I want. I want to feel you against me, inside me." Her fingers shifted to the buttons of his trousers. "Together—please."
Holding her gaze, Ashford vaulted to his feet, nearly tearing the remainder of his clothes from his body.
He came down over her, groaning aloud at the first exquisite contact of their naked skin. He settled himself within the cradle of her thighs, poised at her heated entrance, and cupped her face as he stared into her eyes. "Noelle," he said reverently. "I love you. God, how I love you."
Tears burned beneath her lids, and she wondered if she could withstand the combined ecstasy of hearing his declaration and feeling the exquisite sensations of his naked body against hers, stirring purposefully as it prepared to make them one.
"I love you, too," she breathed, wrapping her arms around him and arching instinctively to welcome him inside her. "Oh, Ashford, I love you so much."
Still he waited, although his pupils dilated at her declaration of love. He gritted his teeth, fighting the instinctive motions of his hips, already urging him inside her. "Marry me."
Sweetheart, when I finally make love to you, it's going to include it all: the words, the commitment—everything.
Noelle didn't hesitat
e. "Yes."
Her acceptance was swallowed by Ashford's mouth, his powerful shaft nudging her where she yearned for him, pressing slowly up and inside her. Noelle's grip around him tightened, and she could feel the sweat-sheened surface of his back, the rigidity of his muscles as they fought to slow his penetration.
Time stood still, and Noelle memorized every incomparable sensation; the breadth of his shoulders, the exquisite friction of his chest hairs as they rasped against her sensitized nipples, the powerful columns of his thighs as they flexed between hers. And most of all, the indescribable wonder of his manhood, rigid as it filled her, stretched her, forging a path that was his and his alone.
"You're so small. So tight. I'm … trying not to…" He shook his head wildly, biting off his own words in an effort to retain a modicum of control.
"You won't." She kissed his shoulder, raised her knees to hug his flanks. "You couldn't. Please—no holding back." She arched to take him deeper. "Please."
Ashford lost the war.
With a growl of capitulation, he thrust into her, tearing through the thin veil of her innocence and pushing as deep as he could go.
Noelle turned her face into his neck, wincing at the pain and yet reveling in it as well. She was Ashford's now—his in a way she was destined to be, not only now but forever.
"Sweetheart." His voice was rough with passion, rife with worry.
"Everything," she whispered, already aware that the pain was subsiding.