A Proper Wife

And then she was in his arms, lifting her face blindly to his.

His mouth was hot, demanding everything with such intensity that she knew she should have been frightened.

But how could she fear what she had spent so many nights dreaming of? The feel of his lips against hers. The thrust of his tongue. The nip of his teeth.

Devon whispered his name as she wound her arms tightly around Ryan’s neck. Her hands burrowed into the silken hair at the nape, swept under his shirt and across the powerful muscles in his shoulders and back.

“Yes,” he said against her open mouth, “yes, sweetheart, yes.”

He groaned and crushed her body to his. He could feel her heart race against his; he could feel the rounded sweetness of her breasts crushed against his chest. His body was alive to every inch of hers, to the long, exciting length of her legs and the upward tilt of her pelvis as he cupped her bottom in his hands and lifted her into the cradle of his hips.

“So long,” he murmured as he rained hot kisses down her throat. “I’ve waited so long to do this.” His hands swept up into her hair, framing her face, raising it to his so he could look at her flushed cheeks and glowing eyes and know that this was real, that she wanted him with the same fierce need as his.

“Ryan.” Her voice was a whisper, a sigh against his lips. “Ryan, please. I want—I want...”

He swept her up into his arms, his mouth never leaving hers, and carried her up the stairs, up and up through the silence and the darkness to the deep softness of his bed.

Her bathing suit peeled away in his hands, leaving her trembling and naked in his arms. He tore off his own clothing, then came down on the bed beside her.

She was so beautiful. He drew back so he could see her: the high, rounded breasts, the curve of her waist, the womanly flare of her hips and the pale crest below them that he had waited so long to claim.

He wanted everything. Everything. He wanted to touch her, to run his fingertips over her skin and learn her body with his hands. To kiss her everywhere until the taste of her would become part of him.

Most of all, he wanted to bury himself deep in her heat and her softness.

“Devon,” he said, his voice unsteady. “Devon...”

He took her face in his hands and kissed her mouth until it opened to his. His tongue swept over her lips and touched hers; her response was tentative and then he felt her tremble and the tip of her tongue darted into his mouth.

He was ready to explode. He had never wanted a woman so badly.

But he would wait. He would wait if it killed him, not just to prolong the ecstasy but because he could sense something beneath Devon’s passion, a hesitation that almost made him think—that almost made him hope...

“Ryan?” she whispered, and the question and the need in her voice were almost his undoing.

He cupped her breast in his hand, rubbed his thumb over the nipple.

“Such perfect breasts,” he said thickly. “So sweet...”

He bent his head to her, licked the beaded tip, then drew her flesh into his mouth, taking fierce pleasure in the sharp intake of her breath when he did. She was sobbing in his arms now, moving blindly against him, her body as pliant as quicksilver.

She tensed when his hand slipped over her belly; her fingers curled over his but he hushed her, kissed her eyes and her mouth and her throat and then, very slowly slid his hand down to the soft curls that hid her feminine heart. A fierce exaltation swept through him when he felt the dampness of those curls. He was trembling now, too, as he opened her, spreading the petals of her labia gently with his fingertips.

He touched her softly, slowly, moving his finger against her swollen flesh until her hips arched toward him and she was calling out his name.

Then, finally, he rose above her and knelt between her thighs.

“Devon,” he said, “look at me.”

And when she did, he leaned forward and entered her, filling her slowly... until he encountered that tiny bit of flesh he had only moments before let himself imagine he might find.

Imagining was one thing. Reality was another. The shock of the fragile barrier against the tip of his penis almost undid him.

He started to pull back—but Devon stopped him, her hands drawing his hips forward, her body arching toward his.

“Don’t leave me now,” she pleaded. “I’d die if you left me now, Ryan, I’d die.”

I’d die, too, Ryan thought. Die at the thought of being without you, of never having said—of never having said...