He eased himself into her, pushing deeper until she’d taken him fully. A lovely shudder moved through her body as he swiveled his hips over her. It wasn’t long before she was moaning again, her tight cunt gripping him like a velvet vise as he moved inside her. He tried to go slowly, to make it last, but his body had other ideas.
Heat washed over his skin as he thrust inside her tight perfection. Nothing existed or had ever existed but that perfect moment with the lovely, darling girl beneath him, his hard cock buried deep inside her.
“Oh, oh, oh,” she cried out, her voice rising as she trembled. Their bodies were slicked with sweat now, hearts beating as fast as hummingbirds as they careened together toward release.
The pleasure built like a storm deep in his belly. He held out as long as he could, until he sensed that moment when she was poised to fall, headlong, into a powerful orgasm. Then he let himself go, and the storm broke, a thunderous climax rolling through him as she shuddered and gasped in his arms.
He collapsed against her, nuzzling his face against the side of her neck while he waited for his heart and breath to slow. When he could once again command his muscles to function, he reached up to release the slipknots that held her wrists.
Her arms came at once around his neck. “Oh, Eric,” she breathed. “I love you.”
He was startled by the sudden, unexpected declaration. Those words had been on the tip of his tongue a dozen times or more since the first time they’d kissed, but he’d held back, aware she needed time.
Something warm and lovely moved through him as her heartfelt words echoed in his mind, filling him with a lightness of being he’d never experienced before. He lifted his head to regard her. She was smiling shyly at him, a question in those lovely, dark eyes.
His heart aching with happiness, he answered, “And I love you, Rowan. So, so much.”
Chapter 23
Rowan entered the main dungeon at the Masters Club, glad for Eric’s comforting presence beside her. She glanced around, both excited and a little nervous to be back for the first time since her aborted training. She’d only had a brief tour of the amazing space the last time she’d been there. She was looking forward to checking out some of the more unusual equipment tonight, not as a trainee, but as Eric’s sub girl.
It was hard to believe only two months had gone by since she had freed herself from Master John’s toxic clutches. The terrified, uncertain, would-be slave girl was gone, but not forgotten. Though the lesson had been painful, she would never again let someone else dictate what was right for her.
Everything in her life was falling into place. As a result of the sold-out show and the article in the Times, her career was taking off. Several galleries had expressed interest in carrying her work, and she’d already received a number of lucrative commissions. For the first time in her adult life, she didn’t have to work other jobs to make ends meet, and had happily given notice at the bar.
Seeing as she spent every night in Eric’s arms, she’d stopped pretending she was still subletting the tiny room at Sheri’s place. Her more rational side wondered if they were moving too fast. Shouldn’t she have waited after extricating herself from one relationship before diving headlong into another?
But her gut told her otherwise. It told her to follow her heart, and her heart had taken her straight to Eric Franklin. He was a man she could not only love, but trust. Though she hadn’t known it then, he had been her safe place since the first time he’d held her in his arms after her botched scene, which now seemed like a lifetime ago.
While most of the pleasure subs and service slaves milling about the dungeon that night were naked or nearly so, Rowan had opted for a long, flowing kaftan with a plunging neckline. It was made from sheer, pale pink organza, her completely bare body visible beneath it. In a way, she felt sexier than if she’d been entirely naked, as if she were a gift for her Dom to unwrap at his whim.
Eric stood by her side, his hand lightly on the back of her neck in a proprietary gesture she found both erotic and comforting. He looked sexy as hell in the black leather pants and matching vest she’d bought for him from her first significant earnings as an artist. She couldn’t quite hide her smile as various female members of the club stopped to chat with the trainer, their eyes moving hungrily over his masculine perfection, some subtly, others with brazen enthusiasm.
You can look, she informed them telepathically. But you can’t touch.