More Than a Convenient Marriage?

As he leaned on the door until it clicked, she opened the bathroom door and emerged wearing one of his T-shirts. The soft white cotton clung to her damp curves and naked breasts before falling to the tops of her thighs. He couldn’t tell if she wore underpants and couldn’t wait to find out.

“I didn’t bring anything sexy,” she murmured apologetically, her eyes bigger than the black plums in the basket. Her apprehension was unmistakable.

“You look edible,” he said, voice originating somewhere deep in his chest. He moved across to her. “I didn’t shave.” He took her hand and rubbed the heel across his jaw where a hint of stubble was coming in.

“It’s okay,” she murmured and pulled her hand back then wrung it with her other one. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so terrified. This is silly.”

A swell of tenderness rose in him. He took her hands and kissed each palm. “It’s okay. I’ll take it slow. As slow as the first time. I want to savor every second.”

Her smile trembled. “I know it will be good, but my body seems to think we’re strangers. I keep reminding myself I know everything about you. The important things, anyway.”

His blood stopped in his arteries as he thought about what she didn’t know about him. Important things, but so was this. He needed to cement their connection before he could even contemplate stressing it with a full exposure of who he was. And wasn’t.

Adara cupped the sides of his head, trembling with nerves and anticipation, wanting the kiss that would erase all her angst and drown her in the sea of erotic sensations he always delivered.

Gideon wasn’t moving, seeming to have slipped behind a veil of some kind.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as doubts began to intrude.

“Nothing,” he said gruffly and set his mouth on hers.

The first contact was just that, contact. Like finding the edge of the pool when your eyes were closed and head submerged and your lungs ready to give up. Relief poured through her as the familiar shape and give of his full lips compressed her own.

And then he opened his mouth in a familiar signal that she do the same and she nearly melted into a puddle of homecoming joy. His arms slid around her and pulled her into a hard embrace against his shirtless chest, muscles bulging with such strength it was almost uncomfortably hard against her tender breasts, but so welcome.

Adara curled her arms around the back of his neck and clung, kissing him unreservedly as her senses absorbed every delicious thing about him. His shoulders and back were gloriously smooth and naked, scented with body wash and rippling hotly as he moved his hands on her, awakening every nerve in her body.

The wide plant of his strong legs let her feel the brush of his hairy legs against the smoothness of her thighs. She wriggled closer, wanting to feel the hard muscle that told her he liked the feel of her against him. Her body craved contact with that gorgeous erection and she arched herself into firm pressure against the ridge she could feel behind the fly of his shorts.

“This isn’t slow,” he growled, straightening and grasping a handful of T-shirt between her shoulder blades.

The soft fabric stretched across the round thrust of her breasts. Her nipples stood out prominently. Eagerly. He leaned to take one in his mouth, suckling her through the fabric until she let out a keening moan of distress at the pleasure-pain. He pulled back to examine the wet stain that turned the cotton invisible, clearly revealing the sharp pink tip and shaded areola of her breast.

Adara gasped at how flagrantly erotic this was, but couldn’t help arching a little in pride when she could see how excited he was by the sight. He smiled tightly before bending to do the same to her other nipple, bringing her up on her toes the sensation was so ferociously strong. A ripple of near ecstasy quavered in her abdomen, making her weak and mindless. She clung to him as if he was a life raft.

“I’ve always liked that, too,” he said with satisfaction.

“What?” she asked breathily.

“The way you dig your kitten claws into me when you’re about to come.”

The heat that suffused her nearly burned her alive. “I’m not,” she said in a near strangle.

“No?” A light of determination flared behind the liquid heat that had turned his dark eyes black.

Her heart skipped in alarm, but his superior strength easily backed her to the bed and levered her into the poofy cloud of the duvet. He took a moment to admire the purple undies she was wearing, the prettiest pair she’d brought, before he drew them down her legs in a deliberately slow tease of satin against skin.

The unfettered daylight and proprietary touch of his strong hands on her legs made her thighs quiver.

“Gideon,” she protested.

“You’re so close, matia mou,” he cajoled, thumb stroking into her wet folds to search out the knot of sensation that was undeniably eager for his touch. She instinctively lifted her hips off the bed at the first contact. He bent and chuckled softly against her inner thigh, kissing his way to where her entire world was centered.

Latent modesty curled her fingers into his hair and she moaned indecisively, wanting badly to give in to what he offered, but she felt like such a wanton. She tossed her head back and forth, tugged on his hair, then felt the hot lick of his tongue and nearly screamed with delight. Need ravaged through her and she encouraged him, nearly begged him with the rock of her hips and clench of her fist in his hair and then—

Release seared through her like a white-hot blade, blinding in its intensity. Sensations racked her on waves of unadulterated pleasure that gripped her for an eternity, exquisite and joyous.

She came back on a sobbing pant of gratification. Aftershocks trembled through her as she became aware of Gideon kissing his way up her torso, pushing aside the T-shirt. He lifted onto an elbow to admire the quivering breasts he’d bared, then slowly lifted his gaze to her face.

Adara felt utterly defenseless and he made it worse when he said, “Now imagine how you would feel if I left you right now.”

The way she had been leaving him in exactly this state for weeks.

He began to roll away and her world crashed in. “Don’t!” she cried.

He showed her the condom he’d reached for. “I can’t,” he said with a near-bitter fatalism. He opened his shorts and pushed them down, kicking his shorts free.

The thrust of his erection was as powerfully intimidating as ever, but she positively melted with anticipation. “Can I—” She tried to help him with the condom.

“Next time, Adara. For God’s sake, just let me get inside you.”

He lifted to cover her, his weight a sweet dominance as he pushed into her, filling her with the heat of his length and rocking his hips so he was seated as deeply as possible. Then he weaved his fingers into her hair and nuzzled light kisses on her brow and cheekbones, giving her time to adjust to his penetration.

“You don’t know what it’s been like,” he grumbled.

She had an idea. Her body was barely hers, responding to the feel of him so strongly that just the thick stretch of him inside her and the faint friction of their tiniest movement was setting off another detonation. It would have been humiliating if it wasn’t so amazingly, sweetly incredible.

“Oh, God, Gideon. I’m sorry,” she moaned and scratched at his rib cage as she tilted her hips for more pressure and shuddered into ecstasy beneath his weight.

“Oh, babe,” he said consolingly against her lips, rocking lightly to increase the sensations, forcing and prolonging her climax. “You missed this, too.”

She shattered, unable to stop herself gasping in joy

“Don’t be arrogant,” she warned a minute later, turning her face to the side in discomfiture as she tried to catch her breath.

“I’m not, I swear I’m not.” His breath was hot on her ear before his tongue painted wet patterns on her nape.

“You don’t seem quite as swept away as I am,” she said pointedly, pressing against the wall of his chest.

“I’m barely hanging on. Can’t you feel me shaking? If I was naked, I’d have been lost on the first thrust. Being inside you is so good, babe. I never want to leave. It’s always like this, like I’m in heaven.”

Her heart seemed to flower open to him and her hands moved on him of their own volition, absorbing that he was, indeed, trembling with strain.

“I thought I was the one shivering,” she confessed softly.

“I live for this, Adara. The feel of you under me, the way you smell, the heat and the insane pleasure of feeling you around me.” He pressed deep as he spoke, sparking a flare of need in her for another and another of those fiercely possessive thrusts.

“Don’t stop,” she begged. “It feels too good.”

With an avid groan, he took her mouth in a deep soul kiss and thrust in a purposeful, primal rhythm. The sensations were nearly too much for her, but she couldn’t let him go, couldn’t give it up. Her legs locked around him and her heels urged him to heavier, harder slams of his hips into hers. This wasn’t a man initiating a virgin; it was too halves trying to meld into a whole. The sensations were acute and glorious and feral.