As she lay there open to him, her face burned. ‘Christien-’
‘You’ve got shy,’ Christien teased with hungry appreciation and he located the tiny bud that was unbearably sensitive and wrenched a startled gasp from her.
Hot, almost painful sensation was tugging at her every sense, making it more and more impossible for her to concentrate on anything but her own pleasure.
‘This is one more reason why you have to marry me,’ Christien growled with raw satisfaction. ‘You’re down here at two in the morning because you can’t sleep for wanting me and I’m the same. We belong together.’
‘But-’
‘Don’t you dare say “but” to me,’ Christien told her bossily. ‘You can stuff the separate beds too.’
He slid a finger into the slick heat of her and she was lost. He employed his mouth and the tip of his tongue on her most tender place. Writhing in abandonment, she moaned like a soul in torment and clutched at his hair. Pleasure as she had never known had her in its grip and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t handle anything but the incredible impact of what he was doing to her. Then, when she was way beyond any form of control, he lifted her up as though she were a doll, turned her over to arrange her exactly to his liking and drove his hard shaft into her tight, wet sheath from behind.
‘Oh…oh!’ Tabby cried out in sensual shock as he held her fast and delved deeper with every sure stroke.
His ruthless domination was indescribably exciting. Setting up a pagan rhythm, he proceeded to drive her out of her mind with excitement. She hit a high in a blinding instant of shattering release and her entire body convulsed in an explosive orgasm. Her legs just collapsed under her at that point. With an understanding laugh, Christien pulled out of her, threw himself down on the bench and lifted her up to bring her back down on top of him.
‘I’m so hot for you, I feel like an animal,’ he confessed raggedly.
She whimpered as he eased back into her passion-moistened depths.
‘Am I being too rough?’ he groaned.
‘No…I’m passing out with pleasure,’ she managed to mumble.
Reassured, he pushed her hair off her damp brow, kissed her and spread her thighs a little more to deepen his penetration with an earthy groan of appreciation. ‘Moi aussi, ma belle.’
The wild pleasure began to build afresh for her. When his magnificent body shuddered with the raw excitement of his own release, he sent her flying to the same uncontrollable heights of fulfilment a second time. It was a burst of ecstasy so intense that her eyes were awash with tears in the aftermath. Clasping him close and glorying in the wondrously familiar scent of his hot, damp masculinity, she knew that she never wanted to let him go.
‘We’re sleeping together tonight too,’ Christien delivered, pressing a kiss to her temples, lacing his fingers into her tumbled hair and then smoothing the tangled tresses again. ‘Ciel! Suppose one of us was to die tomorrow…imagine how we would feel if we had slept apart.’
That very suggestion was too much for Tabby in the emotional mood she was in and she sobbed, ‘Don’t ever say anything like that!’
‘I was only kidding.’ Christien hugged her so tight that breathing was an impossibility. For a sickening second he had been jarred by the thought of how he would have felt had she been in that car with her father and his friends that night almost four years earlier, and it was as if he had been punched in the gut by a iron fist.
‘But stuff like that happens-’
‘We’ve already come through a lifetime of bad luck and we’re together again,’ Christien drawled forcefully, but he was wondering uneasily what was the matter with him.
Why was he talking and thinking the way he was? It was weird. He felt decidedly queasy about the amount of unfamiliar emotion assailing him, never mind his own imaginative flight of folly that had caused her to burst into tears in the first instance. Of course, he was fond of her. Naturally. There was nothing wrong with affection, was there? She lapped up stuff like that too, he reminded himself, relaxing again. The hugs, the hand holding, the cards, the flowers, all the stupid, meaningless mush. He hugged her, held her hand and resolved to have flowers sent to her in the morning. He was really only catering to her needs and only a miserable, selfish bastard would withhold the little touches that made her content.
He carried Tabby into a big walk-in shower. ‘By day you can be as proper as a Victorian virgin but at night, you’re mine,’ he told her.
Her body had a sweet, lingering ache of satisfaction that filled her with languor. A towel wrapped round her in a sarong, he took her back up to his room. There he unwrapped her again with the care of a male performing a symbolic act and slid her beneath the sheet. Shedding his jeans, he climbed in beside her and hauled her close. Love spread through Tabby in a warm wave of security. Nestling into him, charmed by the fact that he was holding her hand even though it was not really comfortable, she went straight to sleep.
Christien woke to find his three-year-old son staring at him from the foot of the bed.
‘What are you doing in Mummy’s bed?’ Jake asked, wide-eyed.
‘She had a nightmare,’ Christien responded glibly.
‘What happened to her nightie?’ Jake demanded.
‘It fell off…when she was having the nightmare,’ Christien told him boldly, but a faint flush of colour underscored his superb cheekbones.
Tabby, who had woken up too, started to laugh.
‘You’re supposed to be supporting me here,’ Christien breathed in a meaningful undertone out of the corner of his handsome mouth.