She was still waiting for that call. But she wasn’t waiting any longer for the man she loved. The man she’d married. The man who was walking toward their bed with a definite swagger.
So yes, maybe she should take care of him first. But he seemed content to hold out a little longer, and she was too weak to deny herself that mouth.
He was atop the bed now, his eyes hot and expectant on her.
Before she lay back, she stripped off her simple cotton nightgown and tossed it to the floor. No panties. No bandages. Just her, warm and naked for her husband’s eyes.
Propping himself on one elbow, he smoothed a gentle hand down her left side, from shoulder to knee. “I want to create a dictionary of you.” He paused, then shook his head. “No, an encyclopedia. One with entries delineating your history.” A careful kiss beside her bruised breast. “Your dreams.” Another brush of his lips against her temple. “Your preferences.”
He cupped her left breast and circled her nipple with a light stroke of his rough thumb.
“Important names.” His mouth covered hers, and they kissed until she was squirming beneath him, arching into his hand. “Crucial dates.”
He moved to kneel between her thighs, and then opened her with a slow, deliberate stroke of his thumbs.
The cool air of the morning dueled with his warmth against her secret flesh, and she shivered at the feel of both. She stared up at him, but for once he didn’t meet her eyes.
He was gazing at her body, rapt, a haze of heat painted across his cheekbones.
“Your topography.” He removed his hands from her center, sliding them down her inner thighs, and they trembled under his touch. “Every dip.”
He gently lifted and spread her knees, his fingers hot on the sensitive hollows behind them. Then he lowered himself until his mouth was an inch from where she ached.
“Every furrow.” He licked her then, along labia separated by his careful fingers, and then his tongue flicked lower. “Every river.”
He must have taken a thousand seminars. A million.
“Every rise.” A slow, languid circle of her clitoris. “Every bit of you, mapped and known.”
He sucked her lightly, and she almost came out of her skin.
When she jerked at the bolt of pleasure, though, he lifted his head. “Honey, you have to stay still, or we can’t do this. I won’t hurt you.”
God help them both, he wasn’t joking. He was willing to end this, and she wanted to cry.
“I’m not sure I can.” She raised herself on her elbows. “Please, James—”
“You don’t have to say please, and you don’t have to worry. I’ll help.” He glided a hand up her belly, where it rested heavy and warm. A reminder to stay still. “Hold onto the headboard, Elizabeth.”
So she laid back down and held on, frantic but still as he licked and circled with that talented tongue and drew her between those soft lips. His beard abraded her skin, an inciting friction she’d never known to want before now.
The slow penetration of his fingers pressing deep inside. Another tender suck and flick of her clitoris. The weight of his hand, steady and warm. Holding her down, holding her together.
She burst with a sob, her body clenching around his fingers as she arched a bare inch toward his mouth, and he allowed it. Allowed her to grind against him as she came like a cataclysm. Soothed her with light strokes of his tongue all the while, a deep hum in his chest comforting her as she shattered and reformed stronger. Less brittle.
The words broke free, and she didn’t bite them back. “I love you. I love you, James.”
One last tender nuzzle, and he lifted his head.
“You’re my world, Elizabeth Stone.” His navy-blue eyes blazed with heat and light. “I love you too.”
Someone had calledher cell while they were otherwise occupied.
A quick check of the display, and she knew her moment of reckoning had arrived.
“Dr. Sterling left a message.” She held up the phone when James emerged from the bathroom, and her hand was steady. “I haven’t listened to it yet.”
He was at her side in a heartbeat, wrapped around her, his arms thick and strong and so warm she couldn’t imagine ever being cold again.
