He withdrew with agonizing control, watching his arousal-slicked organ leave her body before pushing in again, and everything inside her drew tight with anticipation.
“You’re so damned tight, wife,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “You’re squeezing me to death.Fuck, I have to move.” He threw his head back, dark locks of sweat-dampened hair falling over his brow. “I can’t hold back.”
She cupped his face, scratched her fingertips through the coarse hair on his cheeks. “Don’t hold back anymore, my husband. Give me everything.”
Her words seemed to release something inside him, the fraying line keeping him in check finally snapping withhusband.
My husband.
He withdrew and entered again, his eyes dark and hungry as he watched her body shake with the power of his thrust. “Is this what you want, wife?”Thrust. “For your husband to fill you with his cum?”Thrust.
He was fucking her steadily now, his hips snapping and grinding between her thighs, and she no longer had words, only sensations, only maddening pleasure and overwhelming love.
He must have read the thought in her expression, because his gaze softened and he curled over her, his chest flush against hers as he continued driving her closer to climax. “I love you, Lily.” His words were labored, like he was as overwhelmed as she was.
She wanted to respond, but her release tugged at her core, coiled in the deepest reaches of her body, and her mouth fell open in awordless cry as the pleasure spilled over, rolling her like waves on the shore.
His rhythm faltered as he drove impossibly deeper, filling every part of her, and prolonging the pleasure vibrating from every nerve. Just as she thought the power of her climax would release her from its grip, he cried out, and his cock throbbed inside her with his orgasm. “God, you’re so good. You’re perfect,” he mumbled as he filled her, claimed her. “You’re mine, Lily. I’m yours forever.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her mouth below his chin. “I love you.” Whatever lingering resentment and fear clinging to her heart dissolved like flakes of snow in the sun’s brilliant warmth. “I love you.”
“I know.” He spoke with his lips against hers. “I always knew.”
She blinked away the tears clouding her vision, and her breath caught. “Philip.” She pointed to the canopy above them. “Look.”
He rolled off her and onto his back, and his groan turned into a chuckle. “Is Aunt Margaret responsible for this?”
“I can’t imagine anyone else would hang…” She counted quickly. “A dozen balls of mistletoe over our bed.”
He kissed her, long and sweet. “I would have kissed you, anyway.”
“I would have kissed you back.” She laughed, because she couldn’t remember being so happy, so light and free and in love. “I love you. I’m in love with my husband,” she blurted.
He laughed as well, running his thumb over her cheek to brush away a tear. “Then you’ve given me the only Christmas gift I could have hoped for.”
Chapter 17
Christmasmorninghadneverbeen so foreboding. Snow pummeled the windowpanes, and wind licked down the chimney, sucking at the flames in the hearth as though personally offended by any sign of warmth. Despite the mid-morning hour, little light met her when Lily opened her eyes, feeling more satisfied than she ever remembered being.
She stretched, straining her hands towards the headboard—only blushing for an instant when she recalled her husband waking her in the middle of the night and telling her to hold on to it while he took her from behind—and smiled. Her body was delightfully sore, her muscles and core aching from her husband’s attention.
Lord, but she loved him.
With a contented sigh, she let her hands travel down her naked torso beneath the blanket, pausing at her abdomen. The family she’d dreamed of was within reach; even if they never conceived children, they would live together as husband and wife, a cohesive unit. Never again would either of them spend a holiday alone.
Although, she realized when she looked at the rumpled but empty bedclothes at her side, she was alone right now.
She sat up and scanned the room, but there was no sign of her husband.He’s gone down for breakfast,she reminded herself, but the reassurance did little to calm the unease climbing up her spine. Pulling a day dress from the armoire, another discomfiting jolt struck—his valise was missing.
Lily didn’t bother with her hair, leaving it wild over her shoulders as she rushed down the stairs into the breakfast room. Aunt Margaret sat close to the buffet with an overloaded plate in front of her, but Violet, Timothy, and James huddled on the opposite side of the table, their heads bent together. The air hung thick with worry, and Lily felt as though she was puncturing a bubble when she barged in.
Aunt Margaret chuckled, oblivious to the tension, and pointed a fork at Lily. “You and your husband were louder than Callum and Violet last night. The mistletoe did not go to waste.”
She narrowed her gaze. “I thought your hearing was failing you.”
“It comes and goes.” The old woman giggled. “Comesand goes…”
“Thank you, Aunt Margaret,” Violet said, having left her position with Timothy and James. She pulled Lily into the hallway and gestured with her chin for the men to join her.
