Her husband tilted his head, his lips curving further. “I see a woman of fiery passions and unparalleled intelligence.” There was a gentle tug on her hair and his strong fingers tenderly unwound her plait. She watched him in the mirror, marveling at the intensity in his gaze and how it contrasted with his gentle touch. “A kind heart, but one unwilling to be trod upon.” His arms reached around her and untied her wrapper in one swift tug. Her body began to vibrate with anticipation as the garment was slid from her shoulders and discarded. She caught where Sterling’s eyes had locked and noticed the prominence of her aroused nipples was infinitely apparent through the delicate fabric of her nightshift. When she would have covered herself, Sterling caught her hands in his and pulled them back to place searing kisses on each of her palms. Her self-consciousness melted enough that she allowed him to weave her arms back behind his neck, arching her back to jut her breasts toward the mirror.
“Do not move,” he ordered gently, causing an unexpected rush of liquid heat between her thighs. “I see…” he continued huskily, trailing his fingers down her sides, making her shiver and her eyes slide nearly closed; “a most desirable woman, in mind, soul…and body.” His fingers twisted in the fabric at her hips. “This body,” he breathed, “has driven me mad with desire since the day we met. And I have never wanted another.” The words were like the release of a dam, losing a flood of need through her limbs. Her flesh was suddenly almost unbearably hot and her inner muscles clenched reflexively, aching for unnamed relief.
She was fascinated by the painfully slow raising of her nightshift’s hem as Sterling continued to wrap the fabric around his hands. “I lay awake at night, hard and aching, thinking about these legs wrapped around my hips.” She shuddered at the image; only her arms locked around the back of his neck kept her upright when she would have otherwise melted into a puddle on the floor. “When I can sleep, I dream of kissing every last inch of this perfect flesh.” The fabric rose above her navel, revealing the glistening golden curls at the juncture of her thighs. So aroused, she was well past the point of modesty. She pressed her thighs together in an effort to staunch the delicious throb pounding there with every heavy beat of her heart. The fabric continued to rise, dragging against her sensitized nipples just enough to cause an unbidden gasp to escape her lips.
Sterling released an involuntary groan of his own. “And these breasts…divine isn’t apt enough for their perfection.” He gently unclasped her hands to pull the fabric over her head and dropped it to pool around their feet. He steadied her with one strong forearm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest, the thick column of his sex notching perfectly against her rear. He bent his head and pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the soft flesh of her neck. “I have never stopped wanting you, Alaina,” he groaned. “It kills me that you ever believed that was not the truth. I have always wanted every part of you with everything I am and everything I have. I swore it the day we stood before the archbishop, and I have never stopped believing it.”
Alaina turned her head to look back up into his face. The raw honesty there was her undoing.
She tilted up and caught his mouth with hers, the first time she’d initiated a kiss with him. She felt consumed by his power and heat, and she savored it. She reveled in it. She wanted to lose herself in it and never resurface. She wanted to believe every one of his words and she allowed it to happen—to give herself over to this attraction simmering between them.
His large hand spanned her flat abdomen, stopping just below her navel, hot as a brand yet tender as a feather. His arm tightened around her ribs.
“May I touch you?” Sterling rasped in between kisses. “Please.” The pleading in his tone made her fall apart.
She nodded jerkily, not fully understanding what he was asking—he was, after all, already touching her, the full length of his hard body nestled against her back—but she knew she wanted whatever he was willing to offer. “Yes.” The word finished with a gasp as his hand already dipped lower. Tenderly, carefully, he parted the folds of her sex with one blunt fingertip. He traced her seam, spreading the dewiness there with every pass. When she would have been embarrassed to have him discover that wetness, the approving rumble from his chest bolstered her confidence. He liked what he’d discovered.
“Even more beautiful than I’d ever imagined…” Sterling’s voice was barely above a growl.
His other hand rose from her ribs to cup the weight of her left breast, and a groan of stark desire rumbled like thunder from his body through hers until she felt it in her soul. When the calloused pad of his thumb found the budded peak, she shuddered at the desire lancing from that point throughout each of her limbs and back in time with his touch before it settled low in her stomach. He worked a gentle, insistent rhythm with both of his remarkably skilled hands; plucking her nipple and then soothing the ache, gradually stroking more deeply within her intimate folds until his finger met the very center of her tight core. Those skilled fingers of his circled there, spreading her slickness and making her throb until she involuntarily arched her hips into his touch, and then he suddenly retreated. Alaina would have whimpered in confusion, but his fingers slipped up several inches to discover an even more sensitive spot at the crux of her sex. The pad of his longest finger pressed just right and she gasped in shock at the intensity of the sensation, finally breaking their kiss.
Alaina’s hazy vision caught sight of the intensely erotic image they made standing there before the mirror. His temple rested against hers, his fingers cupped her and lashed her close to his body, his other hand confidently worked between her legs as he made her knees tremble with his touch. Her spine turned to jelly, her thighs twitched helplessly as he added another finger to his machinations. The sight of his glistening fingers disappearing between her folds, stroking her where no one had before, should have scandalized her, but, instead, it served only to inflame her passion. Her breath hitched when she met Sterling’s eyes in the mirror and she found them burning with an unnatural intensity.
Suddenly, his fingers dipped lower once more, pressing against her entrance. Her body tensed instinctively.
“Relax, love,” Sterling said against her neck, nipping at the lobe of her ear. She began to shake her head—how could she when she felt like a bowstring ready to snap?—until he caught her mouth with his, kissing her so deeply, possessively she felt it in every inch of her being. Her toes curled, her muscles went molten, and Sterling took the opportunity to press his fingers forward, invading her body in the most delicious way. She gasped against his lips and, when his thumb rubbed that secret pearl in time with the slow, shallow thrusts of his two longest fingers, she lost control of her limbs. Her head fell back against Sterling’s hard shoulder, and her pounding heart was all she could hear…well, that, and the deep, pained rumble of Sterling’s voice.
“So sweet,” he growled. “So tight.” He cursed. “I don’t know how I shall survive.”
She might have collapsed had he not insinuated a leg between hers from behind, helping both to spread her wider for his efforts and prop her up. She clutched at his forearm, her nails biting into the corded muscles, and panted frantically. Something was building. A crisis was coming. She didn’t know how to stop it—what to do.
“Sterling,” she whimpered.
“Look,” he replied. “Watch yourself in the mirror. See how glorious and desirable you are as you come apart in my arms.” His thick member throbbed against her back, the arching of her spine and rocking tilt of her hips earned her a guttural groan of approval from her husband. Despite her hazy vision, she did as he commanded. She focused her cloudy vision on the reflection in the mirror.
Who was that woman with the flush cresting her cheeks, the passion-glazed eyes, the kiss-swollen lips? The woman who was wantonly spread before a mirror as a man touched her most intimate of places, who held her bright pink nipple trapped in a tantalizing grip between two fingers of the broad hand spanning her pale breast? This woman who was so overcome with lust that she couldn’t hold herself up without that man’s assistance?
Alaina didn’t recognize this confident, sensual being. And she had Sterling to thank for that.
One crook of his finger inside of her coupled with a firm circle of his thumb sent Alaina spiraling. She cried out raggedly as wave after wave of pleasure overcame her. Part of her was terrified of this loss of control, but she also never wanted it to stop. As if reading her mind, Sterling continued his ministrations, never slowing or stilling, murmuring harsh words of encouragement against her hair as she bucked against the heel of his palm where it continued its insistent pressure. She clung to Sterling, riding each pulse of her orgasm and allowing him to wring every last glimmer of pleasure from her body until she went limp, whimpering in shock and exhaustion, both of their bodies slick with sweat—hers from ecstasy and his from restraint.
As she floated down, Sterling continued to nuzzle her hair, planting gentle kisses and reassuring words to her hair. He held her up when her shaky legs would have given out; remained steadfast and strong when she would have given up and given over to her weakened muscles. He continued to hold her until the world was once more solid and steady—until she could find her footing once more. Still, however, he didn’t free her. He allowed Alaina to turn within his embrace, pressing against the length of his body. Her eyes closed, she rested her forehead to the hard, sweat-dampened plane of his chest as he stroked her back from the nape of her neck down to the sloping curve of her rear and back up.
“We can stop here,” Sterling finally whispered thickly. “If you wish.” He seemed to hold himself impossibly still, barely daring to breathe…a hunter terrified of scaring off his target.
Though the tremors of her orgasm still rippled throughout her body, though Sterling had given her the most joyous physical experience of her life, Alaina couldn’t help but feel as if something was missing. The throbbing juncture of her thighs ached for more…something she couldn’t name but knew in the most primal part of her that it existed.
And, judging by the insistent throb of Sterling’s arousal between them, he craved more as well.
Alaina looked up into his face, so gorgeously sculpted, taut with self-control. She didn’t recognize the husky, sensual voice coming from her throat when she said, “Make me your wife in truth. Make love to me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sterling didn’t darebelieve his ears.
Was it possible for a heart to long for something so greatly that the ears created falsehoods?
He’d heard of men in extreme situations of deprivation or torture so desperate for relief they became delirious from it. Could that be what Sterling was experiencing? Had he pined for Alaina for so long that his mind had attempted the mercy of imagining Alaina’s words?
