“Yep.” Warren pulls me close and walks me backward, just like before. “Cleared out half the wardrobe to make way for your dresses and things. Might have to build a bigger one once I buy you some more.” The edge of the mattress bumps the backs of my thighs in a silent invitation to sit, for which my shaky legs are grateful. “Don’t have to fret about the bed, though. There’s plenty enough room in it for the both of us.”
Now his hips are directly in front of my face, the bulge between them straining against the front of his trousers. My fingers twitch. Am I really fighting the urge to reach out and grip his thickness? The sheets crumpled in my fists might be an answer of yes. “It’s been a long day. Are we”—oh, the size of the knot that constricts my throat as I swallow—“going to sleep now?”
“Oh, Mara.” The slow, deep promise in his words coats my insides with a delicious thrill as he plays with the end of my braid. “Not yet.” The taut lines of his bare stomach lift in shallow breaths that belie his confident tone.
I strangle the sheets so tightly a cramp threatens my fingers. “What are we going to do then?”
“Remember the night I told you I loved you?” he asks huskily.
My heart skips a beat.
Or three.
“Yes,” I answer honestly, if a bit hoarsely.
“Mmm,” he murmurs as he unwinds the coils of my braid with a care more tender than I’d expect with his bigfingers. “There we go. I know sleeping with it braided helps with tangles, but I love your hair loose like this.”
I close my eyes, basking in the gentle tugging sensations as my stomach drops and my heart soars. But then a rush of air kisses my face, and my lashes fly open to find him kneeling before me with an expression so intense and full of hunger. Now the woman in me is keenly aware of how much of a man he is—and how much she likes it. “What are you doing on the floor?”
I’ve been between the legs of enough men to guess the answer, but doubt pours in even as his hands come to rest on either side of my hips. Surely he doesn’t mean to put his mouth on me.
Not there.
Prickles break out over my arms and neck at the possibility, but I need to be logical. Maybe he just wants to rest his head on my lap and—the kiss that burns my stomach through my nightgown completely halts any further logic.
“Remember what else I said that night?” he asks, looking up at me.
“I…no.” Not with the shirtless, broad shoulders of my husband between my thighs making me think of forbidden things.
“Come on, wife,” he cajoles. “You can do it. Think back to when I laid over you in this very bed and made myself at home between these thighs.”
It’s all I can do to remind myself to breathe and swallow without choking as another heated kiss drags across my belly, but somehow my mind digs through a pile of memories until it finds the one from weeks before. From when he carefully pressed me into the mattress with the weight of his body and murmured hot words of desire.
Do you want that, wife? Want me to make sweet love to your mouth to apologize for not kissing you on our wedding night?
“Kissing,” I answer faintly. But he’s already kissed me so much that my lips are swollen and tender. Does he mean to do more?
“That’s right.” A lazy smile forms as he slides his hands down my thighs and then beneath my nightgown. “But I recollect two different kinds of kissing.” Warmth wraps around my ankles.
Then up my legs.
How far will he go? His palms glide halfway up my thighs, and I lose all ability to form words when his thumbs begin to stroke back and forth. “Don’t you?”
It takes a moment for me to remember what he asked.Two kinds of kissing.“Yes,” I garble.
Warren doesn’t go any further but maintains his steady caress. “You’ve given me your lips, but tell me where else I promised you.”
My numb mouth dries further when I recall him talking about my legs being over his shoulders. Blood rushes into my cheeks in response to his intimate tone and the damned touch of his thumbs. They’re so close to the place throbbing with unfulfilled need. To the small spot ignored by the men in my past and known only by my own fingers when I gave myself what small comfort I could find during a rare lonely night.
At my empty silence, Warren hooks my leg over his left shoulder, massaging the tensed muscles and watching with satisfaction as the hem of my nightgown slips down a few inches. “It’s all right, Mara. Just relax because we’re gonna take this nice and easy. You can show me if you don’t want to say the words.”
“Here.” My voice is scarcely audible as I shakilymaneuver his wrist until his thumb is exactly where I need it to be.
Warren’s eyes flare at the contact, the pulse in his neck fluttering almost as quickly as mine. “Here?” he asks with a hesitant stroke over the fabric.
“Yes,” I manage to gasp through a shudder of pleasure. My own touch never felt this good. Light circles grow firmer, and I fall back in tense surrender against the bedding as I try to hold back the noises that so desperately want to escape. Nothing like the fake sounds I was forced to do for other men to stroke their egos as much as their cocks. No…the heavy groans bubbling up inside of me would be guttural and real if I released them.
It scares me how easily this man breaks down my barriers and coaxes me to willingly give him the vulnerability I hide from everyone.
