Page 25 of Graciously His

“Perfect.”

That word cannot apply to me, but he says it again. Like a designation to each part he touches: shoulders, neck, breasts. Nate says they’re perfect, even though they hardly fill his palms. I moan at the dissonance between his words and the truth. But his hands are reverent as he presses me down on the bed.

Nate stands back, eyes glimmering. He shucks himself naked with none of the ceremony he afforded me. I watch what the flickering light reveals: a broad, strong chest, two powerful thighs, and his cock, hard and ready. I crawl backwards, breaths heaving, worried I might truly panic.

He matches my retreat with pursuit, crawling over me.

“Going to run, Grace?” He shifts my hips, centering me on the bed. “I’ll give you a head start, then I’ll hunt you down. I’ll be your big, bad wolf.”

His words are igniting what I’ve tried to drown for years. I’ve locked this scorching part of myself away, willing it to die the way Nick wanted. But it’s still here, fragmented and jagged. And the desire isn’t flame any more. There’s been an elemental shift, and now it’s like the floods of spring, flowing from me, slicking down my thighs. Even as I try to scramble out from beneath him, I open my legs just a little.

I know this is the moment I should deny everything I’m feeling, the truth within that’s forcing its way out. I should choose grief instead. Or anger. Even fear. I don’t. Instead, I open up and show Nate the truth of what I am: the insatiable woman at the centre of this burning flood. His eyes lock onto that untouched part of me. I snap my legs shut, shame filling me with heat that has nothing to do with arousal.

“Don’t show me then pretend you didn’t,” Nate snarls. Then his eyes find mine and he grins. “Not when you’re panting for me.”

Embarrassment brings on the mental static, and I try to crawl away again. He catches my wrists in one hand; his other presses my legs open, and—damn me—I let him. I let him pry me open.

“I’m going to eat you alive,” he promises, his lips at my thigh.

It’s all the warning I get before he presses his tongue into me. I spasm around the invasion, crying out. There’s no warm-up, no preliminary petting, just that wicked muscle forcing its way inside. I try to clamp my thighs, to control his pace, but he thrusts his tongue deeper and I almost weep with the intensity of it. When I open my legs for more, his hand finds my clit. A reward.

Fuck.

I’m dying already, my body quaking. The pleasure is as inevitable as the tide coming in, as the moon filling up, as Nate himself. I open myself to it, my yes finally on my lips, my body ready to accept everything. I haven’t come in more days or weeks or months than I want to think about, and even then I always had to try for it. Now I can’t stop myself, and I can’t shut up. I’m saying things I shouldn’t, my voice breathy and desperate. This orgasm is hurtling towards me, getting ready to take me rather than the reverse.

At the last moment, Nate changes tactics. His fingers plunge downwards, filling me in a way that’s almost painful as his lips fasten on my clit. I try to free my wrists—I need to cover my mouth and shut myself up because I am screaming. Nate holds me down, just like he promised, as he brings the obliterating orgasm crashing down.

Chapter 13

Nate

Grace comes like it’s her first time, and it’s all I can do not to take her right now. I need her desperate and mindless, her resistance giving way to pleasure—and she’s almost there. As far as I’m concerned, Grace showing me her wet, needy cunt was her ‘I do’. I entered her the only way I could without hurting her with my intensity, tongue-fucking her until she forgot to pretend she didn’t want it. And then—I almost came against the mattress—she started talking, and I discovered that my sweet little wife has a filthy mouth.

“Your tongue… fuck, push it in deeper—” and, “Fuck… it’s going to kill me—” and, best of all: “Don’t stop, God, don’t you dare stop, motherfucker. Fuck—fuck—”

Her entire body arcs as she clamps down on my fingers. I devour her orgasm, sucking her clit between my lips, heightening the intensity as I push my fingers deeper. Nick broke her with rejection. I’m going to break her with love.

“Okay,” she says shakily. “Okay, stop! I can’t take any more.”

I want to tell her that yes, she fucking can—come more, take more, give me more. I’m tempted to sit her on my face until she’s so boneless she suffocates me. I’d come in my death throes. But I have to consummate this marriage before she remembers herself. I need my wife to know, in her deepest places, that she belongs to me.

I release her wrists and Grace draws her hands up, covering her breasts. She’s blushing hard, her eyes sparkling with tears.

“Pretending again,” I say, watching as she closes her legs. I surge forward, my body suspended over hers.

“Nate,” she whispers, “are you—are you going to—”

She bites her lip instead of finishing the question. I chuckle, loving how sweet and quiet she is now, when two minutes ago her mouth was full to the brim with obscenities. I lean down to speak into her ear.

“Open your legs, Grace. Time to let me in.”

“Are you going to make me?” she whispers, still refusing to meet my eyes.

The answer is not yes. She’s mine, but she needs to say yes, at least this once.

“Do you want me to make you?”

She clamps her eyes shut and shakes her head, tears trickling into her hair. I lean in and kiss her, lingering so she can feel how I’m poised over her, ready but not taking. I let my thighs press against hers, tangling our feet together, inviting her to feel warm and calm after her storm of pleasure.