Page 76 of The Pumpkin Bride

“You don’t know . . .” He kissed her, delighting in her sweetness. “How hard it’s been day after day, working side by side with you.”

“Tell me,” she said with a smile.

He cupped her breast, ran his thumb over the stiff peak. “Every day I fantasize about bending you over the kitchen table and taking you before breakfast.”

He licked her tight bud, the way she’d enjoyed many a time back in Thornwick. Under his attention, she stiffened and shivered. He switched to the other breast, lest it get jealous.

“And again, in the yard, I’ve wanted to lay you down on the trestle table more times than there are stars in the sky.” As he teased her tender flesh, he laid a palm on her belly and skated it slowly toward the heat between her thighs.

There, he found her flesh swollen, eager, and moist.

Not that he’d use that word around her out loud.

“Where else?” she gasped as he circled the nub the way she’d taught him.

“The tree where we found the goldcaps,” he said. “Upright, like animals. The bark scouring your back as I pin you to it.”

“Yes,” she said. “Let’s do that. All of that.”

He nipped her ear. “I swear it.”

Her breath caught as he slipped a finger inside her, then two. Eagerly, she accepted him, her body softening like rain-soaked earth. Fuck Thornwick. This was the only homecoming he wanted, and he could wait no longer.

“Wait,” she said.

His breath caught. This was where she came to her senses and told him to go. He’d respect her wishes, but blood and bones, it would kill him.

“Let down your hair,” she said.

He found he could breathe again. With a quick yank he untied the thong. As he leaned forward, his black hair curtained over her. “Better?” he asked.

“Yes.” She tunneled her hands into his strands and cradled his skull, pulling his face back to hers. “Now will you please love me?”

Always. He didn’t know how he would feel or how he would feel to her. But she was waiting for him, ready. This was no time for second-guessing. This was time for overcoming.

Slowly, patiently, gloriously, he entered her.

Her delighted gasp was everything.

“Okay?” he whispered.

She smiled. “Perfect.”

He rolled his hips, mind blanking with her pressured heat. Criminal that he’d been without her for three years. That he’d ever risked parting from her, thought anything was more important than being with the woman he’d always loved.

Would always love, from this day forward.

He bent to worship her mouth. As she moaned, she hooked her heels around his thighs. He broke the kiss, needing another look at her. If this was the last time they were together, if she woke in the morning with regrets, he wanted this memory. Her rolling body, swaying breasts, hooded eyes.

With her gaze on him.

He adjusted, bent his knees so they were under her thighs, opening her to him further. With one hand hooked on her hip, he placed his palm over her heart. The beat beneath her ribs was fast and strong.

The sweet coiling tension gathered in his lower back. He refused to give in, not until she’d had her pleasure. He rolled the tight bud between her legs, with slow, steady pressure, the way she liked.

Steady, steady, steady.

Her breath caught again, and her telltale low keen began.