“You were.” His smile widened into a grin. “No breasts or hips. Just tall and reed-thin. And I adored you. I adored you with mud on your face and food on your chin and twigs in your hair.”
“I never had food on my chin!”
“You did.” He crawled over her, his knees resting on either side of her hips, his cock right where she wanted it…if only he would lower his body six inches or so. “It is
Her hand lifted to cover her mouth and hide the trembling of her lips. She knew he referred to losing her to Langley and her heart ached. She made it a point to regret nothing in her life. If she proceeded with an action, it was because she was decided. But she regretted having caused him pain, even though she had done so unwittingly.
“So you see,” he continued, collecting the hem of her chemise and tugging it upward, “while I am thoroughly smitten with your exterior, it is your interior that won my deeper regard.”
Sophie arrested his movements with her hands over his. He met her gaze squarely, his brows lifted in silent challenge. She knew that look well, and it made her smile. She took a moment to marvel over how comfortable she felt with him, as if they had been lovers forever, then said, “Allow me.”
With her heart full, she sat up and pulled her chemise over her head. It was not as easy as she would hope, her insecurity around the marquess a lifetime habit. The change in position put their torsos in close proximity, and she shivered slightly as she felt the heat of his skin. Releasing a deep breath, she settled back against the pillows and lifted her chin.
His gaze was so hot it made her perspire. Her eyes closed as Justin touched her stomach just above her pelvic bone. She did not have to look to know he followed the mark left by her pregnancy. The mattress dipped and swayed as he moved away from her, and her eyes burned at the unbearable intimacy. A moment later she jerked in surprise when his open mouth pressed to the spot, then moved upward, his tongue slipping into her navel. One hair-dusted leg hooked over hers and tugged it aside, opening her thighs to his avid touch.
“Justin!” she gasped, arching as he parted her and stroked her with his fingertips.
His mouth moved to her breast, brushing along the side, kissing the faint marks that marred the under curve. “Christ, you are so beautiful.”
Her arms lifted, embracing him, as he found her nipple and engulfed it, suckling strongly. A callused fingertip circled her clitoris, then dipped lower to slip inside her. She cried out and bowed upward, straining, her body echoing the contractions of his mouth around his plunging finger. Aroused by his praise and gentle ministrations, Sophie felt herself softening, opening, becoming slick with welcome so that every thrust of his hand sounded wetly in the room.
Lifting his head, Justin watched her, giving her no room to hide. His skin was flushed, his eyes fever-bright, his lips parted with harsh, panting breaths.
“I used to imagine you like this,” he confessed in a husky whisper, withdrawing from her depths, only to return with two fingers. Stroking along her inner walls, rubbing, caressing, making her writhe. Her nails dug into his forearms, her nipples peaked hard and painfully tight.
He kissed her, absorbing her cries into the heat of his mouth. “If you open your legs wider,” he whispered, “I can fuck you deeper.”
His crude wording first startled her, then inflamed her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she spread her thighs shamelessly, hungrily accepting the deluge of sensation after the last few years of numbness.
“No, look at me,” he murmured, his throbbing erection a hard pressure against her leg. “Let me watch you.”
Sophie relented, unable and unwilling to deny him, feeling safe with him in a way that made such sharing possible. Her eyes locked onto his, her body quivered against his, her gasps mingled with his, until she cried out. Falling into orgasm with a hot rush of tears. Clinging to his big, hard body with all her strength. Grateful he was with her, just as she had always been grateful when he was at her side.
“Justin,” she whimpered, rubbing her tearstained cheek against his. “Darling Justin.”
He came over her, the ripples of his abdomen glistening in the candlelight, the muscles in his arms flexing as he held his weight aloft. “Put me inside you,” he rasped, his chest heaving as if he had run a great distance.
Touching his lips with the fingertips of one hand, she reached down with the other and positioned him. His breath blew hot against her skin as he rolled his hips and eased into her.
She tensed as he breached her, her lungs seizing as the first thick inches spread her wide.
“Hush,” he murmured, freeing one hand to stroke down her side. Reaching beneath her thigh, he pulled it up, anchoring it on his hip so that the pressure lessened. “You were made to hold me.”
He settled more of his weight on top of her, pinning her down, forcing her to accept his leisurely pace.
Senses that had been dazed by her recent climax, flared to renewed life. “Please,” she begged, squirming. “Please hurry.”
“You never had any patience, love.”
She moaned as he sank deeper. And deeper. So slowly. Taking his time. Finally, with a breathtaking lunge, he filled her to the hilt, his thighs shaking violently against hers.
“Christ, you feel good.” His forehead pressed to hers. “Perfect. No! Don’t move…be still…allow me a moment…”
Near mindless with lust, she rocked her hips restlessly, pushing him deeper into her, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly.
Justin brushed her damp curls away from her forehead. She stilled, staring up at him, arrested by the sight of the deep hunger and longing in his eyes. He made no effort to disguise it. Here, in this moment, Sophie saw inside him such as she never had before, finding the man beneath the collected exterior.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Please, kiss me.”
“Yes,” he murmured, his lips lowering to hover over hers. “Yes.”
As their open mouths met in a passionate mating, he withdrew from her drenched sex and then slid home, the thick head of his shaft rubbing inside her just as his fingers had. Her kiss grew frantic, her desire near maddening. Her nostrils filled with the scent of his skin and their joint arousal, urging her to action. She pressed her heels into the mattress and lifted to meet his next downward thrust.
He growled when he hit the end of her. “I want this to last.”
“No! Dear God, no.” Sophie grabbed his buttocks and urged him to pump faster. His firm ass clenched within her palms on every downstroke, the feel of him propelling his cock into her so erotic she began to plead softly.
“Whatever you want,” she promised in a rush, desperate to give him pleasure, desperate to break through his iron control. “Anything you want…
Justin pulled back and lunged hard, pounding deep. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes! Yes.” She writhed upward, straining with him, her body moving as a thing separate from her mind, driven by an animal greed that should have shocked her. Instead, she was empowered by it.
Embracing her need for him with all the passion she possessed, Sophie took him as hard as he took her, accepting the fierce driving thrusts of his cock with no restraint. Relishing the sounds of his guttural cries of pleasure.
Then he plunged into the root, swiveling his hips to grind against her. Her neck arched, her eyes flew wide. “Justin?” she gasped, taut as a bow, suspended on the edge of something wonderful.
“Come, Sophie,” he crooned breathlessly, stroking in measured rhythm. “Come, and I will come with you.”
Arms around his neck, she pressed her cheek to his and shivered into orgasm with his name on her lips. As he promised, he followed, holding her, loving her, supporting her.
Just as he always had.
Chapter Six
Justin sprawled naked atop the counterpane, one arm tucked behind his head, the other holding Sophie close to
