Knight of Love (27 page)

He stroked, light as a feather, until she squirmed, unable to bear more, and he deepened his touch. Her own wetness and the oil slickened her skin, allowed her to feel her every fold. She felt his attention focused on her, attuning his touch to the shudders and moans he drew from her. She'd long ago lost all inhibitions around him. She gave him her every unguarded response and let him weave a tapestry of lovemaking out of it.

The pleasure flamed and flicked at her. But she wanted still more. Again she lifted her bottom toward him.

There was no need for more oil; she dripped with it. He kept swirling across that delightful spot at the top of her quim. His other hand came up, fingers circling at the tight pucker of her bottom. It was a different sort of pleasure—darker, more urgent. She groaned with it.

His breathing was harsh behind her. She kept her eyes closed, reveling in the sensation of him opening her up from behind while also filling her quim. Her pleasure began to rise too quickly, the pressure gathering together into a knot. Her breath caught and held.

She didn't want it to end so soon. Sometimes she wanted him to drive her to a fast climax, like that time in his jail cell. But not this morning. This morning, she wanted to draw it out.

He sensed her mood—he always did, reading her every response, playing her like his lute. He pulled his hand off her quim and brought it up to knead the sensitive flesh of her derriere, slipping his thumbs down the slope toward the pucker he'd opened up. Then he paused.

It was a question.

“Yes,” she answered. “All of you.”

He rose behind her on the bed, his long frame stretching out, covering her. Heat blasted from his body. He supported his weight on one arm; she turned her head to see his shoulder muscles bunch and cord—oh, the delights of a strong man, at the peak of his vigor. His other hand kneaded her hip, then guided himself between the globes of her bottom. She clenched around him as he slid back and forth, coating himself with the thick oil, rubbing against that sensitive opening with the throbbing head of his shaft. Like silk he glided against her. Rock hard, yet soft, so like the man himself. How complex people are, how paradoxical the love that binds us, yet sets us free.

Ideas tumbled, images formed, as he moved over her, rubbed himself against her—flame burning, red silk rippling. The sensual delight continued to crest, and she wanted more, more. The hunger to take him in, to control his passion with her body, gripped her.

She wanted him inside her.

She lifted toward him again, and he changed the angle of his hips' movement, fitted himself to her, pushed slowly. Pressure filled her. She relaxed into it, opened to him, and breathed him in. The feel of him as he filled her, of him on her and all around her, was almost overwhelming. So much pleasure and pressure, so much of
him
. A sound escaped her, something between a moan and a whimper.

He stilled. “Lady?” His voice was rough.

But she was beyond words. Her fingers fisted into the sheets.

His head dipped to her; he brushed his cheek against hers. The rasp of stubble whispered in her ear, along with his warm breath. It drew a shiver from her that rippled down her spine to their joining. She clenched around him and gasped at the pleasure that shot through her in response.

She reached for his hand braced by her head and laced her fingers over his. “More,” she managed to command.

He slid to his side, pulling her with him, curving around her from behind all along the length of her back and legs. His lower arm curled under her side to toy with her breasts. His top arm slid down her body to nestle between her thighs. He stroked leisurely at her most sensitive spot, spiking her desire again until she squirmed back to take even more of him in.

He thrust into her slowly in a pattern of shallow penetration and swirling attention to her slick folds that dripped with the oil and her own moisture.

It grew difficult to distinguish which part of him moved where. She felt him everywhere, at her breasts, behind her back, between her legs, at her bottom, filling her, laving her with attention, enveloping her with heat, layering pleasure on pleasure.

She clenched around him rhythmically, causing him to hiss in her ear.

His fingers quickened into a focused pattern at the top of her quim and his thrusts increased. Even then, she remained dimly aware, he held himself in check, not losing himself in his own mounting climax.

But then the ability for awareness fled. Sensation gripped her—sweaty, driving, gathering tension as she stiffened under him, muscles tensed, mouth open, neck arched. Her whole body gathered to a swirling maelstrom of pleasure and need.

He increased the pressure of his touch and rocked faster. “I am yours, lady.” He breathed hot in her ear. “Now and forever. I am for you.”

She shattered. Pleasure arced through her: lightning across the night sky. She screamed at the intensity of sensation flooding her.

He groaned his own pleasure at her ear, and she felt him stiffen as his release gripped him.

She gasped for breath. Tears leaked from her eyes. “Wolfram, my mighty wolf, my black raven, my knight, my love.” She offered the words in thanks, as a benediction.

He kissed the tears from her eyes. “You slay me, lady. Your beauty in your passion, the gift you make me of your trust.”

When they'd both caught their breath, he pulled from her and rolled to his back. She snuggled up against his shoulder. She'd ring for the maid in a bit. A bath, then dressing, a meeting with the Society of Love subcommittee on housing reform—Bea had new ideas about a terraced square for factory workers, with its own health clinic—and then a dinner party at Callista's St. James's mansion before the theater in Lord Rexton's private box, the two couples plus Bea and her man of business.

A lovely, very fortunate life. She knew herself to be lucky. It was a luck she'd worked hard to make come true. And a life she intended not to take for granted.

She had found her Knight of Love.

And she would live with him, for many long days and nights of love.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Catherine Roach

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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition June 2014

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ISBN 978-1-4767-1013-66