Chapter Twelve

Deep into the night, the flavor of forbidden delights lingering on her tongue, Patience turned her head. Giles slept on the pillow beside her.

They’d left the curtains partially open. Moonlight cast his form in a sharp delineation between white and black. He was always warm, he said, and slept with no more than a crisp sheet as high as the midpoint between his belly button and the base of his cock. If she could paint, this was how she’d depict him. A god in repose.

After all they’d done, having him next to her in bed shouldn’t shoot a daring thrill to the tips of her toes. It did, though. A rousing feeling that made her want him all over again, as if she weren’t sore from having taken all of him.

She reached her hand between her legs and idly swirled a finger around her clitoris.

Nothing could have prepared her for the wonder of coupling. Sharing her body with a man. Intellectually, she’d understood the basics since she’d worn her mother down and received a begrudging explanation. Or confirmation, rather. Her mother hadn’t shed much light on the procedure.

Patience had had an inkling, of course. Animals did what animals would do—often and without shame. She hadn’t been able to decide whether people were the same until her mother had confirmed it.

And now she’d done it. Quite without the benefit of marriage. Perhaps her mother’s command to not do it until after she was married was something she’d made up after the fact. Was it her guilty conscience? Her conscience didn’t feel unduly weighted. Whether that was the bigger sin—well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t.

…

Giles stirred in the early light of dawn and reached, as he always did, downward. He was rock hard. No matter what or whom he’d done the night before, when dawn began slinking over the horizon, the pump was once again primed.

An unusual note lingered in the air. A fragrance that put him in mind of something beautiful.

He stirred, blinking into the hazy gray and idly stroking himself. A warm heap lay beside him. A vixen born for carnal delights.

Giles smiled. Sleeping with his mate was a rare occurrence. A fine one, no mistake. And not unheard-of in his experience. This was all together more pleasant, though. Because the woman next to him was Miss Emery.

He went to the windows and threw back the partially closed drapes. The cool morning air made his hair stand on end and his nipples pucker. Then he crawled back into the downy nest.

Beside him, she stirred. “You’re awake?”

He rolled to his side and wrapped her in his arms, nuzzling her neck with his nose. Masses of her dark-gold waves poured over the pillows, the tresses catching glints of the encroaching sunlight as they were strewn lazily this way and that when he moved. “Every last inch of me.”

To prove the point, he held his engorged penis against her bottom as if to imprint her with a special kind of brand, and pressed a kiss into her soft skin.

She made a sound of pleasure. “It’s morning.”

“And I want to fuck you again.”

She turned her head so their lips met. His body burned for hers, his hunger violent as need bashed the insides of his veins.

Strong appetites were nothing new to him. Day in and day out, he cultivated pleasures to satisfy the urgency of his base requirements. All the while, she existed in the world, made for him. An instrument of pleasure ready and waiting for a proper tuning.

Oh heaven, this woman. What she did to him… When next he gave thanks, he had one particular thing for which to express his gratitude above all else.

Giles pushed away the bedcovers and climbed atop her. She grabbed for him, opening her legs to welcome him against her body. His fingers raked her hair. “Everything I ever wanted has been channeled into you.”

The world between them caught fire. His arousal shot from present and ready to clamoring with near-hostile demands. Her hands were all over his skin, bold and willful and utterly without shame.

The blunt tip found the opening of her body, the portal between this world and heaven. His stiff prick wanted to jam inside like a battering ram, thrust once—hard—and let his orgasm slam through his body.

That he could not allow. Not for himself, and certainly not for her. He moved slowly, with deliberate care…letting her feel every part of his length as he edged inside her. Lest it be over far too quickly, he paused after every fraction her body gave for him before pushing deeper.

She moaned, rocking against him, easing him in faster than he’d anticipated, and brought him to the brink of spasming. His whole body tensed as he fought to hold himself back. When he regained mastery of himself, he let himself take all of her in.

The first moments were always the worst. There he was, doing everything he wanted—specifically, doing a woman with the body of a pagan goddess whose mere existence made him hard—wetting his cock in her sweet quim, feeling her snug interior as her softness gave way for his hardness. It was all he could do to prevent himself from coming.

A woman’s inside was hot and welcoming. Miss Emery, though, was no mere woman. A dewy flush over her face left the impression that she was not a creature of this world.

He leaned down to claim her mouth, allowing her body to take some of his weight. Breaking away, he went lower, clamping his mouth on one luscious nipple and sucking. It was intoxicating, savoring this much beauty. He was, without doubt, the luckiest man alive.

Looking up, he caught his reflection in the mirror at the headboard. They were two bodies together on heaps of rumpled bedclothes. His bottom moved in smooth, rolling motions as he stroked her interior.

He returned to her breasts, buried his face between them, the warmth of her smooth skin permeating his. If he suffocated here, no paradise waiting on the other side could match this. True, he would never be allowed to trounce upon Eden, sullying the gardens, but this memory would keep him happy while he burned in hell for the remainder of eternity.