“What about Larkspur?”
“I know big houses make you jumpy and depressed. I’ll live here with you, ah—” Now he was stroking her thighs. Now he was asking her to part them. “I’ll be happy here in this little white house as long as you keep sliding your fingers up higher, until you find me right—”
As she gasped and groaned, he said, “Oh, dear. Now I’m never getting you out of my bed.”
He began a maddening, off-kilter pattern that she couldn’t get enough of, but also could not build on her pleasure. It was his way of asking her to relax into it, to enjoy for touch’s own sake.
“Now, if you could do this under the dinner table while I eat my dessert, I would be inspired to treat you in return.” Her hand found him, and twisted him, and pulled up until his hips followed.
Now down, pressing down, until he melted into the bed.
“This life you have planned for us sounds rather exhausting,” he said with amusement, even as his breathing was increasing. “Even though you’d have me in bed constantly, I might be too tired to function.”
“Functioning is not going to be high on our list of priorities.” She felt ready. Was he? Did he want this? “What do you want me to call you?”
“Will. Arlo. I really don’t know.” Pause. “You could call me sir, when you’re on your knees. That might be a new dynamic we explore, once we’ve worked out our hundred favorite types of regular lovemaking.” He was starting to not cope with her rhythmic pull-press-pull. “What I’ll really enjoy with you is the nuances, the mindset, outsmarting that quick brain of yours, making your body bloom only for me . . .”
He shivered, but did not go over.
“Start immediately,” she suggested, but he had gone still in the dark. “My love?” Her heartbeat was tapping insistently in her chest. She needed a release, and she needed to know him in these new ways. “Please, if you want to, put yourself into me.”
“I never have before.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I found a letter from myself.” He did not let her passion wane, but rolled her onto her side, and lifted her knee up onto his. As he began to explore her, gently, competently, using his fingers to test her softness in deep new places, he said, “I lied to you.”
“I don’t care.”
“I found a letter in Father Porter’s office, and it said I was a good young man who had never put two fingers into a woman’s wet body like this. Or three.”
She choked a laugh, even as her eyes closed in pleasure. “What else did it say?”
“I’m a virginal, abstinent man,” Will said, rolling her onto her stomach and kneeling behind her. His hands pulled her hips up, and now he was positioned. The broad head she had personally selected was notching into place, and he was asking her, “Are you ready? Do you still want this?”
“Please,” she said facedown into their pillow. “I don’t want to be a virginal, abstinent woman. Give it to me.” He did, and oh, she felt every slow inch of this moment. There was no pain, no agonizing ripping of her body to shreds. Natural science; that was what this was.
No, even more: it was a trance.
They knew what to do. Angles, and speed, and resistance, and a touch of gravity; nothing required any thought. Will was both careful and powerful in his movements, drawing out, pushing back, causing her to gasp, groan, and tingle. He began to pull her back firmer and firmer onto him.
Just like pure gold, Angelika’s orgasm was unmistakable when she saw it start to glimmer on the near horizon. Will saw it, too, and folded his body down, caging her in with his arms. He bit down softly on her neck, then put a hand down to touch and help her. It was a claiming; a gentle, hard, rocking, thorough fucking, and just like the gold ring dazzled her eyes, her body tightened up, the enormity of the sensation feeling like panic and then—
Ecstasy, utter, decadent, blooming ecstasy, drawing cords through her limbs to pull and loosen, jerking and easing. He was in the exact same moment. They shivered and pressed and held still, his brow on her shoulder as he rocked in slowing spasms. The human body was capable of miracles, soaked in sweat and salt.
“I love you,” he told her. “I have, from the moment I first saw you.”
“I loved you before you took a breath.”
Laughing giddily at this absurd competition, they slumped and rolled into each other’s arms. “Are you all right?” He tipped her chin up with his thumb. “Was I too rough?” There was blood, but not much. “Mary would be furious to see this sheet.”