Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 67421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
“No,” she said softly, touching her jeweled fingers to his firm mouth. “As painful as that day became and the many tears I shed, I would never trade a moment of that Midsummer for another. I would never rewrite a single second I’ve spent with you. And,” she added with a grin before she could become too maudlin, “I would not have our hands bound until dawn again. Much better to touch you with two.”
“Much better,” Warrick agreed—though the huskiness of his reply suggested that he had not been unaffected by the rest of her speech. As did the way he kissed her, slow and sweet.
Yet he also wasted not a moment putting both hands to use. The first to clasp her nape, anchoring her in place for his deepening kiss, the other to roam where he wished.
What he apparently wished was to please her or torture her or both—stroking his fingers over her breasts, teasing and pinching her nipples. All the while devouring her mouth with kisses that were wet and slow and devastating. Yet she could not please and torture him in return, for she could only clutch his arms and his shoulders, and the frustration of not touching him now that she knew the joy of it was wound ever tighter by his fingers and tongue.
It was almost a relief when his hand abandoned her breasts to explore the plane of her stomach, to grip her ass and grind her against his rigid arousal. For it was so good, yet not so maddeningly overwhelming, and her thoughts were almost coherent again.
Until his roaming hand slipped between her thighs.
“So wet,” Warrick groaned, breaking the kiss to breathe hotly against her mouth, his eyes half closed as if he were nearly overcome simply by the slickness of her arousal against his fingers. “Elina.”
Then he was kissing her again, sending her spinning into a madness of ecstasy between the stroke of his tongue into her mouth and the circling of his thumb around her clit—then his finger pressed into her, rubbing together with the slide of his thumb, and she cried out when it became so much.
Warrick dragged his mouth from hers. “Hurts?” he asked raggedly, his gaze hot on her face.
“No!” Near sobbing, she twisted beneath him. “Please. Please, please. Warrick!”
“Let it come, wife.” He growled into her ear. “You’re so tight. So strong. So beautiful. Let me feel you come.”
His words seemed to join with his hand, shoving her into a spiral of bliss. Her body locked as she shattered, screaming into his neck, holding him close.
“Elina, my wife, my heart. You came so good,” he groaned. “Now I wish for you to do it again.”
Surely she could not. She was still quivering when his finger slipped from inside her, and his mouth began the same roaming journey as his hand.
And she could come again. She could, as his tongue made her cry out again and again, until she was a limp and liquid mess upon his furs. He rose up over her to take her mouth in another kiss. She tasted herself upon his lips, felt the heavy weight of his erection pressing into her belly, and everything inside her tightened in anticipation.
Warrick cupped her face. “The stars, Elina.”
Her mind was so blissed, she knew not for a moment what he meant. Then she smiled and tugged the jewels from her fingers—feeling the oddness of their missing weight after two years of never removing them.
Yet no fear did she feel. She trusted him. She loved him.
Some undefinable emotion passed through Warrick’s eyes before he kissed her again, hard, deep.
Then he braced himself over her on one straightened arm, gripping his swollen shaft and slicking the head through her cleft. His voice was a thick rasp. “Watch me take you, wife.”
Barbarian. With a soft laugh, she raised her thighs alongside his flanks, opening herself fully to him. “I am the one taking you, husband. My body is accepting yours.”
His burning gaze met hers. “And your heart?”
“Also yours,” she whispered, and he pushed forward. Sudden tearing pain stiffened her muscles, clenched her teeth. “What treachery is this?”
Warrick froze. “Elina?”
“It felt so good. And now—” She squirmed, trying to ease the brutal ache within. She glanced down to see that his shaft was barely inside and a laughing gasp escaped her. “I think all the pleasure that came before must be a lie to make a woman open her thighs.”
“Put on the rings,” he said hoarsely and reached between them. His fingers slicked over her clit and the shifting of his weight pushed him deeper.
That was not so bad. Just a burning sting. Then only fullness and pressure and the taut stretch of her flesh when she slipped the jewels back onto her fingers.
“Better?” Warrick was shaking against her.
She nodded.
“Thank the gods,” he said, and drove full deep.