Promises Linger (Promise Series) (27 page)

He couldn’t resist tracing a reverse path, following the curve of her cheek down the length of her throat, over the planes of her chest and then up the rise of her breast until the tip of his finger rested against the tip of her nipple. “I felt ten feet tall then.”

“And that would make it good for you?” She stared at where his finger met her flesh.

“This one you’re flat out going to have to trust me on.” Using his nail, he gently scraped the plump nipple, rewarding her flinch and gasp with a repeat caress. “Nothing makes a man feel better than when a woman feels good at his touch.”

“But later?” Her lower lip sucked in between her teeth as he let his fingertip hover over her expectant flesh.

“Later, I’ll take great pleasure in teaching you to make me howl.” Her nipple rose fat and sassy from her breast, vibrating with the tension with which she held still.

He flicked it lightly in reward for its impudence. Her entire body jerked up in response.

“Providing…” he drawled as if she hadn’t just come off the blanket at his touch.

She looped her arms around his neck and arched her torso toward his hand. “Providing?”

“Providing, this time, you relax enough to let me make you howl.”

She frowned. “I don’t think ladies howl.”

He smiled, watching the pulse in her throat do some fast-stepping as he, slowly, deliberately took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. He milked it rhythmically as he settled his chest over hers. “You will, darlin’. You will.”

He brushed her mouth with his. “Do you like that?” he asked.

She frowned, as serious as a preacher confronting the damned. “It’s all right.”

He stroked his tongue over her closed lips, keeping the touch featherlight. She jerked her head back.

“No?”

She hesitated, then admitted, “That felt funny.”

“Funny good?” While she thought about the answer, he increased the pressure and speed with which he teased her breast. He wanted her nipples aching and sensitive to his slightest touch.

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s find out then.” He did it again.

She jerked but, this time, pressed closer rather than away.

“Good?” he asked against her lips.

Her “yes” was a sigh.

He placed his mouth on hers, rubbing lightly against her contours. He’d never set out to seduce a woman more deliberately. He’d never had the need, but then, he’d never known what he was missing. Breaking through Elizabeth’s defenses was a delicious game of cat and mouse. Her honesty jolted his senses.

There was no coy trying-to-please. He’d asked her to be honest and she was brutally so. She found a no-nonsense surge of his tongue past the barrier of her lips ‘unsavory’ to use her word, but if he preceded it with a few tentative forays, her toes curled against his thigh and her chest rose against his. Clearly, she was a woman who wanted to be seduced.

He held back his need, striving for gentle, but her sensual honesty all but destroyed his good intentions. Never had he had a woman who enjoyed his touch so much. Never had he had a woman so open. That it was his wife who rose to the touch of his hand on her breast was an aphrodisiac in itself.

She was his and no other’s. Only his hands would touch her. Only his lips would coax hers into a mating dance. Only his thighs would settle between hers. Only his lips would wrest a broken cry from her throat when he nipped her neck. Only he would know he could reduce her to sobbing his name by teasing, then suckling her pert nipples. Only he would hear the moaning scream she issued when he nipped one with his teeth. Only he would be gifted with the sweet dampness between her thighs when he delicately explored her silken folds.

The scent of her arousal surrounded him. He slid his hand down her waist. Over her hip. Between her thighs. He found her swollen. Wet. Hungry. For him. She was his. Totally and completely his. By God’s word and her own choice. To a man who’d grown up with nothing, she was his own personal paradise. For however long he could hold her, he would, milking every drop of pleasure from their time together.

He shifted his position so he could reach her other breast. The scent of evergreen rose up to surround them as his elbow dug into the spongy ground. He pulled his hand reluctantly from between her thighs. Her juices clung to his fingers, mingling with the scent of nature. She had the ripest, most succulent nipples when aroused. They perched atop her breasts begging for his tongue, his teeth. His attention.

He didn’t make her wait. He spread her thick cream onto her nipple until it glistened a deep rose in the sunshine. With his thumb, he tested her slickness, her readiness. He replaced his finger with his mouth, gently at first, scraping his teeth over the turgid bud, pressing harder as her flavor exploded through his mouth and her hips rose to his touch.

He struggled to keep his approach gentle as he delved between her thighs, seeking the swollen bud of her clit. He coaxed it out of its protective cover with pulses of his fingers that exactly matched the rhythmic suckling of her breast. When it pushed, satin smooth and proud, against his fingers, when her hands dragged his head against her straining breasts, he pinched it hard and strong. Her strangled scream confirmed something else for him. While she liked the gentle approach at first, when aroused, she wanted him to push her to the limit. To take her. To make her his anyway he wanted. He pinched her clit again and wrested another pleasured scream from her.

“That’s it,” he whispered against her nipple. “Tell me how you like it.”

Her answer was a shaking of her head. He set his teeth to her engorged reddened nipple, letting her feel their edge. Her hips thrust in unconscious demand. Asa bit down gently, and she froze. Even her breathing stopped. Against his hand, her pussy clenched and wept. Her clit, if possible, swelled even fuller. He could feel her pulse against his finger. She was on the verge of an orgasm.

He ground his cock beneath him. The pain took the edge off his pending release.

“Not yet, darlin’, not yet.”

Elizabeth opened her eyes. And then promptly closed them. She struggled to get air into her lungs as her body coiled from the inside out, tighter and tighter. She wanted, needed him to continue what he was doing. To feel his teeth rake her flesh, to feel his fingers wrestling that surge of sensation from her clit, but he was just holding still, promising everything but doing nothing. She couldn’t stand it.

“Open your eyes,” he ordered.

She did, seeing nothing but a blinding flash of sunlight.

“Look.” His voice was a hoarse grating of sound as he tapped her breast. She did as ordered. Watching as his mouth encompassed her breast. Feeling the suction as he worked his way back to her tip. The jolt of lightning that blazed into pleasure when he nipped her, forced a cry from her throat. As he did with every other sound she made, he smiled. The pleasure on his face left no doubt that she was making him happy.

With the tip of his tongue, he soothed the point of her nipple. To her disappointment, she felt nothing. She wanted the fire she’d felt before. The propriety-stealing pleasure he’d taught her to like. She curled her fingers in his hair. As before, the cool strands soothed her overheated flesh.

“Do it right.”

She couldn’t believe it was her voice huskily ordering him.

His answering smile was feral. His face hard with desire. A sensible woman would have been afraid. She was discovering she wasn’t the least sensible because she tugged his hair and repeated her demand, horrified as soon as the words left her mouth. Asa didn’t share her reaction. Instead, he threw back his head and laughed.

His “Ah, darlin, you’re one in a million” was a balm to her conscience. She only had time for a deep breath before he made love to her, holding nothing back. And she adored it. He let her feel his teeth, nipping and scraping gently in an erotic dance of claiming that was as elemental as her response. The force of which started a quiver of fear.

“Asa?”

“Oh God, darlin’, don’t be pulling back now.” His cock nudged her thigh as he shifted position.

“I don’t know.” She wanted to tell him what she was feeling inside, but she couldn’t find the words. Not now when her body was clamoring for appeasement.

“I do, darlin’, and, right now, I’m a very happy man.”

“But no one told me…”

He kissed the side of her neck, nipping her flesh and sending shudders of pleasure down her spine. “How could they know you’re one-in-a-million?”

“You don’t mind?”

“Darlin’, you’ve got me so fair to bursting, I’m afraid of embarrassing myself.”

“Where?”

He took her hand and slid it down his body. “Here.”

He closed her fingers around his manhood. Beneath her palm, he throbbed with energy. So much energy, it was amazing. She propped herself up on her elbow and curled her fingers around him, surprised as always by his size. His strength. Her fingers didn’t meet. She measured him from shaft to tip. She doubted she could hold him with both her hands. Especially at the base. He was much wider there than he was at the top, though she doubted her fingers could meet around him even there. He flexed in her grip as she squeezed experimentally.

“Easy there.”

Above her, his weight shifted back and away, giving her more freedom. She kissed the flat male nipple that was suddenly within reach. His manhood jerked in her grasp as she did, surging with life. Enthusiasm.

She explored the hard-soft flesh under her command. He moaned and arched his hips. He slid through her fingers. She retreated to the tip, feeling him jerk and shudder as she did. He liked this, she decided, glancing at his face and seeing the deep lines carved there. She swirled her fingers around the top, gauging the different shape and texture. He caught her hand in his, his expression one of anguish.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“There are certain things about a man’s body,” he broke off, clearly torn before admitting, “I’m pretty excited.”

She pondered that for a moment. Then squeezed gently. He moaned and jerked her hand free. “You’re ready,” she deduced.

His chuckle was a raspy shadow of its normal deep-voiced self. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

She flopped to her back and spread her legs. “So am I.”

He rolled onto one elbow and shook his head, frustrating her. “Not yet, you’re not.”

If her “Why not?” was petulant, he had no one but himself to blame, she decided, blinking against the sunlight streaming through the pine boughs.

“Truth is, darlin’, I’m enjoying the getting ready part too much to give it up just yet.”

“You are?” She wished she could see his expression clearly, but backlit by the sun as he was, it was impossible.

“Yes. Now, why don’t you bring those pretty breasts back here and I’ll show you how much.”

She didn’t think about hesitating. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she arched her back in compliance.

“Lord, you’re something,” he murmured, before sliding his hand under her breast. Cupping it in his callused palm, he urged her flesh into his mouth. When he started to suckle, he settled in, not giving her any time to think. No respite in which to do anything more than ride the waves of pleasure he created. The tension inside her built to near exploding, until he slipped his hand between her thighs to probe gently.

The tip of his finger slid into her with indecent ease when she moved her hips. The feeling was as sublime. “Am I supposed to be like this?”

He paused. “Like what?”

“Sooo…wet,” for lack of a better word.

He stroked between her legs again. She fought the urge to move against his hand. “You mean here?”

“Yes.”

“Oh yeah,” he sighed and dropped his forehead to hers. His fingers penetrated deeper as he explained, “A woman’s body prepares itself for a man’s that way. If it didn’t, it would hurt you when I come inside.”

“It didn’t hurt last time.” She shifted her hips. His finger felt strange inside her, soothing yet irritating at the same time.

“Well, last time, a whole lot of things weren’t done right.” He stilled her hips with his forearm. He pushed harder. She felt the resistance and the release as his finger slid knuckle-deep into her pussy.

“Darlin, I want you to relax.”

“I am.”

Another finger prodded her pussy. “Here.”

She buried her face in his neck, bumping his nose along the way. “Oh God.”

She placed her hands on his chest.

“Just concentrate on my fingers and relax.”

He pushed against her again. After an initial resistance, her flesh softened and then relaxed. His second finger sank to the first knuckle before stopping.

She concentrated on the feelings that kept shooting through her. Not as hard as when he’d been kissing her breasts, but still nice.

He fucked her with the tips of his fingers for a minute, slowly increasing the pace, the friction. She found herself spreading her thighs and lifting her hips. His second finger slid to the second knuckle. She now had two fingers inside her pussy, pushing and pulling at her intimate flesh, sparking sensation in areas she didn’t even know had nerves.