There All Along (5 page)

Knowing a kiss, even hours’ worth of kisses would not be enough.

Her grip tightened in his hair, bringing a grunt to his lips as he pulled her snug to his body, rolling his hips to let her know what was happening. Maybe on some level trying to scare her into breaking away. If she pushed him back or broke this off he could find the strength to end it.

He sure didn’t have it on his own.

Instead she made a soft sound and pressed closer still, brushing her body against his cock, setting off licks of flame through his belly, low, hot, electric.

She let go of his hair and pulled back a tiny bit, but only to get her hands at the buttons on his uniform shirt. Unfastening quickly until she slid it open all the way, her palms caressing all the skin she’d bared.

It was his turn to groan, to hitch a breath as she pressed the heels of her hands against his nipples. She paused, breaking the kiss. “Yes? You like that?”

Surprising him, she pushed him back against the doorjamb and leaned, licking over his nipple. Gently at first.

“Harder.”

Her eyes cut to him and she pressed her tongue, flicking it against his right nipple. Scoring her teeth over it until he gasped.

She kissed over his chest to his left nipple, kissing, licking that one until he hauled her back up, taking her mouth once more.

Then he pulled her blouse from the waist of her trousers and parted it, untying the ribbons holding it closed until she was left only in a chemise, the shadow of her nipples visible through the translucent material.

“So beautiful.”

She swallowed hard, looking up at him as he looked down at her breasts. He cupped them briefly before he pulled the tiny, pearly buttons from the holes, one after the next until he stared at her, at the luscious swell of breasts he’d dreamed of since the first time he laid eyes on the widow Coleman.

“Better than dreams.”

The hesitance washed from her face, replaced by a boldness that made him even harder.

“Touch me, Loyal.”

He did. Brushing his thumbs over the hardened nipples until she arched. He kissed down her neck as he shifted, backing her into his room. To the bed he laid in when he was there, fantasizing this exact thing. Only now it was real.

She reached out as she hit the mattress, pulling him down with her.

“Don’t go anywhere.”

He pulled his shirt off, toeing his shoes away as he did. “I’m not. I have far too many things to do.”

She unbuttoned the side of her trousers and shimmied out of them as he did the same with his pants.

The moon was high overhead, casting silvery light over her skin, now totally bare.

“You’re so pretty, Verity.” He swallowed hard, sliding his hands over the curve at her hips.

She grabbed his cock, squeezing gently. “You too.”

“I’m . . . pretty?” He’d meant it to be a joke, but she’d slid her thumb through the slick at the crown and it sent a shock of pleasure through him, sending his words scattering from his head like birds going into flight.

“In your way, yes. Manly. Hard and strong.”

He moved back to the bed, laying next to her. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“You plan to stop?”

He shook his head. “Not unless you want me to.”

“I want your hands on me. Show me, Loyal. Teach me how to make you feel good. I’m not . . . not like the ladies you likely bed when you land in their garrisons.”

“You aren’t. Which is why you’re impossible to resist.”

She smiled and he pulled her hair loose so it fell against her pale skin like rivers of flame.

“And you’re doing just fine at making me feel good.”

She laughed.

“Now I want to make
you
feel good.”

He bent to her again, kissing her mouth, nipping and licking until she was breathless. He left her lips and kissed over her face and down to her chin. Delicate and yet, as he’d realized after knowing her as long as he had, strong.

He licked over the hollow behind her jaw and she shuddered a sigh.

“Like that?” he murmured against that sweet, sensitive space.

“Y-Yes.”

He continued, kissing down her neck, his hands sliding over her chest, over her collarbone, down to her breasts—those glorious breasts. He tugged and rolled her nipples until she made a sound unlike any he’d ever heard her make. A sound he knew without a doubt he’d never forget. Full of need and pleasure.

He licked over one nipple as he tugged on the other. He sucked. Gently and then harder. When he bit she gasped and then her entire body seemed to heat.

She liked it hard.

He was in trouble.

Because he liked it hard too.

He tried again, a little rougher, pulling her nipple with his teeth as he moved back and she moaned, her hips jutting forward as she did.

He did this to the other nipple as she held on at his shoulder, her short nails digging in until he groaned.

He kissed over her ribs, across her belly and breathed over her mound.

She froze, the weight of the moment on them both.

He slid her thighs wide as he moved to the floor, settling on his knees between them, pulling her butt to the edge of the bed.

She gasped. “Oh. I . . .”

He kissed the back of her knee. Her skin smelled like nothing else he’d ever experienced. Hot and spicy and sweet. Up her thigh until he blew against her cunt.

He heard her swallow there in the dark.

“I take it no one has ever put his mouth here?”

He leaned in and slid the tip of his tongue over her clit for a moment.

“N-No.”

“Shameful.”

“Is it?”

He smiled as he spread her open and took a long lick, moaning at the taste of her.

“Not this part.” He licked her again and again. “The part where no man has tasted how salty-sweet you are. I’m going to make you fly apart, Verity.”

He sucked her clit gently, over and over until she breathed in soft little sobs.

And then he stopped. She reached out faster than he’d have thought of her and grabbed his hair, tugging.

“Shh. I’m not done.”

Her breathing calmed a little as he watched her again, sliding his middle finger around and around her gate, pushing inside to stretch her. So tight his cock throbbed with want.

“How long?”

“What?”

“How long has it been since you’ve been fucked?”

“Two years.”

He looked up her body as he took another lick. “He died three years ago?”

“Nearly four now. It was . . . doesn’t matter. I was lonely. It was forgettable.”

He licked again and again, stretching her as he added another finger.

Her muscles froze, tensing as she sucked in a breath.

“Let go. Breathe. Don’t tense up.” He spoke against her slick flesh as she came, as the taste of her, the sweetness he’d been lapping up, exploded into something else. Spice. Pepper. Heated as her pleasure bloomed on his tongue, against his lips.

He kissed his way up her belly, pausing when he caught sight of the tears on her cheeks and worried he’d pushed her too hard.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She opened her eyes. “Yes, yes. It was wonderful. I’ve just never . . . not that. Not with anyone.”

He kissed her cheeks, tasting her tears. She wound her arms around his neck, holding him tight for a moment. And then she pushed him back, kissing his neck, down to the hollow of his throat. The cool silk of her hair slid against his skin like a caress, the scent of it, flowers and sunlight, seemed to dig into his memory with claws. He knew no matter what else happened, he’d never lose this memory.

She kissed across his chest, licking over his nipples and looking up at him. “I never realized men liked this.”

He arched when she sucked his nipple and let her teeth slide against it as she let go.

“Can’t say for anyone else. But when you do that I surely do like it, yes.”

She smiled and went back to it, kissing him, sliding her hands all over his upper body. She licked a line down his belly until she got to his cock, grabbing it and looking at it closely.

“Kiss it.”

She did.

Then she licked over it and licked again.

James had forced it on her many times. But this was different.
Loyal
was different. He tasted right. His skin taut and hot to the touch. She held him at the root, licking all the way from the head to her hand. Learning what made him jump, what brought that moan to his lips. What made him hiss with pleasure.

It was delicious to do this with him. It wasn’t a requirement. Something she dreaded as a responsibility. She
liked
it. Her sister never said much about her intimate life with her husband, but she had said something once about how she looked forward to their time alone, when she could make him feel better and ease the day from his shoulders.

She hadn’t understood it then, having wished daily that James would drink himself unconscious so she could avoid any intimate contact with him.

But she understood it now. Hoped that her sister had this with Emeril.

She licked around the crown of him, delighting in the sounds he made in response. She palmed his sac, pressing the pads of her fingers over the pucker of his ass. His answering groan told her he liked that very much.

She kept him nice and wet, up and down, around the head.

He was rather . . . large. Thick. A tingle of curiosity slid through her belly. Excited at the idea of having him in her, wondering how it would feel. Wanting it very badly.

His fingers had been tangled in her hair, holding loosely, but he shifted, wrapping it around his fist and holding her steady as he thrust into her mouth.

Her skin beaded into gooseflesh. She was wet again, aching to be filled.

And then he stopped with a snarl.

She was about to tell him if he stopped now he’d best sleep with one eye open. But he shifted, sitting up.

“On my lap.”

“On top of you?”

He smiled and it sent a slither of want over her skin. “Oh yes. Never had it that way?”

She shook her head.

“Get over here. Straddle my waist. Knees on either side of my body.”

She did as he said and realized it would be fine. She’d know what to do.

He grabbed his cock to angle it, sliding that fat head through her pussy. Teasing, she realized.

“Sit when you’re ready. If I was on top I’d slam into your cunt hard and fast. But it’s been a while and you need to go slow so I don’t hurt you. You need to take control because when it comes to you, my control is weak.”

What could she say to that? The things he said filled her with emotions she couldn’t fully name.

She took him at the root where his hand had been. He moved his grip, one hand at her hip; the other found her nipple and began that tug, tug and roll.

“Mmm, you’re so wet.”

She would have been embarrassed perhaps if it was another man saying so. But his words weren’t meant to shame. They were meant to incite. As he was incited by her.

The power of that built in her belly and she let herself be eased by it.

She began to move down on him. The head of him was thick and fat and she breathed, letting it feel good, letting the worry fall away because he wanted her. She didn’t know what would happen in three days when he left, but she knew without a doubt that he wanted what was happening between them right then, and it was enough.

He stretched her slowly as she kept taking him inside. The burn at first would dissolve away into pleasure. James had never allowed for that. Had never let any of the pain dissolve and all it was was a burn.

This
was what she’d dreamed of with her hand in her drawers late at night in the dark as she lay alone in bed.
This
is what it could be and she would enjoy it without shame.

•   •   •

H
e clenched his jaw, sweat on his brow, ordering himself to let her set the pace. Trying to ignore the screaming in his head that told him to take her. To slam his cock balls deep into her cunt and then let her adjust.

Instead, he looked at her features as she slid down. Watched the tension slide away as the pleasure took over. Never in all his days had he seen anything even approaching this sort of beauty.

The pleasure he felt was edged with near pain. She was so tight. The hot, wet embrace of her inner walls tortured him as she fluttered all around.

“Okay?”

Her eyelids came up and her gaze cleared. “Yes,” she exhaled on a gasp.

And then she began to move. Slow, up and down. And he forced himself to let her do it. To find her pace, to see what she liked.

“There are other ways you can move as well,” he said, his lips against the skin of her shoulder.

“How?”

He took her hips and helped her circle, wide and then tight. He showed her a back and forth slide that she seemed to really like given the warm rush of her as she moved.

“Like that.”

Her head fell back as she slid herself back and forth, back and forth on him. She ground her clit against him, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

“Yes, like that indeed.”

He moved one hand between them, letting his fingers brush against her clit with each movement she made. She gasped, her eyes opening again.

“Embrace it. Let it come and let it feel good.”

She nodded, catching her lip between her teeth as she did.

He let it go as long as he could before he began to move as well, pushing up as she moved back and forth. Her lips opened and he swallowed the exhalation as he kissed her hard.

“Yes. Do whatever, take it from me. Just . . .”

He did. Took over the pace, using his hand at her hip to continue to help her slide back and forth and he fucked up into her body over and over and over. She ground herself against his fingers, her cunt tightening around him as she turned superheated, as the hot rush of her sweet juices flowed and she exploded, sending him right over in her wake.

She sighed, sated, as he shifted to lay her at his side.

“I can’t believe you made me wait years for that, lawman,” she mumbled as he pulled her close.

He snorted a laugh.

“Me either, widow.”