WORTHY, Part 1 (11 page)

“You can let those flowers
go, you know,” he said, kissing me on my forehead. “I don’t think they’ll float away.”

“I never want to let them go,”
I said. “Never.”

“Then that’s going to make this a little interesting,” Jonathan laughed, unbuttoning
my shirt delightfully slowly. Each ghost of a touch against my skin made me want it even more. I realized that anticipation was much of the fun—though the actual act still took the cake for me.

When he finally had
my shirt open, my breasts exposed to the sun and clear air, I arched my back, giving him access to my skin.

“So eager,” Jonathan said, smiling as he rubbed a trail down from
my throat to my navel with the palm of his hand. “I can’t resist this.”

He buried his face between
my breasts, kissing and licking whatever skin happened to cross his path. I moaned at the onslaught, using my free hand to rub his hair. Jonathan flicked his tongue against the hardening nub of my nipple, teasing it lightly with his teeth before focusing on the other.

“Yes,”
I breathed, my eyes fluttering shut. “Yes.”

“Anything for you,” he murmured, his response almost lost amid the birdsong as a small flock of sparrows passed over them. “Everything for you.”

God, I loved this man, arching into his touch as he cupped my breasts and worked over them with his fingers and mouth. It was hard to hang onto the bouquet with one hand when all I wanted to do was hang on to him with both hands, but I said I’d never let it go and I frankly didn’t want to. It was the representation of our promise. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together, loving each other, and I would never let go of that—not for anything.

“I love you,” Jonathan whispered in
my ear, but it was as if he’d shouted it from the highest mountain. It lifted my heart, made me want to sing, made me want to weep, made me realize just how wonderful love was. It was one thing to read about it in the romance novels that had entertained me before. It was another thing entirely to experience it firsthand, to witness the power it held.

He reached beneath
my skirt, rubbing me through the material of my panties, I achingly aware that I was soaking them through with desire. Jonathan hooked one finger beneath the cotton and moved it aside, allowing for another finger to plunge into me. It felt incredible, making me mewl and toss my head, and so different from my own fingers’ explorations. Having someone to share these feelings with made all the difference in the world.

“You’re so wet,” he said, kissing the juncture of
my neck and shoulder, the action sending shots of pleasure ricocheting throughout my entire body. Who knew that such a simple gesture at the right spot on my body could cause such an intense response?

I
could tell that I was going to have a really good time discovering all the quirks of my body with Jonathan’s help.

“You make me wet,”
I said, licking my lips at the admission.

Jonathan smiled and slid
my panties off, helped by me lifting my hips. When he settled between my wide-open thighs, I felt a strange sense of peace—as if that were where he belonged. I felt complete when we were together like this, like there was no better feeling I’d ever experienced.

It suddenly made sense why
I’d remained a virgin until now: somehow: it was so I could begin this journey with Jonathan and Jonathan alone. I didn’t want to be with anyone else. I could never imagine anyone else sliding into me like he was.

“Is that good?” he asked
while I gave a low moan as he filled me up.

“Oh, yes,”
I said, smiling. “You never need to ask that. It’ll always be the same answer. I love you, Jon.”

He kissed
me hard on the mouth as he withdrew almost completely from my body before filling me again. Each thrust was powerful and smooth, the path of his cock eased by how turned on I was. Jonathan reached between us and rubbed the pad of his thumb on my clitoris. The effect made me see stars, made me wrap my legs around his middle, made me believe in magic. His ministrations on my body, which he knew stunningly well, coupled with his thrusting, were driving me quickly to a precipice of sensations.

“Please, please,”
I chanted, pushing against him, pulling him deeper into me with my legs, one hand clenched around the bouquet of flowers and the other gripping the grass beside me. “Please, please.”

“You never have to beg with me,” Jonathan said. “Never.”

He increased the pace of his thrusts, syncing them to the rhythm of his hand against my clit. In a matter of minutes, I found myself on that crazed edge of pleasure and then tumbling well over it, crying out in the field, not caring who or what heard it, hearing my ecstasy echoed in the woods, against the barn, forever.

Jonathan rested his forehead on
mine and grit his teeth as he came, making small sounds in his throat. I hugged him to me as he rode out the waves of pleasure, still riding my own.

After a few moments, he rolled off of
me, staring up at the sky before looking at me again.

“We have the rest of our lives to do this, again and again, as often as we like,” he said, grinning. “Isn’t that great?”

“It’s amazing,” I said, lifting the bouquet that I’d maintained a death grip on the entire time. “I’ve never looked forward to anything more than this.”

“I want to spend the entire day in bed with you,” Jonathan said, his words waking
me up. “Think we can manage that?”

“The chickens,”
I said, my voice still thick with slumber. I realized that I was lying on Jonathan’s chest and that we were both naked. Had we really been so tired after our shower last night that we hadn’t put pajamas on?

“I don’t think the chickens will starve,” he said, planting a kiss on
my shoulder.

“They’ll be ornery,”
I said, my eyes closed. I smiled at the tickle of his lips against my sensitive skin.

“They’ll survive.” Jonathan’s persuasions were getting more and more tempting
, though it could have something to do with the circles he was drawing on my back with the very tips of his fingers.

“Maybe I can feed them this afternoon instead,”
I said, stretching and groaning as Jonathan’s fingers stilled against my skin. “Don’t stop.”

“I never want to stop,” he said, his voice low in
my ear, making me shiver. “Come here.”

Jonathan pulled
me on top of him, and I stretched my legs this time, brushing his feet with the tips of my toes. I settled astride him as I would a horse, sitting up and hoping I was doing the right thing with my body.

“I’ve never been on top before,”
I said a little uncertainly as he continued drawing those maddening circles over my breasts and stomach. “Oh, that feels so good.”

“It’s going to feel even better once I’m inside of you,” Jonathan promised. “I want to give you this experience. Are you ready?”

“I’m always ready,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, my skin prickling in goose bumps as he continued feathering the lightest of touches across my breasts. My nipples hardened at the minute stimulation, and I had a hard time believing that such a simple motion could arouse me so thoroughly.

Jonathan trailed his hands downward, to the juncture between
my legs, rubbing the silky, sensitive skin on either side of my lips. The light touch was becoming maddening, a sweet torture of the most tender part of my body. I found myself rolling my hips as I straddled him, creating more and more friction, searching for a release.

“I can feel how wet you are,” Jonathan said, grinning, and
I realized with a small bit of embarrassment that my excitement had left a slickness against his pelvis.

“Sorry,”
I whispered.

“Don’t be,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t you dare be sorry for being turned on. There’s not a thing wrong with it, especially when you’re with the person you love.”

“I want you inside of me,” I murmured, blushing at the thrill of saying it aloud. It was so hot, so kinky to tell my lover exactly what I wanted that I felt a shiver of desire flit up my spine.

“That’s exactly where I want to be,” Jonathan said, shifting
me a little until he slid right in. “God. You’re so wet. It feels wonderful. You’re so sexy, Michelle.”

His little groans did things to
me I couldn’t put into words. It melted my heart to be the object of this man’s desires, to give him such pleasure, to experience such ecstasy at his hands. Those hands—they were continuing their little circles over my skin, stimulating me so that I arched my back to give him greater access.

But when he started moving, started thrusting up into
me—oh, that was incredible. The fullness inside of my body, the slow strum of that sweet spot inside of me, the way he bit his lip as he looked up at me, his adoring gaze, the build …

I
threw my head back and thrust back against him, falling into a rhythm that had us both panting and moaning. I needed more than Jonathan’s light touches. I wanted him to grab me, to be rough with me, to give me some kind of counterpoint to this unbearable sweetness.

“More,”
I keened. “More.”

It did the trick. He gasped at
my plea and stopped his trailing fingers, seizing my hips and helping me thrust against him. I moaned loudly as he came in contact with my sweet spot again and again. I didn’t care if I sounded wanton or ridiculous. I was making love with the man I loved. There couldn’t be anything better than that.

“I’m coming!”
I cried, grabbing at his wrists and holding on for dear life. “God!”

It was as if
my hoarsely shouted prayer was heard and answered. I sobbed out my release, sagging against Jonathan, his arms encircling me, holding me in place as he continued to thrust into me, dragging my pleasure out longer and longer until I lost my voice.

Jonathan picked up where
I left off, groaning as he found completion in my body, completion as my husband to be. I didn’t know if it was my afterglow or my love for him that brought tears of joy to my eyes—perhaps both.

When the wetness from
my eyes dripped onto his chest, Jonathan gently turned us on our sides, facing each other.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, tracing the shape of
my jaw line. I flinched when I realized he was rubbing my scar, then immediately felt terrible at the hurt on his face.

“Not a thing in the world,”
I said, smiling, trying to reassure him.

“What did I tell you about tears?” he scolded softly, kissing the errant trails of saltwater away.

“I just can’t believe you’re real,” I said, shaking my head in awe. “I just love you so much.”

“We have the rest of our lives together,” Jonathan said. “I think we’re getting off to a pretty good start.”

A knock on the door jolted both of us out of our happy dozes probably thirty minutes later, I guessed. We looked at each other, blinking sleepily, before I got out of bed.

“Who could that be?”
I wondered, slipping on my nightgown. I plucked a robe I only used in the winter from the bottom of one of my drawers and threw it over my shoulders.

“I don’t imagine that you get many visitors all the way out here,” Jonathan remarked, watching
me from the bed.

“Maybe it’s a new deliveryman,”
I thought aloud, hurrying to the bedroom door. The ones who dropped my grocery orders and farm supplies off always knew to simply leave the packages by the front door and leave.

“Come back to bed,” Jonathan pleaded, holding his arms out and pouting a little bit. “They can just leave the package and get out of here. I want you all to myself.”

That promise made liquid desire pool in my belly, made me stop in my tracks on the way to the door.

“What if it’s something important?”
I said distractedly, my breathing quickening as Jonathan licked his lips at me. I was starting to realize that he could be so insatiable sometimes. I liked that.

“What can be more important than you and me?” he asked, his lopsided grin making whatever last vestiges of objection evaporate.

I ran to the bed and jumped in it, giggling as Jonathan slipped his hands up my nightgown and caressed my hips.

We
both stilled at a second set of knocking, the beats getting louder, more insistent.

“Maybe it’s something you have to sign for,” Jonathan remarked, his wandering fingers making it hard for
me to concentrate on anything.

“But I haven’t ordered anything like that,”
I said, confused.

“Well, whoever it is will take the hint and go away,” Jonathan said, slipping the robe off
my shoulders and drawing me down to him.

I
would never get used to the way my heart fluttered when my entire body was pressed up against his. We kissed long and deep, Jonathan’s leisurely perusal of my mouth telling me that we had all day to enjoy each other.

We
both jumped when the knocking resumed. It sounded like whoever was on the other side of the door was losing patience.

“Probably a salesman,” Jonathan grumbled, holding
me to him as I tried to get out of bed. “Nothing I’m interested in except you.”

“I’ll just get rid of them really quick,”
I said, pulling my robe back on. “Ten seconds. Promise.”

“Ten,” Jonathan said loudly, making
me laugh. “Nine. Eight. Seven.”

I
hurried to the door, exasperation winning out over curiosity—I’d never, not once, had a visitor to the cottage in all the years I’d lived there—and flung it open.

My
first thought was how big the two men were standing in front of the door. Their combined height and shoulder span nearly blocked out all of the light from outside. They both wore what looked like expensive black suits despite the heat of late morning, and both wore matching black sunglasses. If not for their different hair colors, they could’ve been twins.

“Can I help you?”
I asked, peering at them nervously. It would’ve helped, perhaps, if I could see their eyes. Instead, I could only see my own perplexed face reflected on the surface of the dark sunglasses. I wondered if they were studying my scar with revulsion. If they were, I’d never know. I tried to put the idea from my mind.

“Five. Four. Three.”

Jonathan’s voice carried to the front door from the bedroom, but something inside me kept me from giggling. Whoever these men were, they meant business.

“Ma’am, we’re sorry to bother you,” the man on
my right said, his face implacable as his mouth formed the words. I wondered how he kept the rest of his face so still while he was speaking.

“It’s no bother,”
I said automatically, the politeness instilled by my parents asserting itself. “What can I do for you?”

“Two. Two and a half. One. Zero.”

I bit my lip. I wished they’d hurry up with whatever business they had here.

“We’re looking for someone who went missing recently,” the man on
my left said, his face as still as his partner’s. “Would you mind taking a look at this photo to see if you might have seen him around?”

“
Michelle! It’s been ten seconds!” Jonathan wheedled from the bedroom. He knew I couldn’t resist his puppy dog eyes, and I gave a small smile, thinking about him making them at the ceiling of the bedroom. I wanted nothing more than to slam the door shut on these two strangers and leap back into his arms.

“I can look,”
I said quickly, my mind on what the day ahead would hold. Me and Jonathan. Exploring each other’s bodies. Kissing. Making love. A girl could get used to this life.

“Take your time,” the man on the right said, digging into the pocket of his suit jacket. “We want you to be sure. He went missing somewhere in this region, we believe, and yours is one of the only residences around.”

“It is pretty remote out here,” I agreed. “I’ll look long and hard, gentlemen, but you’re really the first visitors I’ve had since I moved out here. I mean, the most neighborly things I have are deer, and they’re bad neighbors. Always getting into —”

I
paused, my eyes widening at the photo. It couldn’t be right, could it? I narrowed my eyes, cocked my head, widened my eyes again. Could it possibly be?

“
Michelle, who is it?” I turned to see Jonathan standing in the hallway wearing just a pair of shorts. The sight of his muscular chest and torso would usually take my breath away, but my breath was already gone.

“I think you should see this,”
I said, watching him as he approached.

Jonathan frowned at the two men standing in the doorway before casually slinging his arm around
my shoulders. He started to ask a question before spotting the photograph that one of the men still held out.

“But that’s
—that’s impossible,” he said, staring at the photograph.

“What’s impossible?” the man on
the left asked.

“That’s a photograph of me,” Jonathan said,
my heart clenching as the words left his mouth.