A Night to Surrender (Spindle Cove #1)(82)

His teeth caught lightly on her earlobe. “I swam alone last night, you know. Worked my way back and forth across that cove until my muscles were jelly. You owe me more kisses than I can count.”

She had a vision of the two of them, tangled in a warm, pillow-heaped bed. He was outstretched on the mattress, utterly naked, and her hair was unbound, dragging over them both as she repaid those kisses she owed. Ran her lips and tongue over his every last hot, needy inch.

“I . . .” She gasped as his palm slid to cup her breast. “I thought you were meant to be on watch.”

“So I am.” He kneaded the taut globe thoughtfully, rolling her hardened nipple beneath his thumb. “Very well. Keep watch with me.”

Stepping back, he grasped her by the waist and spun her about, so that she faced the stone parapet. He moved her sideways, positioning her before one of the crenels—a gap in the battlement designed for an archer to shoot through.

“Can you see?” he asked roughly, bending her forward so that her elbows rested in the crenel notch and pulling up her skirts. “See the cove clear, and the Channel beyond?”

“Yes.” Below them, she could clearly survey the rocky inlet and expansive waters. In the distance, a few white sails puffed. To the west, the orange-yellow sun was slinking toward the horizon.

“Good. Keep your eyes open. The watch is yours.”

With firm, insistent tugs, he gathered her skirts and petticoats, lifting them to her waist. He found the slit in her drawers and widened it with a loud rent of fabric, baring her delicate flesh to the cooling breeze and his warm, rough touch.

He petted her, parted her, spread her wide to his view. His fingertips traced every contour of her intimate flesh. She’d never felt so exposed. If she’d paused to think too hard about what he was seeing and doing, Susanna would have lost her nerve altogether. So she did as he said. She kept the watch, training her eyes on the sparkling blue water and the silver-kissed horizon.

A muted rustle told her he was freeing the closures of his breeches. She grew restless with need, damp with anticipation. A little cry of relief escaped her when his hot, aroused length sprang up to lodge snug against her cleft.

His hands caressed her bared bottom and thighs. “God, I think I’m going mad. You can’t imagine how much I think of this. All the time, everywhere. Yesterday, I stopped in the shop for ink, and all I could think of was you, spreading your legs for me on the countertop. Or bent over the display case. Then slammed against the storeroom shelves, skirts hiked to your waist and one leg propped on a crate. Every waking moment, I’m thinking of this. Every night, I’m aching for it.” He worked his hard, thick shaft against her, sliding back and forth over her sensitized flesh. “Tell me you want it, too.”

Wasn’t showing enough? She wriggled her hips, increasingly desperate for him.

“Tell me, love. I need to hear it. I need to know this madness isn’t mine alone.”

“I . . .” She swallowed. “I want you.” Excitement raced along her skin. Just uttering those syllables pushed her to a new, wanton degree of arousal. The madness was definitely shared.

“You want this.” He nudged her opening with the smooth, blunt crown of his erection. “In you, hard and deep. Isn’t that right?”

Those words . . . so indecent. So crude. So utterly arousing.

“Y-yes.”

He licked her ear. “Did you say something?”

Decency be damned. She had to have him, soon, or she would die of wanting. “Yes,” she said. “I want it. All of it. In me. Now. Please.”

Yes.

Yes. He entered her on a slow, gliding stroke. Stretching her. Filling her. Then retreating for a brief, agonizing pause before thrusting deeper still.

He set a rhythm, rocking her against the ancient parapet, and as they moved together, he lavished kisses over her bared neck and shoulders. The tight knots of her ni**les chafed against her corset seams. Bliss curled and coiled from her center, spreading through every inch of her body.

He slid one hand around her hips, sifting through the folds of petticoat. His talented fingers knew just how to please her, circling gently over that needy bud as he kept up his strong, steady thrusts.

“Bram,” she gasped. “Hold me. Tight.”

“I have you.” His arms tightened around her middle. His pace did not relent. “I have you.”

She stared, eyes wide and unfocused, at that thin, indigo line of horizon. And then he pushed her beyond it. Flinging her off the map of charted sensation and into unknown, unimagined bliss. It went on, and on. She rode the crest of pleasure as far as it would take her. Startled sounds of pleasure pushed from her throat, mingling with the cries of gulls. She was helpless to stop them.

“Holy God.” With a profane growl, he pulled her hips tight to his, burying his full length inside her. Her intimate muscles clamped around his thickness. They moaned in unison. After a few thumping heartbeats’ pause, he began to move again.

He was close to his peak. She could sense it in the acceleration of his rhythm and the new, deeper angle of his thrusts. His guttural noises of satisfaction. If he wasn’t careful . . .

“Bram. Take care.”

“I don’t want to take care.” He bent close, breathing in her ear. “I want to take you. Mark you. Spend inside you, and feel you holding me tight while I fill you with my seed. I want the world to know you’re mine.”