Deep (Pagano Family #4)(97)
He eased his body down her legs, leaving a line of kisses down her spine as he went, until he was standing at the foot of the bed. She was still wearing her dainty, shimmery shoes, and he slid each one slowly off its foot, letting his thumb trace her arch as the shoe came off. At the head of the bed, Beverly moaned.
“Nick…” she breathed.
“Shhh, bella. I’m taking my time tonight. I want to revel in you.” He dropped her second shoe and climbed back up to straddle her legs again. Now he slid his fingers under the garter strap down the center of each thigh and popped it open. She gasped. He did the same at the straps at her sides, then pushed his hands between her and the mattress and opened the last.
“Bend your knees up.” She did, and he slid the stockings off her beautiful legs. Before he tossed the silky wisps away, he pulled them through his hands. He would have loved to be able to bind her arms to this bed with her wedding stockings. Blindfold her and excite her to screaming. He had only begun to show her such delights when she’d been attacked. She had responded energetically.
She’d probably never be able to enjoy that again. He tossed the stockings away and shut those thoughts from his mind. This night was for bliss, not regret.
He pushed his fingers under the lace of her garter belt, catching the thong as well, and eased both over her hips and down her legs. Again, he stood at the foot of the bed. Now she was naked. This time, he shed the last of his clothes.
Before he got back onto the bed, he wrapped his hands around her feet and massaged gently, then began to move up her legs. Circling his thumbs over her skin, feeling the silky texture under his fingers, loving the way her muscles moved under his touch as she writhed and moaned, Nick had no impulse whatsoever to be forceful. He felt overrun with love and need, and yet his usual urge to roughness had given way to this.
“Nick, please.” Beverly lifted her hips as he reached the tops of her thighs. With a chuckle, he bent and kissed each round globe of her wonderful ass.
“Hush. Feel.” He kept on with his journey, easing his hands over her ass, up her sides, across her back, following the path with gentle kisses and light nips. He eased her arms down to her sides, linking their fingers when his hands arrived at hers.
Then he released her hands and took hold of her thighs, pushing both upward on the bed at the same time, spreading her wide.
She whimpered. “God, yes. Oh, God.”
Bringing one hand between her legs, he slid his fingers through her folds, drenched and ready. Her body heaved and thrummed at his touch. “Ah, bella. You ache for this, don’t you?” He eased the pad of one finger over her clit, and her body clenched. She was ready to come, right now. He knew if he made one more pass over that swollen nub, she’d go over.
Instead, he took his hand away. Kneeling between her legs, he pulled her hips up and sank into her, deeply but not quickly. She took a strained inhale, and her body released a flood of wet and began its clenching undulations. She tried to come up onto her elbows, but he pushed one hand between her shoulder blades and held her chest flat on the bed. And then he moved, but slowly. He wanted her to feel the full slide of their bodies together. He wanted to feel it for himself, too. And he wanted this climax she was riding to last forever.
He kept his pace slow, focusing on every twitch and clench of her body around his, every sweet sigh, earthy grunt, and pleading cry from her throat. In this position, she was wide open to him, and, fascinated, he watched his body slide in and out of her, watched her body accept him, saw her swell and pulse as her enduring climax rolled through her again and again.
By the time she was easing down, her skin was flushed red, and tendrils of her hair were plastered to her face. Her back heaved high with each gasping breath. But he wasn’t done. He pulled out, slowly, maximizing each sensation, and turned her to her back. Scooping her thighs up in his arms, he sank deep inside her again. He wanted to come with his eyes on hers.
He cupped her scarred breast, bending over to kiss the length of the mark. She only sighed, having grown used to his need to pay homage to her this way. Then he bit the nipple, drawing up on it until she responded, arching and gasping. He could feel the skin tightening against his lips. It was important to him to give her this sensation, to nullify this lingering numbness. With a light kiss, he let it go and brought his head up to look down at her lovely face.
She was dazed from her climax, her eyes nearly closed. “Look at me, bella.” She did, and she smiled, and he moved, sliding with slow purpose in and out of her eager body.
All his life, he’d thought of gentle sex as boring. Frigid, even. He’d wanted the rough vigor of a bestial rut, the sharp pleasurepain of a release torn from his body and from hers. He wanted the freedom from control that rough sex entailed. That had been passion to him.
He would always love rough sex. But it wasn’t passion, not in and of itself. It wasn’t until this night, this moment, his wife’s sated blue eyes staring up at him with adoration, that he understood. Passion wasn’t in the act. It was in the bond.
She came again, quietly but no less responsively, her body twined around his, her head lolled back, her chest heaving with her little grunts. When he came, he pressed his face tightly against her neck, as close as he could get to her, and groaned his throat sore.
24
Bev lay in bed the next morning, snuggled on her husband’s sleeping chest, feeling dazed with happiness and too restless for more sleep. Nick, though, was out. Even walking her fingers back and forth across his hard belly wasn’t stirring him, and that usually got at least one part going.