Valorous(65)

I reach up to bring him down to me. “I love you. Nothing you could do will ever be wrong. It’s not you. Please tell me you know that.”

“I do. I know.”

“I loved the way we were before.”

“How were we?”

“Wild and uninhibited. I want to be that person. I want to be her with you.”

“We’ll get there.”

I run a finger over the pulse in his cheek that lets me know how difficult this is for him. “Having sex with me is like playing with dynamite without knowing where the fuse is.”

“Having sex with you is like the closest thing to heaven I’ve experienced on this earth, Natalie. There’s nothing that could happen that would change that.”

“Can we try again?”

“Only if we go slow this time. We’ll save wild and uninhibited for another day.”

Fluff lets out a snore that makes us both laugh, and I watch the tension leave his body in a deep exhale. He begins anew with deep, soft, undemanding kisses that make my head spin. My body reawakens one kiss at a time.

He’s in no rush as one kiss becomes two and two become three. His touch is careful rather than unrestrained the way it was before. I can feel him holding back, and I ache with the knowledge that it’s costing him to give me what I need. He showed me earlier what he really wants, and I freaked out.

“I can hear you thinking.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Shhh. Just relax and don’t worry about anything. Everything is all right. It’s just you and me here, Nat. No one else. I love you more with every passing minute. I want you any way I can have you. You’re absolutely perfect to me. I wouldn’t change a thing about you, except to take away any pain you ever experienced and replace it with beautiful new memories.” As he speaks, he’s kissing my face and returning to my lips for brief caresses before moving on to my neck and chest.

“You’re the only one I want, the only one I’ll ever want.” He cups my breasts and runs his tongue over my nipples, which clears my mind of every thought that isn’t about the sublime pleasure I’ve found in his arms. Long before I’ve had enough, he moves on, leaving a path of kisses over my ribs and belly before moving lower. “So soft and so sweet. I love how you smell and how you taste. I could die happy right here.” He nuzzles the hair between my legs, taking a tentative swipe with his tongue over my most sensitive area before moving down to run his hands over the silky stockings that cover my legs.

I’m carried away on a sea of sensation. His words, kisses and gentle caresses start a new drumbeat of desire that lives between my legs. I want him there, but he’s still in no particular rush.

“So hot and so sexy. My wife is beautiful. Every guy in the world will be envious of the woman I get to sleep with every night.” His lips find a spot on the back of my knee that makes me moan. “They’ll look at you, and they’ll wish they were half as lucky as I am.” My legs end up propped on his broad shoulders. His hands are flat against my inner thighs, and his head is bent above me. “I’ve never tasted a sweeter *,” he whispers before he dips his head and opens me to his tongue. In keeping with the slow, undemanding theme, he drives me to the edge of insanity by kissing me everywhere but where I need him most.

I grasp a handful of his hair to direct him, but he resists.

He laughs. “Are you trying to take over my show?”

“Just trying to move it along.”

“Is this what you want?” He sucks my clit into his mouth and runs his tongue back and forth as he eases his fingers inside me. The combination triggers an orgasm that rolls through me in slow waves, one right after the other, until Flynn brings me down slowly, carefully.

I reach for him. I need him to hold me, and he understands. He reaches for another condom before he comes to me, kissing me with lips that taste like me but feel like him. He’s more insistent now, his tongue demanding entry as he settles between my legs, his erection pulsing against me.

With my hands on his back, I arch my hips, asking him to take me away, to make me his. He’s still kissing me when he begins to enter me, slowly and with far more patience than I have after this slow seduction.

“Easy, baby,” he whispers. “Nice and easy.”

It will be, I realize, a very long time before I see fast or frantic Flynn again, and that saddens me profoundly. I love him that way, but I love him this way, too.