Jess’s hands dug into his hair, her lush body writhing against his torso. Alistair seated her on the edge of the mattress and pulled her chemise up and over her head. He tossed it aside, his attention focused on the full breasts that heaved with her every ragged breath. He cupped their lush weight in his hands, his thumbs stroking over the hard, peaked nipples. She leaned back, her weight propped on her canted arms. Her lovely face was flushed, her gray eyes so dark they were nearly black. Her rich golden hair fell around her shoulders in total disarray. She looked glassy eyed and ravished, certainly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“Thank you,” he murmured, pressing her backward to take a nipple into his mouth. Her selflessness meant more to him than he could express with words. He’d needed so much from her for so long, and she had given generously and with heartening enthusiasm.

His tongue stroked over the taut point of her breast, his lips pulling with deliberately soft suction. Teasing. Making her want more.

“Alistair …” Her breathy tone was ripe with surrender. There was no resistance left in her, no caution or wariness. He was uncertain of what had transpired to make her so free in his arms, but he would have time enough to discern the cause later. For now, all he wanted was to make her come apart in his arms, to hear her say his name as she climaxed.

Reaching between her legs, his questing fingers slid into the slit of her pantalettes and found her sex gratifyingly slick. He parted her, sliding through the silken skeins of her desire, then pushed two fingers into her. She was ready for him. More than ready. Wet and hot, ripe for the taking. He thrust gently in and out, his teeth gritting as he felt her clenching hungrily around him. He tugged on her breast with a hard suck, then released her.

Jess’s arms gave out, and she sprawled across his dark brown counterpane, looking like a debauched angel. Straightening, he gripped her knees with both hands and spread her wide.

“So pretty,” he praised, coveting the exposed glistening pink flesh between her thighs. He briefly debated removing the rest of their garments, then discarded the notion. They’d undress next time, after she was soaked with his seed and limp with satiation.

He gripped his cock with one hand, angling downward to glide the sensitive head through her petal-soft lips. The feeling was exquisite, engorging his penis as if he hadn’t had a galvanizing orgasm only moments before.

“You’re still hard,” she breathed, pushing up onto her elbows.

“For you, always. I intend to ride you all day,” he promised darkly. “All night.”

“I await the proof of such stamina.”

“A challenge, my lady?” He bared his teeth in a semblance of a smile. “You are aware of how I respond to those.”

Notching the thick crest into her tiny slit, he pushed through the token resistance of tightness caused by her year of abstinence. She gasped as the crown breached the stretched opening. He bit back an animal sound of pleasure and fought the urge to fall upon her with a hard, deep thrust that pierced her to the womb. That would be too quickly done, robbing her of the full awareness of his possession. He wanted her to feel the stretch of every wide inch, wanted her to writhe as he sank deeper, wanted her to remember the sensation of that last leisurely stroke that seated him to the bollocks.

So he kept her spread and worked his way into her, his eyes riveted to the point where they were joined. His lungs burned as he gulped in air, every nerve in his body attuned to the feel of her satiny tissues quivering and clasping around him. A surfeit of sensation burned through him. Sweat coursed down his back and chest, a physical manifestation of the rigid control he exerted.

“So tight,” he gritted out, his jaw clenched with strain. “Like a fist … so hot and tight …”

She moved restlessly beneath him, biting her lower lip as he slid in and out, pushing deeper and deeper with every leisurely thrust. “Please. Hurry.”

Hunching over her, Alistair sank his teeth into her shoulder. Hard enough to leave a mark, but not enough to break the skin. She moaned and arched into his mouth. It was a primitive act, one goaded by the feel of her greedy cunt pulling and sucking at the head of his cock, luring him to sink home. Bare. Nothing between his most sensitive flesh and hers. In all his life, he’d never taken a woman without the protective sheath of a French letter. Only with her would he do so. Jessica—a woman he’d known was meant to be his from the moment he first saw her.

His hands moved from her thighs to the bed, supporting his weight as he pumped his hips in a timed, unhurried rhythm. She took advantage of her sudden freedom, wrapping her legs around him and tugging him deeper. Her breath left her in a gasped cry of his name as he slid in to the root, buried completely.

Alistair held still, struggling for control. He fought to make allowances for her straining body to grow accustomed to him throbbing hard and thick inside her. She stared up at him, her eyes wide and luminous, windows to her soul. There was no evidence of the chilly hauteur she was renowned for. She was burning hot beneath him, around him; all artifice and distance melting away. The look on her face was one he’d never seen on anyone, yet it mirrored how he felt—profoundly affected, split wide open, with nowhere to hide.

When she pushed upward and kissed his clenched jaw, something shifted inside him, shaking him to the core. His blood was raging for her, spurred by seven years of waiting to be right where he was, but she stayed his violent need with a single soft, sweet kiss. He was devastated by her tenderness in the face of his ferocious desire. Pressing his damp cheek to hers, he nuzzled against her, breathing in the smell of sex and lust and beloved woman. She fit him perfectly, if tightly, as he’d known she would. His beautiful, irreproachable Jess. A woman capable of reining in an entire roomful of exuberant people with a single quelling glance. Yet her body had been designed to hold him, a man built for pleasuring women in the most exuberant way possible.

Without conceit, he knew how generously he was endowed. His size had been a tool he’d used to his advantage once he had become aware of how pleasing it was to women.

But he had not been meant for those women. He had been fashioned for Jessica, just as she had been crafted for him. If it killed him, he would make her see it.

He traced the shell of her ear with his tongue, feeling her slick sex clasp him in response. “Perfection,” he whispered, following her down as she sank back into the bed. “Two halves of a whole.”

Jess gripped his upper arms and licked her lower lip, her hips moving in tight little circles, loosening the way for him. “Please,” she pled again in that throaty murmur that undid him.

Bracing himself with palms flat to the bed, he withdrew slowly, relishing the feel of her clinging to his cock. He returned with effort, pushing through the tight resistance. Her head thrashed and her eyes closed, which he could not allow. He needed her to stay with him, to see him through the storm he knew was coming. The pressure of his impending orgasm was fisted around his bollocks and pulsing through his cock, warning him that he would soon be wasted by the woman beneath him. Even knowing how she could destroy him, he couldn’t pull away. She’d snared him completely that long-ago night, bewitched him beyond redemption. There was no other choice for him. Somehow, he had to make himself the only choice for her.

Pushing his arms beneath her shoulders, he cupped her head in his hands, pinning her completely. His mouth came down over hers, his head tilting to deepen the contact. She caught his waist, arching into him. Their perspiration sealed their torsos together, adding another raw layer to their heated coupling. He moved. She moved. They found a rhythm. She clawed at his back; he kissed her as if he’d die if their lips were parted. His tongue plunged and retreated along with his cock, both seeking to drive her wild. He needed her wild, as crazed and desperate as he felt.

Alistair rolled his hips, probing with the iron-hard length of his penis, absorbing every nuance of her fevered response. He found a spot that made her shiver beneath him and exploited it, stroking over it again and again. He growled when she climaxed, the delicate muscles inside her rippling and gripping his plunging cock. He hung on to his control by the thinnest of threads, needing to see her through first before he took any more than she’d already given him.

He slowed, gliding in and out, lifting his head to watch the pleasure take her. The way was easier now, her body accepting his possession with rich creamy moisture. Her eyes were dazed, her lips swollen. She breathed his name … Alistair. He thickened.

“You didn’t—You still …”

“All day,” he reminded, lunging heavily, accelerating his tempo. “All night.”

Her fingertips flexed into his back. Her legs tightened around his hips. “Yes. Please.”

Chapter 14

Jess awoke to the feel of firm fingertips gliding back and forth across her forearm. She lay on her stomach with one arm tossed over Alistair’s torso. Her body felt achy and heavy, well used. For a long moment, she lay there, absorbing the odd reality of waking up to a man beside her. It was surprisingly pleasant, reaffirming the intimacy established through lovemaking.

It was growing dark outside. The sunlight that had shone through the porthole earlier was dimmed now. Hours had passed, as had several shattering orgasms. She hadn’t known her body was capable of repeating a climax so soon, or that a man’s body was capable of such sexual stamina. Although Benedict had sometimes taken her more than once in a night, it was always with hours between one encounter and the next. Alistair had required little time for recovery … mere moments. He said that was because of her, because of his desire for her. Of course, he was younger than Benedict. Younger than she … but she refused to think about that.

The bigger revelation was that his fervency no longer frightened her. How could it when she felt equally fervent toward him? The gratitude Beth had told her she’d feel was only one of a dozen emotions swirling through her. Her affection for the man beside her was powerful enough to constrict her chest.

Shifting, she slid one leg over his and pressed her lips to his biceps. He made a low sound of approval. “If I’d known,” he said with glittering eyes, “that sex would make you so agreeable, I would have taken you to bed sooner.”

“A sennight wasn’t soon enough?” she asked, startled at the vocalization of how quickly he’d slipped under her guard.

“Several years preceded that sennight.” He caught the hand she had splayed across his chest and kissed her knuckles. “What softened your resistance and sweetened your temper?”

“I didn’t understand the many facets involved in our association. I could only see an entanglement between us as an unnecessary complication. I had no notion that a love affair was a natural progression for a widow, part of a process of healing that allows a woman to resume her life without her spouse.”

His grip on her hand tightened marginally. “You discovered this today?”

Jess nodded and slid closer, draping half of her body over the side of his. She felt comfortable with him. Safe. Free. “I am now prepared to enjoy you fully, knowing that when the time comes to part we’ll do so with fondness. And I will be stronger and more resilient for the experience.”

“So, I am to be an experience for you.” He sounded mildly contemplative. “When do you anticipate this time for amicable farewell will arrive?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea. And, frankly, the end no longer concerns me.”

She’d already changed profoundly because of him, in so many ways. He would not be merely an experience for her but an adventure, as fraught with possibilities as her voyage to the West Indies.

“What if it concerns me?” he murmured.

The casualness of his tone took the weight from his words. That pained her, but she endeavored not to show it. It was not his fault that she didn’t know how to conduct a casual affair, and she did not want to give him cause to regret becoming involved with her. “Fustian. We both know you will tire of me first.”

“To be clear, you’ll keep me as your lover until one of us no longer desires the other?”

“You know the etiquette of such things better than I.”

Alistair flipped her to her back in an economic, agile movement. He rose above her, kneeing her legs open and settling between them. The scent of his skin, now mingled with her fragrance, was as stimulating as always. “You do realize you’ve challenged me again,” he purred. “This time, to keep you enthralled with me indefinitely.”

She stared up at him, adoring the way his dark hair hung around his face, making him look wicked and sinful. Her fingers traced the arch of one of his brows. “You would swiftly grow bored with a fawning paramour, I’m certain.”

With a practiced swivel of his hips, he positioned his cockhead at the entrance of her sex and pushed a scant inch inside her. She was slick with his seed, filled with him. Yet she wanted more; it frightened her how much. He reached between them, finding her clitoris and stroking over it with a feather-light touch. Her breath left her in a sighing moan. She was sore and swollen, but that was no deterrent. She needed to lose herself to his skill and his focused pursuit of her pleasure. She needed to forget this talk of endings while she was still so enamored with the beginning.

His mouth hovered above hers, his sensual lips curved in a smile that didn’t soften his determined gaze. “I challenge you to prove it.”

Bearing down, he drove into her, making her cry out at the suddenness of his invasion. Alistair had been so careful before, giving her time to process every sensation before moving on to the next. This time felt like a claiming, a bold and undeniable possession. She writhed beneath him, trying to accommodate the thick, deep impalement.

“Fawn over me,” he coaxed darkly. “Lavish me with your attention. See what comes of it.”