“You’re quite the romantic, Mr. Bennett.”
With a finger below her chin, I raised her face up to mine. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Just you wait.”
Her brow popped up. “You’re going to make me wait?”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, you know what they say: good things come to those who do.”
She nodded. “I have heard that, but you’ll have to show me how that works exactly.”
“You know it,” I said and topped it off with a blistering kiss that left Eden breathless and weak, proven when, as I stepped back, she swayed forward, almost falling without my body to lean in to. So I held out my hand. “Let’s go out on the balcony before it rains. I hear there’s a big storm moving in tonight. The falls should be raging tomorrow.”
Eden took my hand and allowed me to lead her out on to the deck. The sun was already hidden behind the foothills to the west, and low, grey clouds had assembled, creating a rolling canvas of muted oranges and golds, the perfect backdrop for our first wedding portrait. After another heated kiss to warm Eden’s cheeks, I raised my phone and directed my wife to smile for the camera, but she only had eyes for me, and, once the moment was captured, I stared at it, mesmerized by the love and devotion I saw in her face as she smiled at me. The feeling that washed through me was indescribable, full of love and hope and a single desire to make Eden happier than she’d ever been.
“Eden,” I turned to her and whispered, “I know we each repeated those vows earlier, but…I want you to know, I promise you that and so much more.” Slipping my phone into my pocket, I took her face in my hands and held her still so I could look deep into her beautiful eyes as I whispered the words I’d been rehearsing over the last three days.
“I swear, I’ll try in every way to be the man you deserve, yet never had, to be worthy of you and your love. To be kind and patient, honest and forgiving. To be your truest and most loyal friend, and a faithful and most ardent lover. To be your ally in conflict, to communicate earnestly what I feel and think and want, to be your sanctuary and a shoulder when life gets heavy. I promise to nurture your dreams, to give you my patience and respect, to be your navigator when you’re lost, and your consoler when you’re sad. And I vow to hold your hand and kiss your lips, every single day and every single night, without fail. I’ll always be here for you, in every way you could ever want or need. I am your husband, Eden, and I’ll love you forever.”
With all the words in my heart now spoken and, more importantly, heard, I lowered my mouth to hers and sealed my pledge in the second best way I knew how. And damn, as good as our wedding kiss had been, this one was even better, like our souls had fused together and our minds became one. But with those sacred parts of each of us now melded, there was one more I desperately wanted to join, so after tearing my mouth away and letting Eden take a much needed breath, I swooped my hand beneath her knees and lifted her up into my arms, just as the first fat raindrops let loose from the heavy sky above.
“Good timing, sir,” Eden squealed. “Or your wife would soon be quite wet.”
I swung her around and in through the French doors. “Oh, you’ll be wet, all right,” I returned with a lascivious grin.
As I stomped toward the bedroom, Eden’s arm reached out over my shoulder. “Wait. The fire. I’m cold from being outside.”
“You’ll be plenty warm in about thirty seconds, I assure you.”
Lowering her chin, Eden stuck out her bottom lip in a sultry pout, to which I couldn’t help but sigh.
“What?” she asked. “I’m a writer. You can’t expect me to not set the scene.”
“I hardly need it. Just gazing at you gets my blood boiling,” I murmured, but backtracked anyway, letting Eden switch the gas fireplace on and the parlor lights off before hightailing it back toward the bedroom, where candles I hadn’t noticed earlier burned low in the darkened room. “Wow. Seems they were expecting us to get busy in a hurry.”
Eden chuckled. “That was obvious by the blush on the receptionist’s face.”
“Ah, and here I thought she was just flirting with me.”
“Well, yes, there’s that, too,” she replied. “Not that that young girl has the faintest idea how to properly flirt, at least with you. No, I think you need a woman for that. Eh, Mr. Bennett?”
I eased Eden down onto the edge of the bed, placing a tender kiss on her lips before standing up straight. I drew a finger along her brow and down under her jaw, tilting her face up to mine. “No. Not just any woman, Eden. Only you.”
She smiled softly in the flickering candlelight, her eyes tender and yearning as joyful tears pooled in the sensuous depths. She took my hand in hers and cupped it against her cheek, then pressed feather-light kisses to my palm. But she didn’t stop there. No, she began to torment me by taking each finger into her mouth, just the tips at first, flicking them with her tongue playfully, then sliding each in deeper, first one, then another, then two at time, sucking the length as she peeked up at me through her long, damp lashes.
That look in her eyes—the heat, the desire, that undeniable need—made me swell to nearly the breaking point. And she knew it, too. She pressed two fingers against the pulse in my wrist, just to confirm the pounding of my heart, forget the rock-hard bulge in my trousers. I held my breath and closed my eyes as I tipped my head back and simply enjoyed all the sensations and emotions she was arousing in me.
Until she let my hand drop and placed her own against the throbbing heat of my cock.
My eyes flew open, and I sucked in a sharp breath, unprepared for her touch. I wasn’t ready. Not yet. I didn’t have enough control to allow her to caress me without undoing me completely. So I grabbed her hands and knelt down before her, squeezing her fingers and pushing them back into her lap.
In a slow, sweeping stroke, I trailed my hands down the outside of her legs, halting at her chic stilettoes, casting first one off, then the other, and kissing each of her beautiful toes, the last of which I slipped into my mouth and teased with my tongue, much like she had done to me. Eden giggled and squirmed as she tried to pull away. However, I wasn’t about to let her go so easily. But neither did I want this to devolve into childish play. So, setting her foot with the sexy, red-painted toenails back down onto the floor, I leaned in and removed each of her delicate pearl earrings, for which I received a quizzical brow.
“Self-preservation,” I explained. “So I don’t choke on them when I start nibbling on your ears.”
Eden grinned as a chill of expectation swept through her. After I placed her jewelry on the dresser, she grabbed my silk tie and said, “Now it’s my turn,” then loosened the knot, slipped it over my head, and tossed it to the floor.
I quirked a single brow in question, and she answered with a tiny nod. With that as permission, I took her hands and rose to my feet, pulling her with me, though I towered over her by at least eight inches. But I think, from the way her breath hitched and her heart pounded against her sternum, that she found my size quite titillating. She swallowed hard and smoothed her hands over my chest and down my stomach to my waistband, but I captured her wrists, probably a bit more roughly than was necessary. She gasped with a twinge, and though I was sorry for causing her pain, she had to play by the unspoken rules she’d already set.
It was my turn now.
Releasing her wrists, I slid my hands down her arms, moving to her waist, her hips, then to the hem of her layered dress, the lacy one of which I pulled up her body and over her head, dropping it to the floor by my feet. And so it went, Eden removing a piece of clothing from me, then me stripping one from her.
She thought it unfair she had far fewer pieces than I, so I allowed her two at a time—my shoes and socks, my belt and pants, then my dress shirt and wifebeater. In less than five minutes, we stood face to face, me in my boxer-briefs, and Eden in another matching set of bra and panties, this one even sexier than the last and which did way more to arouse me than to cover her. But she loved it, how turned on she could
get me. Her fingers curled, itching to wrap around my cock, which surged like a tent pole against my shorts, leaving very little doubt as to my unchivalrous intentions. Eden literally licked her lips as she stared at my ill-concealed erection, the action so erotic, I couldn’t help but lean down and capture those delectable lips with my own, sweeping my tongue inside her mouth as I held her head from behind with one hand and unfastened her lacy, ivory-colored bra with the other.
Now free, my palm massaged the firm, round flesh, and I wasted no time moving my mouth to her nipple, which pursed under the assault of my teeth. Eden gasped and thrust her hips into me, and I mirrored her reaction, vying for control over my own body before it betrayed me altogether.
I had to hold Eden still and slightly away from me as the battle surged then ebbed, domination over my cock now firmly in line. But I was through with this game. I couldn’t take the back and forth any longer, the teasing and self-denial, all in the name of foreplay.
I needed to bury myself in Eden, and I needed to now. So, with my hands encircling her upper arms, I gave her a firm shove backwards onto the bed, then leaned over and tore the last remaining scrap of clothing covering her sex. Pulling her forward, I nudged, none too gently, in between her knees, spreading her thighs so I could gaze upon the swollen, bare flesh, glistening with her desire. Eden slid back again and pulled her feet flat up onto the bed, further exposing the needy flesh within her sodden folds. Then, with a provocatively come-hither grin, she beckoned me closer with one curling finger as another crawled down her belly and slipped into her own flesh, where she teased herself with urgent circles that made us both squirm and moan.
My shorts were off in a heartbeat, and not one second later…
I pounced.
Wings could’ve sprouted from his broad back and I wouldn’t have been surprised, because Sean Bennett had proven himself my guardian angel. He’d saved me in every way possible, in every way I needed. And here he was, his breathtaking face and spectacular form, looming over me, his eyes hungry with desire, like he was ready to consume me on the spot. And I wanted just that, to be folded into him and devoured, to embrace his heart from within and coalesce with his spirit, because he’d become everything to me, meant everything to me. I wanted him—needed him—to infuse himself with every cell of my being, to make me better…and whole again.
His expression, at first rapacious and almost too eager, softened when his hands cupped either side of my face and his fingers laced through my hair. With heavy lids, he stared at me, his every emotion churning from his warm eyes into mine. I felt his love and devotion eddy through my body, his security and strength thread between my ribs, each winding tight around my heart, a cocoon of the finest, lightest silk. It buoyed me up, and I felt as if I were floating, then flying, so happy and light and utterly liberated from everything that had ever held me down, all because of him, this young man I adored.
I closed my eyes as Sean lowered his face to mine. His lips, warm and inviting, came to rest upon my mouth. He didn’t demand anything. He simply brushed first one way, then the other. His tongue peeked out and swept along the pleat between my lips, teasing me with feathery caresses, which I returned in kind. Our mouths moved in unison, joined like perfect pieces from a one-of-a-kind puzzle, made for only each other, in just this way. His kiss made me frantic for more, and I opened wider to invite him in. Our tongues danced like an expertly choreographed Argentine tango, growing increasingly aggressive as the moments ticked by.
Soon, though, that was not enough, and my hands began to itch to explore Sean’s body. I had the advantage here. Perched over me, Sean had to hold himself up. The space between us allowed room for my hands to skim over the sculpted dunes that ran across each shoulder and down onto his biceps. I loved the feel of those sexy undulations in his well-conditioned muscles, the valleys that gave rise to power and strength unlike anything I’d ever felt before. They rippled beneath my fingertips, growing harder the longer he hovered above me.
His chest was bare of any hair, waxed smooth to give his swimmer’s body an edge during competition. His dragon tattoo—Praetorius, Sean called it—seemed to writhe in the fitful candlelight, its scales flowing and teeth gnashing as the eyes blazed bright and intent upon me. But I had come to see this serpent for what it was, a symbol of Sean’s undying vow to protect. Whatever torment he had gone through in the last few years had strengthened this beast into an unimaginably fierce rival, and I almost felt sorry for whoever chose to take both it and Sean on.
With the power of his commitment animating this magnificently feral creature, my fingers longed to touch it, to explore, and even antagonize it, so it would rise over and envelop me in its large, menacing wings. The feel of it beneath my fingers sent flashes of electricity coursing through my body, sparking short, gasping breaths, and beckoning Sean to kiss me once more.
I felt so alive, so charged, and, by the way his body moved against me, I was sure that energy surged back into Sean, as well. His weight collapsed to his elbows, and he rolled over so I was on top. Now he had the advantage, which he exploited immediately, running his hands down my back and over my buttocks, where he squeezed, kneaded, and separated the rounded flesh, pulling me upward until his erection blazed high up between my thighs. With the rock-hard head of his cock poised to enter me, I pressed a deep kiss to his mouth then walked my hands down his body, from his shoulders, to his chest, then the lean crests and furrows that rippled across his stomach like whitecaps in a storm.
I couldn’t get enough of his body, the way he felt beneath my hands and between my legs, the heat, his strength, the rigid power and animal sexuality. All of it drove me crazy with need. I wanted that power and strength deep inside me. I needed that animal driving me hard. But I wanted this one time, our first as husband and wife, to be the embodiment of all that was good and tender between us, of all the affection we shared in our hearts.
I smoothed my hand over the sharp plane of his cheek. “I love you, Sean,” I breathed, so softly, I barely heard my own words.
Not that it was even necessary, because he looked at me, into me, and saw what I felt, felt what I felt, for it emanated from every pore in my being. It had a scent he could inhale, an essence he could taste, structure he could touch, and light he could see. It was all around and deep inside us, and I smiled knowing he recognized that.
“Sean,” I whispered, then paused to hold his gaze, “I promise to hold you and honor you, through sorrow and success. I’ll be your partner in adventure and your sidekick in mischief. We’ll live and learn and love together, and your happiness will be my priority. I swear to challenge you every day, to encourage you to laugh and grow and be everything you ever wanted. And I promise to be everything you need, everything you want, without giving up the woman you fell in love with. I love you, Sean,” I repeated, so he’d know that was the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, my love for him, this man who saved me.
From there, we were a tangle of limbs. Arms here. Legs there. Our mouths and tongues everywhere. We tasted and touched every inch of each other’s flesh and brought pleasure we didn’t know was possible. I rode him gently and slowly, mounted across his thighs as he sat astride the low, narrow bench at the foot of the bed. He held my hand, pressed to his chest, his fingers curled into my palm, and our eyes locked in an unbreakable bond.
And then he rode me hard, in every conceivable position: standing up, lying down, on our sides, face to face, from behind—my personal favorite—then with my knees slung high up over his shoulders—his preference, he said, because he could reach deeper, making me scream louder than any other way. His hand suffered quite a few bite marks for his efforts. But no matter how we did it, we made love—beautiful, fantastic, amazingly awesome love, and together, we reached higher pinnacles of fulfillment than we ever had before.
When we were done, so exhausted neither one of us could raise our heads, let alone bend our knees or hold ourselves up, we lay on our sides, facing each other, o
ur fingers entwined, so close not even a wisp of air could slip between us. And, as the sky began to lighten outside, and the rain and wind buffeted the outside door, we finally fell deep into sleep, with our lips still pressed in one last kiss.
The phone in our room rang for what must have been the third time. I glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table. Damn. It was already half-past noon. Good thing I’d reserved the suite for the entire weekend. Eden and I would need the day just to recover from last night. And a spa was the perfect place for that. When I first made the reservation, I’d prearranged several treatments for her, a body scrub, a facial, and the fitness massage, designed for those with sore muscles from working out, because I knew, without a doubt, that Eden would be tender from our marathon night of lovemaking.
Even I ached all over, especially my legs and stomach. What a workout Eden had given me, the most satisfying ever. But now I needed sustenance if I was to continue, and I was sure, once Eden woke up, she would, too. I was sure that was probably what the phone call was about. I’d arranged for a hearty breakfast to be delivered with the instructions they call first to make sure we were available. Couldn’t imagine what they must think of us, newlyweds sleeping in ‘til after noon. Just the thought made me chuckle, and that made Eden finally stir. She rolled over and faced me, her hair a wild mess, and I swore I’d never seen anyone so goddamn alluring in my entire life.
“Morning,” she crowed in a rough voice, her eyes heavy, but happy, satisfied.
I leaned in and kissed her on the mouth. “Morning, wife,” I said, making her smile.
That smile grew wide as she closed her eyes and stretched like a leopard, ‘cause that’s exactly what she looked like, all long-legged and lazy, rousing from a well-earned night of sleep. A truly magnificent creature. And she was all mine. I grinned at the thought.
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