Will gathered her closer. “I’d like that too,” he murmured against her cheek, “but…don’t rush into anything you’re not ready for, Serena. If you need more time, we can wait.”
Will’s heart plummeted when she pulled away from him. He meant what he said about waiting, but that didn’t keep the disappointment from settling in the pit of his stomach. He wanted her, there was no denying that, not when every ounce of blood in his body had pooled in his groin the moment her slender frame had pressed into him. But he refused to pressure her. Will let his arms drop to his sides, resigning himself to one more night of aching loneliness. He did not, however, have to let another night go by without telling Serena how he felt about her.
“I love you,” he said simply.
Serena reached out, her touch light as a feather as her fingertips glided down his arm and curled into the warmth of his hand.
“I know,” she replied, a slight tremor in her voice. “I love you too, Will. I loved you before I was old enough to even know what love really was, but I know now. I feel as if a part of me is missing when you’re not here, and I know…I know, I would never be whole again if you walked out of my life.”
“There’s no chance of that, sweetheart.”
“In that case…” she turned around, “put your hands on my shoulders.”
“I was hoping you would say something more along the lines of, kiss me, you fool…”
“Just do it,” she laughed. “As long as the lights are off, you’ll have to trust me not to lead you into any walls.” As soon as his hands rested on her shoulders, Serena moved forward. “We’re through the doorway now and turning right,” she said as Will shuffled along behind her.
Her step never faltered as she led him down the hallway towards her bedroom, which should have sent his raging hormones into overdrive. Instead, Will started to worry that Serena’s sudden boldness was due to some sort of delayed response to the emotional turmoil McKinley had caused. Certain he was right and that Serena’s brave front would collapse once they were in her room, Will braced himself for the inevitable. Any second now she would turn around and tell him she’d changed her mind and wasn’t ready to share the kind of intimacy he so desperately wanted with her.
Serena stopped as they neared the bed. “Will…I hope you don’t mind, but…” She turned around, her pale skin luminescent in the dim light afforded by the moon beams seeping through the lacy curtains. “Rufus is used to sleeping in here and I think he would be upset if you shut him outside the room.”
Will was so relieved she wasn’t shutting him outside the room, he wanted to drag her into his arms and kiss her senseless. Peering through the darkness, he spied Rufus curled up on the floor near the foot of the bed.
“I think he’s already made the decision to stay and I wouldn’t dream of putting him out. And now,” he drew Serena into his arms, “where were we?”
***
The moment his mouth closed over hers, a delicious warmth began to spread like wildfire through Serena’s veins. She melted like a marshmallow over an open flame, her insides turning into liquid goo as Will continued the sensuous assault on her lips. He took his time, deepening the kiss and engaging her tongue in game of cat and mouse that was so erotic in nature her knees started to buckle. Her skin tingled; every muscle, tissue, and fiber in her body tingled, but the most overwhelming sensation was the feeling of being alive.
There was no fear as his kisses gradually grew more ardent, only love. And longing. It filled her completely, heart and soul, the magnitude of it so heady it made her dizzy. Serena was caught up in a whirlwind, twirling around and around until her cheeks were flushed and she could barely catch her breath before it was stolen away again. Heat radiated off of his body, and she pressed herself closer with a shiver of anticipation.
“Don’t be scared,” Will murmured, trailing feathery kisses along her jaw line and down the column of her throat.
“I’m…not…ssss…” the last word came out as a breathy hiss and she shivered again, unable to form a coherent thought, never mind translating into words.
Will’s teeth raked over the tender spot between her neck and shoulder, coaxing a soft moan from her when he continued to nibble until she was positively spineless. There was a mad flurry of butterfly wings in her stomach followed by a series of tugging sensations deep in her abdomen that sent spider webs of pleasure pulsing through her.
She felt Will’s fingers brush against her neck, felt them tremble as he fumbled for the zipper on the back of her dress and slowly guided it down.
His touch was gentle, his movements slow and measured as he slipped first one strap of the dress over her shoulder and then the other and let it slither to the floor. Serena tensed for a moment. Exposed as she was in just her bra and a pair of lacy panties made her conscious of her body in a way she’d never been before. She drew in a sharp breath when Will’s hands glided down her back to the curve of her hips, forgetting her nervousness, forgetting everything except the way he was making her feel.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, “so soft, so…perfect.” He took her hands and held them against his chest. “Your turn,” he spoke softly. ”Unbutton my shirt.”
That melty feeling intensified when he took his hands away and left her to the task of undressing him. Her shaky fingers found the first button and somehow managed to unfasten it then moved onto the next. One by one she pried each button loose, acutely aware of the scent of Will’s skin and how ragged his breathing had become. It gave her a sense of power to know she had this effect on him, and when she finally got to the last button, Serena didn’t hesitate to slip her hands beneath the cloth and push it off his broad shoulders.
“Yes,” Will said when she flattened her palms against his corded chest. “Touch me, Serena,” he pleaded softly.
Serena moved her hands slowly across the impressive breadth of his chest and back again. There was very little hair over his pectorals, but it grew more dense towards the center. She sifted her fingers through it, fascinated that it could feel both coarse and soft at the same time, and equally fascinated by the smooth skin that stretched over solid muscle. There was so much to process, so many sensations coursing through her. She could feel his heart thumping wildly, keeping time with her own racing pulse, felt his chest expand with each harsh breath as he filled his lungs, and the warmth of it on her cheek when he let it out again.
Serena’s hands followed the trail of hair down over abs that were as defined by hard muscle as his chest was until the belt on his pants would let her go no further. She splayed her fingers across skin that was decidedly warmer than it had been only a moment before. She liked that. Liked the response Will was having to her touch and the confidence it gave her to continue exploring his magnificent body. And it was truly magnificent.
As a teenager, Will had the build of an athlete, sculpted from years of playing sports. Whatever he’d been doing to keep in shape during the years since high school had only improved his physique. Broad chest and shoulders, bulging biceps that were impressively large even with his arms relaxed by his side, hands that dwarfed her own in size; Will Duncan was undeniably male.
Serena let her hands wander back to the hard planes of his chest, a little shocked by her own boldness but too enthralled with what she was doing to stop. A few short months ago she would have been terrified at the thought of being left alone with a man. But then, Will wasn’t just any man. True, it wouldn’t take any effort at all for him to overpower her; physically, she was no match for him. But Serena wasn’t afraid. Maybe it was because she could still feel how tenderly his strong arms had held her and how gentle those big hands had been as they caressed her bare skin.
“You have a scar,” she said, running her finger along the length of it.
Will’s hand clamped over hers and drew it away. “It happened a long time ago.”
“How did you get it?”
“My own stupid carelessness,” there was an edge to his voice. “Like I said, it was a long t
ime ago.”
His evasive answer and harsh tone stung more than Serena wanted to admit. She understood all too well what painful memories could do to a person, but couldn’t help feeling hurt that he had so firmly drawn the line between his past and the present. Of course, he had shared some things about his family and childhood. He’d even amused her with stories about the stunts he and her brothers had pulled in school, but he never mentioned getting injured.
It must have been a car accident, she decided. Glass from the windows maybe, or a piece of twisted metal. What else could have caused a jagged scar like the one she’d felt just below his collarbone? She wondered if someone else was with him at the time and if his reluctance to talk about it was because they had been injured too. Any other curious thoughts taking root in her head were quickly dispersed when Will distracted her with a long, lingering kiss.
The most exquisite electrical current hummed through her body when his bare chest brushed against the exposed flesh of her cleavage. He pulled her closer, scorching her mouth with the heat of his kiss and sweeping her away in a whirlwind of emotions and erotic sensations so potent Serena was certain her bones had to turned to gelatin. The warmth of Will’s hands on her waist should have steadied her but it had just the opposite effect, and she had to anchor her arms around his neck to keep from swaying like a drunkard after an all night binge.
He murmured something against her lips but Serena’s head was still reeling, her mind too far gone to grasp the words. She’d never experienced the ache of sexual desire before, but she recognized it all the same. There was a heaviness deep inside, a throbbing that grew more incessant when Will pulled away from her for moment to drag back the bed covers. He lifted her in his arms, pausing just long enough to kiss her again before gently lowering her onto the cool, crisp sheets.
There was a rustle of movement as Will hastily removed the rest of his clothes, followed by a few moments of absolute stillness. Serena’s chest tightened when he made no move to join her on the bed. What was he waiting for? Had he changed his mind?
“Will?” she said with uncertainty.
“God, I’m such an idiot,” he groaned. “I should have planned…no, that’s the wrong word. It makes it sound as if I expected this to happen, and as much as I hoped it would, it didn’t occur to me that it would be tonight.”
The bottom dropped out of Serena’s stomach. “Are you…saying you don’t want to?"
“No! What I’m saying is that it was stupid of me not to be prepared, and as much as I hate to leave you like this, I’m afraid I have to run out for a few minutes.”
Serena’s spirits plummeted even further when she heard him scrounging around for his recently discarded clothing. Nothing he’d said made any sense. Why had he followed her to the bedroom and removed her dress if he wasn’t prepared to make love to her yet? And how mortifying was it to realize that while she had managed to push her fears and reservations aside, Will was having second thoughts?
“Believe me, sweetheart,” he said grimly, “this is not how I envisioned our first time. But…we need to use protection, and that requires a trip to the nearest store.”
“What?” she said faintly. Serena dragged her mind out of the depressing pit it had fallen into. “What did you just say?”
Will sat down on the bed next to her. “I know this the most atrocious timing,” he said in a voice that was both gentle and regretful. “I swear I will make it up to you, but we can’t risk you getting pregnant the first time we make love, can we?”
Serena was so relieved she could have cried. So that’s what he meant about not being prepared. “I thought…never mind, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to leave, Will. What I mean is that I…I am protected. I’ve been on birth control for years.”
There was a long pause before Will spoke, and when he did, his voice sounded strange, almost as if he had to force the words out. “Did you love him?”
“Did I…?” Serena sat up slowly. “You think that’s why I went on birth control, because I was involved with someone?”
“That’s the usual reason, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is, but that’s not why I started taking them.”
She felt the unexpected sting of tears when he leaned over to leave a ghost of a kiss on her cheek. “Tell me,” was all he said.
One tear escaped and then another. Serena brushed them away, surprised to realize it wasn’t the memory that suddenly made her weepy. Over the past several years, she had dealt with so much of the pain on her own, the uncertainties, the fear; sharing only the barest scraps with Rose when it became too much for her to handle alone. But now she had Will, who seemed capable of extracting with two simple words what her family had not been able to coax out of her no matter how hard they tried.
“When I was in the hospital,” she began, “the doctor tried to explain about the…scar tissue and…what it could mean when I got older. I wasn’t upset by it. I don’t think I experienced any emotion at all. I was just so relieved to know I wasn’t pregnant, I didn’t even ask any questions as to whether I would be able to in the future. My mother was in tears because, of course, she understood that someday I would want to have a baby, but I knew in my heart I would never would.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
Not if it was yours. Serena’s stomach fluttered at the idea of carrying Will’s child then quickly shoved her wayward thoughts aside. Will would probably turn ten shades of green if he knew what she was thinking, especially since he’d been ready to abandon her in the middle of making love to insure it didn’t happen.
“No, I don’t feel that way anymore,” she replied. “As I got older I realized it wasn’t that I didn’t want to have a baby so much as what I would have to do in order to conceive one. And there was always the fear I might be attacked again…and have to face an unwanted pregnancy. That’s when I decided to get on birth control.”
“So the scar tissue isn’t bad enough to keep you from conceiving?”
“It might make it more difficult, but the doctor assured me there wasn’t any reason I couldn’t have a normal, healthy pregnancy when the time came.”
“I’m glad,” Will said as he eased her back against the pillows and began feathering her face with kisses.
A shot of pure happiness pierced her heart. “You…are?” Serena managed to squeeze out.
“Very. Because someday,” he kissed her on the lips, “I’d like to have children too.”
He didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t ask him to. It was enough that he had given her something to dream about.
It didn’t take long for Will to lure her back into the heavenly place he’d taken her before, where hypersensitive nerve endings tingled with the lightest of his touches. She had to remind herself to breathe when his fingertips skimmed over her knee, trialing down her shin to curl around her ankle. He slipped her sandal off and tossed it to the floor, repeating the action with the other sandal. A quiver of anticipation raced through her as Will climbed up on the bed and stretched out beside her.
He took his time; languishing over her body, each gentle stroke of his hand as seductive as the bone melting kisses he plied her with. It didn’t seem to matter where he touched
her; every inch of exposed flesh was a pleasure point, and Will was exceptionally adept at keeping her in a high state of sensual euphoria. Even when he pulled her close to unhook her bra and remove it, there was only a nanosecond of apprehension before she was once more whisked away by a whirlwind of pleasurable sensations.
Gradually, Serena grew bold enough to touch him too. She loved the fine hairs on his chest, the bulging muscles in his arms, and how smooth the skin on his back was. But what she loved most was the deep, vibrating moan that seemed to catch in the back of his throat as her hands wandered with increasing confidence over his body. It made her feel good to know she had the power to make Will tremble, that his desire for her was so strong he couldn’t control his response to her touch any more than she
could control her response to him.
Serena’s breath hitched when Will cupped her breast, slowly raking his thumb across the peak until it beaded then gently drawing it into his mouth. It felt as if someone had implanted a series of electrical wires inside her body and thrown the switch. The overlapping currents of intense pleasure rippled through her as Will’s tongue and mouth did the most agonizingly delicious things to her. He moved to the other breast and lavished it with the same attention, suckling and kneading at the same time until the muscles in her abdomen were as taut as a bow string.
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