A quiver rippled all down her body. She couldn’t stop that pulse beating through her. He spoke to the very bottom of her soul. He spoke the words she never let escape from her deepest hidden recesses.
Could she really let herself love him? He wanted her. He wanted her tough and guarded and warlike. He wanted her armed and dangerous. He never wanted any elegant lady like Angela. He wanted Angela as long as he believed that was the only woman he could get.
Now he knew Raleigh existed, he wanted her. He wanted her to fill the void in his life. No one else could fill it, and no one but Bishop could fill the same void in her. No one could ever know it was there. No one could understand how it yawned in agony within her. No one could understand the loneliness of facing Hinterland alone.
The fire blasted its heat into her face so she couldn’t think. He was right there. He stood right there behind her, so close she felt his breath in her ear, but she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t lower her guard to let herself love him.
She spent her life hiding behind her armor until it grew into her skin. She prepared herself to live her life alone. She couldn’t go back on that now, no matter how much she wanted to, no matter how much she loved him in return.
A lightning bolt blasted through her when he set his hands on her hips. He rocked her from side to side, but he didn’t touch her any other way. He just stood there while his hands burned two holes in her sides. What was he trying to do to her?
She swam in delirious confusion. She couldn’t decide whether to run away or throw herself at him in passionate ecstasy. How could this be happening to her? How could her whole life change like this?
Before she could make up her mind what to do, he crossed the last tiny scrap of space holding them apart. He slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against him.
Her whole being stiffened to resist, but he held her until the convulsion passed. The next instant, she collapsed into his arms. She let her armored body fall against his chest, and the unimaginable softness of his embrace enfolded her in blessed relief.
He laid his cheek against her ear and sighed. He bent his head to touch his lips to her neck. He whispered in her ear. “It can be like this.”
She couldn’t see. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t be doing this. She couldn’t be loving him and enjoying him holding her in front of the fire. Those things existed somewhere beyond her. Those things belonged in story books and romance tales. The world reserved moments like this for women like Angela.
How could Raleigh ever be soft enough to receive the tenderness and love contained in that embrace? How could she ever be vulnerable and open enough to receive love from him?
She struggled to breathe. Joy and pain and fear all jumbled in her heart, even as she yearned to accept this moment for exactly what it was. She didn’t have to guard against him anymore. She didn’t have to make herself over in anybody else’s image. She could just love him. She could feel the comfort of his arms around her and enjoy it.
He brushed his mustache along her neck to her ear. He kissed her ear, and his words exploded into her mind. “I dreamed about this. I never thought I could ever hold you like this.”
She couldn’t hear. Bright sparks fizzed along her skin from his lips and mustache touching her ear, down her neck and back up. What was happening? Those sparks danced down her neck to her chest. They tickled on her nipples until they stood up stiff and hard and sensitive. She wanted those sparks touching her and licking her and sucking her.
Sizzling excitement washed down her belly to the hot nest between her legs. The blood rushed to her crotch, and her flesh unfurled its leafy flower to seep its nectar into her pants. She ached for him to touch her there, to satisfy that primal hunger gnawing at her insides.
His rough whisper turned to a snarled hiss against her ear, and the muscles tightened on his chest. He crushed her against him so hard he squeezed the air out of her lungs. “I need you.”
In a flash, he turned her around to face him, and his mouth closed around hers to cut off any noise. At that moment, all the passion and desire that exploded to life in the barn broke their bonds to ignite all over again.
He hooked one arm around her shoulders and hauled her against him while their lips devoured each other in greedy mouthfuls. Their tongues darted and weaved back and forth from his mouth to hers and back again.
Her skin tingled all over in desperate anticipation. It screamed to get out from behind these rough hard clothes. Her breasts nagged at her shirt to get free from her vest, and her pants chaffed her hips and thighs against the raging torrent of desire fighting to break free.
A tight bulge in his pants raked her sensitive mound, and she thrust her hips forward to meet it. She attacked him with both hands. She clawed under his coat to get through the cool white shirt barring her from his chest. She towed him against her by the belt.
He cradled one hand behind her neck to press her lips to his mouth. The other hand glided down her back to that curve where her spine met her ass. He rocked and massaged her hips against his prick until the juices flowed out of her on a river of wetness.
The first confusion and surprise blew away, and her vision cleared to find him gazing at her while they kissed. His eyes gleamed in lust-fueled passion. Did she look like that? Did her eyes show the bottomless hunger in her soul for his love and his attention and his body?
His chiseled frame seethed under her hands. His muscles strained when he touched her and held her. His chest and shoulders heaved under her hands when she touched him. He sucked his breath through his teeth, and his whole being shuddered to its foundation.
She couldn’t stop staring at him. His eyes held her enthralled. She was kissing him. She was loving him. She couldn’t stop it. It was happening. It would happen.
The hand behind her back slid forward. He ran his finger along the inside of her waistband. That light touch sent a shiver up and down her midsection. It tremored her whole life apart. Oh, she wanted it. She wanted his hands on her skin. She wanted to feel the intoxicating pleasure of touching him and rubbing her body all over him.
He touched the clasp holding her pants together, but he did nothing more. He only suggested it before he left it alone. Her body screamed for it, but she couldn’t make him move any faster. She could only pant and quake in dreadful anticipation.
He released her neck so she could look at him. Their eyes danced together the same way their lips bowed and nibbled and discovered. She searched the depths of his being, and he studied her so deep she almost cried in agony. He was looking at her. He was seeing her standing right in front of him, and he wanted her. He wanted her just as much as she wanted him, and he wanted her for all the same reasons.
He brought his two hands back to her hips. He came to rest there. He squeezed and rocked her pelvis. He copied the massive energy rising inside her. How did he know? How did he know the volcanic bubble of passion threatening to explode out of her at any second?
He let go of her lips and took a step back. He took her hand and backed across the room. He tugged her toward the bed until his knees touched it. He never let go of her hand, and his eyes never released their hold on her mind.
He sat down on the bed and pulled her between his knees. He drew her into his embrace until he wound his arms around her hips. He hugged her against his chest and gazed up into her eyes.
She snapped out of her hypnotic trance. “Don’t do this, Bishop.”
He cocked his head, but his face registered hardly any surprise at all. “No?”
“Don’t do this if you’re gonna feel bad about it afterwards. Don’t do it if you’re not going to be happy about it. I don’t want to be your guilty secret.”
He bent his head forward and leaned his forehead against her stomach. His shoulders rose and fell with his breath. “Is this what you want, Raleigh?”
She laid her hand on the back of his neck. She wanted him so much. She loved him beyond words, but she couldn’t tell what she wanted. Sh
e couldn’t be sure she would feel bad about this afterwards, too. Would she regret giving herself to him? Would he become her guilty secret?
Before she could answer, he raised his head. He peered into her eyes harder than ever. “Do you love me, Raleigh?”
Her heart burst open. She couldn’t look him in the eye without loving him. “Of course I do.”
“Would you tell the world that? Would you tell your father that?”
She swallowed hard. Well, would she? She had to stare at him long and hard before she decided. “Yes. Yes, I would. I would be proud to let everybody know I loved you, but only if you were just as proud to tell everybody you loved me. Would you do that? Would you be proud of me? Would you be proud to take me into polite society exactly the way I am and tell everybody you loved me?”
He cuddled close to her stomach and purred up into her face. “Sweetheart, that’s exactly what I did today. Do you think I would have taken you to see Angela like that if I wasn’t proud of you? Do you think she didn’t understand how I felt about you? If I didn’t want to show you to her, I would have left you behind. I never would have told you where I was going. She never would have known I had a new apprentice, let alone a woman.”
Her eyes darted in circles around his face. “Are you saying you took me to see Angela to….to show me off?”
His face broke into the most exquisite smile Raleigh ever saw. Joy beamed out of his eyes. She never expected a man like him to smile that way. “Of course. Don’t you know how proud I am of you, or what an honor it would be for me if you chose to love me? I want the whole world to know about you. I want the world to know this is the kind of woman I love.”
Her heart overflowed with love for him. She petted his cheeks and kissed his forehead. She never would have believed she could love someone so much, that he could make her so proud, not only of winning his love, but of just being herself. She saw herself through his eyes.
She wasn’t ugly or grotesque. She was just different, and he loved her because of her difference. She was one of a kind, and that’s what he loved about her so much. He prized her above all else, precisely because she was so different from every other woman on Earth. They were two of a kind. They could only belong together.
Chapter 21
Bishop laid his ear against Raleigh’s stomach and traced his fingertips up and down the backs of her legs. She closed her eyes and combed her fingers through his hair. They were together. They were only together—nothing more.
Hinterland existed so far away she could barely detect it on the far horizon. It brought them together, but in the end, it couldn’t disturb them when they came together like this.
His hands explored higher, up behind her thighs and into the space between her legs. Her pelvis ached in suspended desire. Would their coming together really take them over that edge into unknown territory? Was that really what she wanted?
He squeezed her thighs apart, and her whole being screamed, Yes! She wanted it. She didn’t want to go to Hinterland tonight. She wanted to stay here with him in this sphere of heavenly love.
He nudged his fingers tight against her inner pants seams, and her fruity juices gurgled hotter than ever. He breathed through her shirt, and the warm steam touched her sensitive skin. It niggled down her belly to her twitching crotch. If he would only blow that warm air on her engorged pussy, she would collapse in moaning ecstasy.
His hair fell across his face, but he didn’t look up. His features churned under his heavy brows, and his muscles contracted all over his face in intense concentration. He didn’t open his eyes, and his brows knit even when she stroked the lines written there.
He dallied up the curve of her ass to her waistband. He eased her shirt out of her pants with slow, gentle tugs. She could stop him any time he did something she didn’t like. She could tell him no if she wanted to, but she wouldn’t tell him no.
She would never stop him. She wanted this. She dreamed of it. She longed for it, and now it was happening. It was happening so much better than she ever imagined it could. He was undressing her in her room. He was pressing his mouth to her bare belly and kissing and biting up and down her enflamed skin. He was gliding his smooth hands up under her shirt to her ribs.
Everything he did lit her fire hotter than ever. She didn’t know she could stand so much excitement coursing through her. She had to release it somehow. She had to get hold of him, to take shelter in him.
He slid his hands around her ribs to her chest, but he didn’t go near her breasts. He stroked up and down her belly in long, languid strokes until she shuddered and hissed through her teeth. The tremors rocked her off her feet. She couldn’t stand this.
Ever so slowly, he responded to her touch and leaned back his head to gaze up at her. She cradled his blessed face in her hands. She caressed the careworn wrinkles from his eyes and cheeks. She brushed her thumb across his lips. He tried to kiss her hand, but she replaced it with her mouth instead.
Once their lips came together, no force on Earth could tear them apart. They would kiss for all eternity. They became one in that eternal softness of one body joining another.
Her kiss sparked a chain reaction in him. He wouldn’t linger here and there in gentle caresses anymore. He dropped his hands down her belly to her waistband one more time, and nothing remained for him to do but unfasten the clasp holding her pants up.
It all unfolded so naturally. She understood exactly what he would do long before he did it, and it all made sense. She didn’t stiffen or balk when he laid her pants open and slid them down to her hips. She saw this coming light years away. She saw it written in her destiny.
He broke away from her kiss to bend over again, and that warm tickling heat of his breath tingled through the delicate hairs pointing down to the damp garden between her lips. She swooned in burning passion, but he held her up with both hands around her ass.
He brushed his lips down her body to the fringe of hair. He whispered so low she barely heard him over the thunder of her pulse in her ears. “Do you want this? Say you want it. Say you want me to do this.”
“Yes, I want it!” she breathed. “I want it so bad.”
He crept just a fraction of an inch lower. “Is this good for you? Is this what you want?”
She couldn’t answer. She grasped his head and tried to force him down between her legs. All her syrupy juices rose to meet that delicious warmth coming off his face. His cheek against her belly, his breath rifling through her hair, his hands cupping her ass behind, his fingers sneaking between her thighs to awaken her deepest longing—how could she ever bear this? Didn’t he know how much she wanted it?
She moaned in sweet desire. Her body melted at his touch. She ached so bad for his mouth down there, for his fingers touching her and his body bringing her to life. She never wanted anything so much.
He hummed under his breath and inhaled her scent through his nostrils. He passed his lips over her hair, just once, until she whimpered in agony. Her head lolled back on her neck. She couldn’t keep her eyes open, she needed this so bad.
She would have died of loneliness if he hadn’t crossed the last inch to her burning slit. Even then, he took his time. His tongue snaked between her lips to deliver one tiny lick to her engorged clit.
She arched her hips forward to catch that tongue, but it was already gone. He nosed down her pussy to the dripping leaves underneath. He flicked them apart and lapped up her nectar.
She took a fistful of his hair, but she couldn’t control herself. She rocked back and forth on heaving waves of pleasure. She sparkled all over at every touch of his tongue on her aching cunt.
He brought one hand around the front and slid it up her thighs to her crotch. He teased her lips apart and stirred around the opening. She heaved toward that hand and met his face coming in for another taste.
This time, he lashed her clit erect with firm strokes. He wouldn’t let her go this time. At the same instant, he explored deeper into her foaming cunt with two thick
fingers. Could she stand this? Could she remain upright with him touching her from both directions at once?
He sucked her clit between his teeth, and she cried out in sheer relief. He was doing it. He was sucking her and eating her and touching her, exactly the way she wanted him to. She didn’t have to wait anymore. She could let herself go.
His fingers squished through her puffy tissues, and her honey gushed into his hand. He growled in animal madness and dove deep into her delicious pussy for another mouthful. His fingers wouldn’t stop delving farther and farther into her dripping cavern. He would reach its limit in a second, and then what would happen?
She didn’t have time to wonder before it happened. He grazed her cervix and immediately withdrew. He swished his fingers through acres of magical spongy tissue and plunged in again.
All the time, he teased her clit to a hard nub. He licked it and tossed it back and forth until she sobbed for release. She thrust her bones against his face. She couldn’t stop herself. She needed this. She needed every inch of his fingers inside her. She needed him banging hard against her clit to drive her skyward.
His other hand tightened around her ass to crush her against his face. His fingers dug between her ass cheeks and excited her back door in ways she couldn’t understand. Before she could stop it, she crashed over a steep precipice into the most mind-blowing climax she ever experienced.
He took her rising cries as encouragement. He munched faster over her clit, and his fingers slithered through her wetness to excite all the secret places inside her channel. She sat down hard on his face and took his hand to its limit in her pussy. She let all her pent-up tension flow into his mouth. Only the work of holding herself upright stopped her from exploding into a million pieces.
The moment she tumbled down the other side of that monstrous climax and left off screaming for delighted sighs, he grabbed her under the armpits and heaved her back on the bed on top of him. He draped her ragged body over him and closed her in his arms.
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