Page 20 of One Jewel-tide Scandal (Singular Sensation #10.5)

Charlotte tugged the front shirttails from his breeches, and when she put her hands on his bare skin, he hissed from the contrast of feelings suddenly coursing over him. “I want to see you, taste you, learn your secrets.”

“We have time enough for all of that.” He was moments away from exploding, but he wanted to prolong the foreplay, to feel her satiny skin against his.

Because he couldn’t wait, he glided a hand between her thighs.

When she gasped and wriggled her hips, he continued his exploration until his fingers furrowed into the curls hiding the swollen bud at her center.

“Oh, mmm…” Her eyes briefly closed, and she moistened her lips. “Touch me.”

With a groan, Alex once more claimed her lips for the sheer joy of kissing her.

With his free hand, he plucked a few pins from her hair and sighed as the mass tumbled down about her shoulders and back.

Not for the first time did he marvel at the fact that she was his.

Once he spread open those delicate layers of flesh, he strummed his fingers along that all-important tiny button, and as she gyrated her hips against his hand, he continued to kiss her, taking every sound of pleasure into himself, gathering them all as if they were the finest jewels.

Perhaps they were, for he had been a thief, after all.

“I want to bring you to that brink, see you go over,” he whispered against the delicate shell of her ear. “I have a feeling you’ve been waiting far too long for just that.”

“Oh, I…” When Charlotte hit release, it was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen.

Perhaps she’d been far too primed for far too long, but she threw back her head and arched her spine while grinding her hips into his.

To know that he’d done that to her, stole his breath.

While she was still lost to bliss, he played with her nipples until he’d brought her to the edge once more.

“Alex!” Damn, but she was more than ready, for his fingers glided through that slickness between her thighs.

He nibbled the side of her neck. “I cannot wait to have you laid out in my bed, dressed only in that necklace.”

“You promised we would couple here,” she countered, her dulcet tones breathless. “And you are still clothed.”

“True.” When he withdrew his hand from between her thighs, she protested.

Vigorously.

“No!” Charlotte’s hands were at his frontfalls, pulling, yanking the buttons from their holes.

“I will explode if you don’t finish me.” The petulant annoyance in her voice tugged a grin from him.

“I have dreamed of this for far too long, and when I met you I…” A blush stained her cheeks in the dim light.

“I thought I’d finally found a man who could make me feel like a real woman. ”

“Oh, sweeting.” That was how it had been since he’d first met her, that they had been matched somewhere in the great expanse of universe or perhaps the heavens. “Let me.” He batted her hand away in order to complete the task of freeing his hardened shaft.

“I can hardly wait for us to begin our life together.” Her eyes twinkled with wicked promise. “For now, I want you to make me scream.”

Oh, God. Alex groaned. There was every possibility he wouldn’t survive his first year of marriage if they kept up this pace. “I will try my best.” Though he hadn’t had any issues with satisfying women before.

“Good.” She nipped at his chin, pressed tiny kisses to his cheeks, his forehead, the side of his neck then finally claimed his lips, and he was lost.

It was amazing how rapidly he’d fallen down that slippery slope and still did, continually going tip over tail in a relationship that had managed to surprise him since the first.

“I feel so damned fortunate.” Encouraging her to rise onto her knees, he guided the head of his member to her opening.

She had done this to him, shown him there was another way, that there was hope, that he did have a purpose in life after all.

As she slowly, so damned slowly, impaled herself on his length, a shuddering sigh left his throat.

Would that he never forgot how grateful he was for this chance.

“Oh, this is so different, such a surprise.”

“And you are much like an innocent, Charlotte.”

“Yes. Never again. I will experience all that life has to offer.” Up and down, she moved her body, sliding with exquisite perfection along his shaft, over and over with her gaze holding his with each pass while he guided her with his hands on her hips.

Her breath came in small pants, and she frowned.

“Do you not enjoy intercourse?” That would complicate things.

“I do, of course, but I need to feel you more deeply.” Desire mixed with love in the lake-blue depths of her eyes. Was she even aware that she’d let down her guard? “Show me that you will always protect me, take care of me, that you might have chosen me even if there wasn’t a snowstorm.”

“You know I will.” He kissed her, claimed her mouth with urgent passion.

“And there are no regrets.” As if she were made of the finest china, he urged her off his lap and helped her to lie back on the sofa.

He was primed and ready to explode. The flush on her chest and cheeks was darling, her spread legs as he followed her down were divine, but it was that soft smile she gave him and the sparkle in her eyes that had him once more tumbling… falling.

“No woolgathering, Tattingham.” She lifted her arms and pulled him close, and there was the easy feeling of homecoming again. “Love me.”

“As if I could do anything else.” Alex settled between her splayed knees, planted his elbows on either side of her to encompass her body within the cage of his arms while holding her head in his palms. “Is this what you need?” With a powerful thrust of his hips, he speared into her, burying himself in her tight heat so deep he didn’t want to find his way out.

“Yes!” A sigh escaped her as she wrapped her arms about his shoulders and held his hips between her knees. “Oh, yes. So different, so… satisfying.”

There was no more need for words. Alex set out to worship her body with his, to show her how much he adored her, and that he couldn’t wait to begin their life together.

Again and again, he stroked into her, losing himself in the wonder of his new fiancée, the countess who had brought him up to scratch.

She held him close and that caring shook him to his very foundations.

With the subtle tightening of her fingers and legs, she told him where she needed him to be.

And still he pushed into her, couldn’t have enough.

She is mine.

When emotions were included in the act, when he’d finally found where he belonged, the act surpassed anything he’d ever experienced.

As he stared into her eyes and she gazed back with all the trust in the world, a piece of his soul flew into her keeping, and with a gasp he realized he had received the same from her.

She was the piece he’d unconsciously been missing since he came home from the war, when he’d lived an average life, and it was damned overwhelming to feel whole again.

In her, he felt… extraordinary.

Emotions clogged his throat. Alex pressed his forehead to hers, cradled her to him as best he could while he continued to claim her body.

When a moan escaped her, that precious sound broke the hold on his control.

Need tingled through his stones; his shaft pulsed with urgency.

He changed his rhythm, quickened his movements, and after delving a hand between them, played at her nubbin with varying degrees of friction with his fingers until she bucked beneath him.

He stroked into her harder, faster, deeper, almost demanding that she go over that edge ahead of him.

Because she’d never been given that option before.

“Alex!” Then she was gone. Charlotte slipped into bliss with a scream of pleasure that was as magnificent as the woman herself.

“Beautiful.” He kissed her, selfishly took her sounds of release into himself, and with another deep, powerful thrust, he joined her in pleasure. The swirling vortex sucked him under, and for the next few seconds, he was lost with her.

After minutes, hours, perhaps another lifetime, he came back to himself.

She clung tightly to him, and slowly he untangled their limbs.

In the process, he fell off the low sofa to land on his arse with a surprised chuckle just as one of the candle nubs snuffed out.

Immediately, the acrid scent of smoke filled the air.

She peered down at him with a smile that lit every chamber of his heart.

“Perhaps we should have gone upstairs after all.”

“Then the fall would have been from an even greater height.” And he doubted he would stop falling for some time to come.

He chuckled but scrambled to his knees. Leaning forward, he cupped her cheek and gently kissed her mouth.

“You have knocked me on my arse since that first day, and I’ve never recovered. ”

Slight concern shadowed her eyes and creased her brow. “Are you happy about that?”

“Wildly.” As soon as he tucked himself into his breeches and did up the buttons of his frontfalls, he joined her on the sofa, laying her legs across his lap and tried not to let her nakedness distract him further.

“We are going to do great things together, sweeting. I haven’t felt this sort of hope for far too many years. ”

“Me too. I feel like the door to my gilded prison has been opened and now I’m suddenly free.

” Charlotte pulled a wool blanket over herself, hiding her curves from view, then she resituated herself so that her head rested in his lap as she gazed up at him.

“I’m afraid I’ll soon be drunk on the possibilities. ”

“There is no harm in exploring the world unfurling before you.” From somewhere in the corridor, the longcase clock chimed the midnight hour. “Happy Christmas, Charlotte. Thank you for taking a chance on me.”

Her grin could rival the sun. “Happy Christmas, Alexander. Thank you for showing me how to live again.”

“Only because you are too vital a woman to bury yourself here.”

“I’m tempted to agree.” She smiled, took one of his hands, and placed a kiss on his palm. “I merely needed to find the right man and reason to change my mind.”

“Indeed.” His heart trembled. “I cannot wait to share the news with my friends.” And introduce her to them.

“Perhaps once the roads clear we could make our way to London, do a bit of research regarding real estate while waiting for you to gain the license.”

“Only if you are ready to leave this house. You have memories here…” What if she changed her mind?

“Honestly, I have been ready for some time. I just needed a reason to jump.” Those expressive eyes of her urged him closer. “I think I might love you, Alexander, and I couldn’t be happier.”

He grinned like a fool. “God I can’t wait to marry you.”

Excitement was in his future as well as adventure, and this time he wouldn’t meet it as an average, dull man but as a man with everything he’d ever wanted held in the palm of his hand.

Perhaps Christmastide was a time of miracles, after all.