Page 26 of The Autumn Wife (King’s Girls #3)

Had she ever really lived?

The thought rose like a spark from a campfire, winking out before Cecile could gather the mental clarity to seek an answer.

There would be time enough for contemplation later.

Right now, delicious sensation rippled through her body everyplace where their bodies touched, convening on a low ache that only Theo could satisfy.

“The shift,” he whispered. “Take it off.”

She did as he bade, seizing handfuls of the cambric.

As she lifted it, the warmth coming from the iron stove painted the side of her leg higher and higher.

She lost sight of Theo as she pulled the gathered fabric over her head, but she heard his intake of breath as she exposed herself and tossed the cloud of fabric away.

Those eyes were as green as the shallows of the river where she and Etienne had once lived, calm waters reflecting sunlight.

Theo went speechless, a muscle in his cheek flexing, his Adam’s apple bobbing, his breathing quickening.

Under that hungry perusal, she no longer felt an urge to hide herself or cower. She pulled her shoulders back, giving her breasts a prouder tilt as the nipples beaded into a tingling tightness. She swayed, silently willing him to lay his fingers upon the path his eyes had blazed.

As his gaze reached her hips, he paused and his expression darkened.

She wondered why—and then flinched. She’d forgotten about the array of burn scars.

There was no way to cover them when she was naked.

A thought shot through her mind. Please don’t ask.

Don’t bring that monster into this room, into this sacred moment.

She grasped Theo’s hand, urged his fingers open, and placed his callused palm against her scarred hip.

“It was a long time ago. That’s…over.” She flattened her hand over his. “The scars are long healed.”

“The physical ones are.” He stretched his fingers to cover as many as he could. “But wounds as cruel as these must run deep.”

He dropped to a knee, seized her hips, and replaced his hand with his lips. She held his shoulders for balance, quivering as he kissed each scar.

Once done, he shifted, pressing his forehead against her abdomen with a groan, kissing the button of her navel.

His fingers dug deeper into her hips. “I will never hurt you, Ceci.”

“I know.” She loved that he used the pet name. The sound of it chimed through her.

“No pain,” he muttered. “Only pleasure.”

Then he dipped his head—and his lips—lower.

The world spun. She threw her head back with a gasp. Her legs lost feeling—only the grip of his hands on her hips held her upright. She muffled the shout shooting up her throat, but a sound slipped out anyway, strangled and hardly human.

“They can’t hear us at the cabin, not with the storm raging.” He spoke the words against her body, and she could feel his warm breath on her tender inner thigh. “Make all the noise you want.”

At his command, she dropped all attempts at control. As he resumed his wet kisses, hungry cries ripped up her throat, building with the wave of sensation uncoiling from the place where he was rolling his tongue, threatening to launch her senses beyond the rafters—beyond the stars.

And then, all of a sudden, did.

Sometime during the flight, he slid up to his feet.

She collapsed in his arms as she floated down from the pleasure he’d given her.

Slowly, she became aware of the scent of resinous pine and winter cold and cut maple clinging to his shirt, a male scent that filled her head as strength returned to her knees.

She tilted her head back to witness the triumphant smile he bestowed upon her. His river-green eyes gleamed bright, the fire lighting them gold. He pushed her hair off her brow and kissed the center of her forehead, and she wondered how she’d ever believed this gentle, beautiful man was a brute.

“As passionate as you are beautiful,” he whispered, his fingers teasing her chin up. “Will you admit now that I was right about the convent?”

A laugh bubbled out of her.

It had always been a desperate idea.

“I may need more convincing,” she teased, running a finger down the linen weave of his shirt. “Take this off.”

A ripple passed over his face. “Ceci,” he whispered, bending his head close. “Maybe we should—”

“The breeches, too.”

A light flared in his eyes. His jaw shifted as he searched for words. “Think a moment. You know I’m leav—”

“I want more, Theo. I want everything.”

His gaze flared. She glimpsed the hungry wolf behind his control and ached to see him as unleashed as she had been. She knew this delight would be only a night. She would savor every hour, every minute, and remember it for a lifetime.

Because this was more than passion.

This was Theo, the man she loved.

He tugged his shirt from the waistband of his breeches.

She’d seen Theo shirtless on the scaffolding many times, trying in vain not to gape at his wide, gleaming shoulders.

Now she saw up close the hard plates of his chest and the lines of demarcation on his abdomen.

She gave in to her most primitive urge to run her fingertips over the ridges and valleys of those swellings.

Then she switched her fingers for her lips.

His chest and abdomen tightened against her mouth in a delightful, quivering way.

His skin was so hot, a little salty. A faint spray of dark hair surrounded his flat nipples, to which she gave some attention.

When he groaned, a thrill shimmied through her.

Was one night going to be enough to explore him, to discover all the ways they could love?

With new boldness, she ran a finger into the groove that led to his navel, and then lower still, over the trail of dark hair.

He gripped her hand, stopping its progress.

She glanced up at him to find his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw tight, his lips pressed together. The rugged, raw beauty of his face showed the pleasure she was giving him. Her overworked heart made a ragged leap. To think she had such power.

He muttered, “I’ll take off the breeches later.”

When he opened his eyes, his gaze bordered on feral. With a dip, he slid an arm around her waist and thrust her up against him, coming in for a hard kiss, sealing their lips. Lifting her, he moved away from the warmth of the fire.

A breeze siphoned through the walls and slid over her naked body in ways that made her tingle. He leaned down and tossed her onto a pillow-and-blanket-strewn bed. With the firelight behind him, his face was half light, half shadow as he crouched beside her.

Her knees slid open—the boldness of that thrilled her. She ached for more than his kisses, but he slapped a hand on one of her knees to keep her still.

“We’ll come to that.” His breathing came harsh. “I want you to be ready.”

“Theo—”

“Let me touch you. All over. Yes?”

Yes yes yes yes yes. She seized his hand, intending to place it on her breast, but he resisted her pull.

“I’ve a stonemason’s hands.” He opened his palm so she could see the calluses and ridges. “Mortar is caustic. It hardens the skin—”

“I’m not that delicate.”

“In my eyes, you are.” He moved to the stove to dip a linen in a water bucket close to the fire’s warmth. He came back, slipped a hip on the pallet, and lay the damp linen against her collarbone.

“Too cold, too hot?”

The linen felt as warm as a kiss. “Perfect.”

Flattening his hand behind the damp cloth, he swept it into the hollow of her throat and then along the line of one collarbone. She swallowed hard, a burn of eagerness twining with a prickle of anticipation.

The moisture left in its wake cooled her skin. He repeated the motion on her left side, drawing the same warm path over her neck with a gentle stroke. He lay the warm cloth upon her breast, and those strangled noises threatened in her throat again.

“You fit in my hand,” he murmured, “so perfectly. Your breast belongs in my grip.”

When he squeezed gently, she arched her back, driving her nipple against his palm. Her breasts felt heavy, full and tender—and more so, when Theo removed his hand to blow upon the damp fabric separating her skin from his tongue.

“Open your eyes,” Theo commanded. “Look at me while I touch you.”

Her eyelids were lead-heavy, but she did as he bade, watching him as he slid the cloth over her ribs, around the indentation of her waist, to linger for a moment on her lower belly, just below her navel.

He paused there, looking her over for a painfully long time.

Her thighs trembled with new ferocity. She bent a knee, then laid it flat, only to bend the other, the ache growing and, at the same time, sharpening to a point.

She slid her own hands under her back to prevent herself from reaching down to ease that ache.

For she saw, stiff inside his breeches, the straining member he would fill her body with, before this night was over.

In that way, Theo would bring her the pleasure she craved.

She wasn’t sure she could wait.

“Theo.”

As if on command, he slid the cloth lower, between her thighs, pressing his fingers into the ache.

She arched against his touch as he moved in gentle strokes.

Little bolts of lightning shot through her.

She vibrated along with a crack of thunder outside.

He increased the pressure so she felt, beyond the linen weave, the ridges of the calluses on the pads of his fingers, then she pressed her head against the pallet and shouted as she became, once again, a writhing creature of light and fire.

Sometime later, the moisture of the linen cloth cooling, she managed to blink her eyes open. Theo, with a hip on the pallet, bore an intense, wondrous expression on his face.

She stuttered, “D-did I… Did I scream?”

“A little.” The corners of his eyes crinkled. “I’ll be making you scream louder than that before this night is through.”

She bit her lower lip, lost for words.

“Your skin flushes after your pleasure. You moan and throw your arms over your head.” His brows twitched as he shook his head. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

A weakness rippled through her, in body and spirit.

Had he bathed her in warmed honey, she couldn’t feel more treasured.

She gathered what strength remained to rise to a sitting position so she could touch his jaw.

How could it be that she would find a man who was kind, patient and loving when she had felt, for so long, forsaken by both God and man? Was she dreaming? Would she wake up?

How could she ever let him go?

“No more teasing.” She surged close to his beautiful face and offered her lips. “I want you inside me.”