Page 41 of Win Me, My Lord (All’s Fair in Love and Racing #5)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

A nervy tremble fizzing through her, Artemis let her thighs fall open.

“I want you …”

She could stop there, really.

I want you.

No other words necessary.

But this was a game, and those three words weren’t.

“I want you to skim your tongue along the inside of my thigh.”

The black of his pupils expanded and pushed irises into thin bands of gold— desire. “Which one?”

She lifted her left leg and dug her heel into a crevice in the stone. “This one.”

It wasn’t only access she offered him, but a view, too. Something dark and sinuous passed behind his eyes. She shivered.

He shifted forward. “Your legs are one of God’s most magnificent creations,” he said, taking her thigh in hand to steady it as he bent and touched his tongue to that sensitive flesh. So warm and soft, yet firm— purposeful —as he took his time inching up her thigh.

When her breath wasn’t caught in her lungs, it was sighing and sometimes whimpering.

So utterly left unattended, her sex was bereft.

It craved … it ached … for what was so close …

and yet would remain so far away if she didn’t give voice to her want.

He would give her everything, but she had to say … “I want your fingers to …”

Oh, could she say it?

Oh, could she not say it?

“I want your fingers to touch me there .” She had yet another want to voice. “And I want one to enter me.”

Oh, the wicked smile that curved his mouth as he said, “I live to obey.”

Artemis found parts of her springing to life, responding to this reciprocity between them, as she planted her hands behind her and rested back, her body open to him. Their gazes locked, his fingers found her, brushing across her slit, wet and swollen with desire.

A long moan poured from her. “I want you to kiss me while you touch me.”

Oh, the wicked smile that curled about his mouth.

He angled forward, and she was able to take one last sip of air—air that was warm and musky and Bran —before his mouth was on hers, lips firm and soft, as one of his long, rough fingers pushed inside her. She groaned into his mouth, their tongues tangling.

She’d asked for this.

She wanted this.

Could it truly be this easy to have what her heart desired?

She tore her mouth from his, ablaze with wanting that built and wanted more and more and more.

“I want you to unbutton my pelisse—” She gasped as his finger moved inside her and found a spot.

Oh , that felt so good . “And pull down my bodice and—” Oh .

Relentless, his finger stroked her, moving faster and somehow with more intention. “And suck my breasts, Bran.”

A low, resonant chuckle sounded against her neck. “Anything you want, Artemis,” he murmured against her throat. With his other hand, he reached up and expertly flicked the three buttons of her pelisse open.

Her body was a symphony of sensation—his mouth moving down her décolletage …

his finger working her quim … intensity building …

veins shot through with sparks of light.

He slid a nipple into his mouth—his tongue swirling around the tip before he, oh , sucked, and release burst through her in a sudden crescendo.

A ragged cry scraped across her throat as her sex pulsed around his talented finger and she grabbed hold of his hair, begging him not to stop— not yet .

The pleasure that poured through her was too much and not enough, exquisite and sublime, yet so deeply of the body— carnal .

Golden eyes lifted and met hers, her pleasured nipple in his mouth. He released it and gave it one parting lick. Oh. The climax that had overtaken her was powerful enough to shatter the world to bits, but her wanting …

It wasn’t yet satisfied.

“Bran,” she said, breathless and certain and somehow both very much inside herself and outside herself, “I want you to … fuck … me.”

Who was she that she could speak such words—and that one word, in particular?

Fuck.

A simple, four-letter word that could encapsulate the whole of human experience in all its bald-faced ugliness and beauty. For she had no doubt, the fucking Bran was about to deliver to her would be beautiful, too.

He closed the remaining distance between their bodies, and her arms twined about his neck, her nipples pressing into his hard chest, as he reached around and grabbed her bottom, pulling her to the edge of the stone.

His cock, so erect and so perfect, grazed her quim and she went trembly with desire.

He reached up, took her hand in his, and dragged it down his body—fuzzed, muscled chest …

taut, ridged stomach … lower … thick, erect cock.

He wrapped her fingers around that hard length and said against her mouth, “Is this what you want?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice that of an animal being, nearly feral with desire. “I want your cock inside me.”

How naughty—how free —she felt.

Here, with Bran, she could speak her wants.

She could be brazen.

She could be wanton.

She could abandon herself and inhabit this other Artemis.

The Artemis only he knew.

Seized by impatience and utter need, she squeezed his shaft and now it was him groaning, as she ground impatiently against him.

He nipped her neck, sucking that tender skin, as she positioned his crown at her sex.

Slowly, intentionally, she angled her hips and slid onto him, an …

inch … at … a … time. One hand around his neck, the other clutching his arse, she moved on him, even as he pushed yet deeper inside her until she felt she couldn’t take any more—then he went yet deeper.

“Oh, Bran,” she gasped, clutching him and holding on as if for dear life as he proceeded to— oh , that word again, but there was no help for it—fuck her.

Relentless and intense, he drove into her and her body changed its mind.

No longer was he too much.

She wanted more and more and more of him— ravenous .

She couldn’t take it, then she could.

Higher, he took her as he gave her what she wanted. Yet … “I want you to take what you want.”

She wanted that, too.

If this act was to be a full expression of her, then it needed to be a full expression of him, as well.

His hand tightened at the nape of her neck, holding her steady, and with his other hand, he reached under her knee, holding her leg suspended, her hips tilted, as he drove into her with an intentionality, hard and deep. She was a being transformed—as was he. Animal and intimate, that was this act.

Sensation pooled deep in her sex and gathered into itself. “Oh, Bran,” she gasped. “Bran, I’m about to?—”

Her breath caught in her throat. Release held her in its thrall, teasing just out of reach, until …

it broke, shattering her into a million pieces.

For the second time this morning, she cried out with only Nature to bear witness to her ecstasy.

He pulled her to him, closer, his ragged breath hot on her neck, as climax caught him in its grip and swept him up, his strokes now punishing and wild as he pumped his release into her.

By increments, he slowed, but did not separate from her. Instead, he gathered her even tighter to him.

The suggestion entered her pleasure-hazed mind that he might never let her go.

And she might hope he wouldn’t.

Bran had no concern for the race of his heart or the pounding of the blood through his veins or the dull throbbing in his right hip.

Such trivialities were concerns of the body and would sort themselves out soon enough.

In this transcendent air only she and he mattered.

Artemis wanted, and he gave.

It was an arrangement that suited him—suited them .

And beyond this act of coupling, he wanted to give her more.

Not yet.

He couldn’t speak his want just yet.

In the past, they’d been impulsive—and they hadn’t lasted.

Now, impulse wouldn’t be his guide.

Now, he knew better than to make reckless proclamations in the heady wake of coupling.

He knew what he wanted— Artemis .

Further, he knew she wanted him—and not only in the physical sense.

But the question remained—did she want him enough?

For a very solid obstacle stood in their path—the duchess.

Once, she’d prevailed.

Now, he understood she still possessed the will to part them.

The cool blue glint of her eye when their gazes met in the drawing room had made that will all too abundantly clear.

Really, it came down to Artemis.

She would have to defy her mother if he and she were to have a future.

The question was deceptively simple.

Could she?

But he wouldn’t speak of that now.

Not with her soft, sated, and yielding in his arms.

He kissed one heavy, sweet breast, then the other, before tugging chemise and dress up and over them. He kissed her clavicle and her throat, then he found her mouth and kissed her love-crushed lips until his cock returned to half-mast.

“Bran,” she exhaled.

He pulled back, and their eyes met, and he saw the world there in her eyes— satiety … sweetness … sunshine … wanting … yearning … curiosity … “Artemis,” he began, “what do you want at this very moment?”

He shouldn’t have asked.

It was a question led by impulse and his own want.

Her eyebrows gathered, and she opened her mouth, his fate on her tongue.

Before she could speak, a loud, insistent series of barks sounded in the near distance. She startled, and the moment passed—his fate stayed.

Her head whipped around. “Bathsheba!” she called out. Bran released her and glided back into the water. She scrambled to her feet, her gaze casting about. “Bathsheba!”

At last, the dog came bounding from the woods, tongue lolling and tail wagging from her adventure. A laugh bubbled up and spilled over from Artemis. “Finished giving the squirrels a fright, old girl?”

Relief pulsed through Bran.

Now wasn’t the moment for fated conversations.

But the time was coming— soon .

Artemis reached for a stocking, and Bran took that as his cue to dress. He waded over to the rocks where he’d left his clothes in a neat pile. As he stepped out of the water, there it was—the heavy return of gravity in his body, the weight a dull pain in his right leg. Familiar, but also not.

The pain wasn’t different.

He was different. Or perhaps he was able to view it from a different angle. He wasn’t sure. But one thing he did know was that it felt somehow alleviated.

From the edge of his vision, he caught the subtle movement of Artemis’s head. She was sneaking glances his way.

Let her.

Again, there was his cock beginning to throb into life.

Once he’d pulled his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers, he met her gaze and lifted a single eyebrow as if to say, Like what you see?

Caught out, she blushed and turned on her heel. The sound of laughter drifted over her shoulder as she made her way to the tree where her horse was tethered.

He followed. Though he’d vowed not to let impulse be his guide, he found his mouth opening to speak aloud an idea that hadn’t yet fully formed in his mind. “What if …”

She glanced over her shoulder, her brow lifted in question. “ What if? ”

“What if we rode together?”

The instant the words were out of his mouth, his body demanded he take them back. His heart hammered and his chest went tight and sweat pinpricked every inch of his skin.

Artemis’s brow gathered. “Are you certain?”

He nodded. “Yes.” No. “Quite.” Not.

Yet he wanted this.

He wanted to ride.

What made it feel safe was that Artemis would be there with him.

“I’ll sit behind you,” he said.

She gave him a long look, then nodded. “I’ll need your assistance.” Without a block, it would otherwise be impossible for her to mount.

He came behind her and placed his hands on her waist as she reached for the pommel of the saddle. Then he was lifting her until she could get her boot into the stirrup and gain her seat in the sidesaddle. From her perch, she said, “You don’t have to do this.”

A strange logic presented itself to him. Somehow, that permission to not do what he’d determined to do made it possible for him to do it. He didn’t understand why this helped, only that it did. It created a freedom of choice in his mind.

He reached up and grabbed hold of the saddle, placing his left boot into the stirrup and praying his right leg would hold strong enough for him to launch off the ground. Then, within the space of one second and the next, he was mounted.

His heart thundered in his chest

A river of sweat poured down his spine.

And he was sitting a horse.

“Are you all right?”

“Aye.”

“Grab my waist.”

His hands slid around her firm waist, and she clicked her tongue—and they were moving through the woods.

He was riding.

He understood he wasn’t healed through some mystical force.

No miracle had transpired today.

But what had was understanding and acceptance—hers of him … his of himself.

And perhaps it was the latter that was most important.

That he understand himself.

Which could possibly lead to an acceptance.

It was a first step.

And that this first step toward reclaiming an essential part of himself was with Artemis by his side was no accident.

It was fate.

They emerged from the shadowed woods lining the stream and the rolling countryside expanded before them.

A new day had begun.

He didn’t care that it was the most obvious metaphor poet ever put to paper.

He felt it deeply— profoundly .

So it wasn’t a profound metaphor.

But it was a profound feeling.

This woman gathered in his arms was his fate.

And he was done fighting fate.