She sank her fingers into his hair, her thighs tensing on either side of his head. She was mindless. Her head thrashed fitfully against the pillow, her legs straining more with each relentless stroke of his tongue.
Erienne had squeezed her eyes closed, grasping at every wild sensation, but her lashes lifted the instant she felt the slow slide of his finger inside her—first a tentative probing, and then, gradually, a sinuous rhythm, in and out, gliding against her wetness. Never did his tongue falter in its own dance on her, and suddenly the pleasure was too great, and her consciousness took flight in a riot of swirls and colors as her body shuddered beneath his sensual assault, utterly separate from her will.
When she came back to herself again, Collin’s hand was tenderly stroking her hair, his lips whispering against her ear things she never thought she’d hear him say again. Things about how much he cherished and wanted her, how much he’d missed her, and how badly he wanted to bury himself inside her.
He’d given her indescribable pleasure twice now, some kind of otherworldly miracle she hadn’t even known her body was capable of experiencing. But she wasn’t doing this solely for herself. He’d also been denied the sensual union they’d both wanted all these years.
She smiled and a surge of feminine power seized her as she leaned up on one elbow and pressed him back against the mattress. Then she slowly moved atop him, never breaking contact with his hot gaze. To her surprise, he capitulated, stretching his arms above his head, giving himself over to her completely. She kissed him deeply, enough to draw the breath from him. Then she moved down his body, the same path of delight and promise as he had hers, showering kisses on his taut abdomen until she reached the apex of his thighs. His long, hard manhood stood out from the dark hair there. She wrapped her fist around it just as she’d done at the creek.
He groaned and closed his eyes. “Erienne.”
She felt drunk with the power her touch had over him. They’d never been like this before. Naked, carefree, able to do whatever they wanted to each other, however they wanted to do it. She intended to take full advantage of this freedom.
She lowered herself until her mouth hovered over his member. Then her tongue darted out to lick the tip. His big, strong body shuddered. She smiled to herself.
She touched her tongue to the tip again, but this time, she slid her mouth over it too, sucked a little, and instantly realized she’d discovered something astonishing and perhaps primal. His body gave a wild buck and shiver, a helpless sound rumbling in his throat.
Which had to mean that he’d liked it.
“Tell me what to do to you, Collin,” she whispered fervently, letting his hot, hard flesh slip from her lips to slide along her cheek. “Tell me what you want.”
*
Collin flicked open his eyes and stared down at Erienne. He’d never felt such overwhelming desire. His dreams had never been this good. Erienne was in bed with him, nude and wanting him. No one would stop them. She’d asked him to show her what he wanted. That was a dream come true.
He didn’t trust himself to speak, so he merely took her hand and folded her fingers around his cock. Those cool, smooth, graceful fingers. Their touch nearly set him off like an untried lad. He swallowed and refocused, then guided her touch into a gentle slide, up and down.
Erienne caught on quickly, and soon his guiding hand fell away to clench itself into a fist at his side, his entire body poised on the edge of a climax, controlled only by his will to revel in having her and this moment.
And all the while, she watched her own ministrations in wide-eyed wonder, a smile of joy and marvel on her lips, as though finally awakened to the intimate gifts she could offer.
When his breath tore in ragged pants from his throat and his hips were pushing to meet every downward slip of her hand, he grabbed her fingers and pulled them away. But she’d already learned what he liked, and she quickly swept in to substitute her mouth, sucking him, resuming the devastating caress of a moment before with her lips, tongue, and even the slight graze of her teeth.
Collin clutched the pillow on either side of his head and bit the inside of his cheek hard, anything to keep from coming. He wanted to make love to her the right way, to feel her body quicken again, to bring her to climax again, to make her cry out his name. But he couldn’t summon the will to pull her mouth away from his aching cock.
Ah, God. Just one moment more. Just one sweet moment more. Or two.
Erienne clenched his cock in her fist and dragged her lips up and down the length, her tongue mapping the ridges and texture of him. When she took the tip into her mouth again, as deeply as she could, his hips arched off the mattress and nearly tumbled her off the bed.
“Jesus,” he groaned, and with that, he broke the spell, grasped her around the waist and drew her fully atop him, at last regaining control.
They rolled on the mattress until she was beneath him again, and he settled in the cradle between her legs.
“I want you,” he said, kissing her cheek, her ear, her neck.
“I want you too,” she breathed, tilting her head back to grant him better access to her tender skin.
Collin lifted on one knee, nudged her thighs farther apart, and positioned himself above her, his cock probing her wet heat. “Are you certain, Erienne?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Take me.”
He closed his eyes, and without preamble slid slowly but determinedly into her wet warmth.
Halfway, he paused, reading the stutter of her exhalations against his ear, counting the wild hammer of her heartbeats against his own chest. He let his lips wander over her cheek, her mouth, her forehead.
Comforting. Waiting.
Only when her fingertips, which had been digging hard into the muscles of his back, relaxed ever so slightly, did he give a last firm thrust and sink to the hilt within her.
He lifted his head to read her features. “Did it hurt?” he asked softly.
She rolled her eyes thoughtfully, as though considering. “Just a pinch.” Then she smiled.
That humor faded into pleasure-pain when he began to move inside her. She moaned, her lashes slid closed, and soon her limbs encircled him, holding him closer as his hips levered against hers, pushing, pressing, arching against her.
It took every ounce of discipline not to come, but he was determined to know the rise and quake of her body in climax yet again. His hand slid between them and he found the flashpoint of her pleasure with a single fingertip, drawing circles, drawing her toward ecstasy, even as he balanced on the edge of his own completion.
At last—and far more quickly than he could have guessed it could happen—Erienne’s hands clenched against his shoulders and she arched beneath him. Her entire body went rigid, her ragged pants momentarily silent, and then she came in a rush, shuddered wildly, and cried his name against his ear.
Only when her limbs slackened around him did he let his body drive itself inside her as it sought by nature, pumping into her again and again, until he too, was swept into sweet oblivion.
They lay like the dead for a long minute, each struggling to regain breath, each loath to draw apart, though perspiration made their skin slick and sticky, and Collin’s arm had gone numb beneath Erienne’s back.
At last she shifted a little beneath him, and he slipped to the side and instantly regained their embrace, wrapped his arms around her, and rested his head in the fragrant crook of her neck. A huge, exhausted sigh escaped both of them simultaneously, one of satiation, a release of years of wanting and tension and grief and confusion. It was all behind them now. He never wanted to let her go again.
He would tell her in the morning.
Chapter Seventeen