Elodie shrugged awkwardly. "Then I would have died loving you, but never having had you. You were not mine to love."
Clay kissed Elodie everywhere he could find skin. He licked his way down her neck across her collarbone. He even kissed her cast, then licked each of the fingers that protruded from it. He suckled each deep pink nipple while his hands gently drifted down her sides. He followed the line of her body with his mouth, carefully spreading her thighs, arranging her casted leg to one side so that it was relatively comfortable. Then he licked and kissed his way up her nude leg, from the sole of her foot, up the inside of her calf to the inside of her thigh, where he lingered for a while. She moved against him, her hips raising, seeking the warm hardness of him.
He positioned himself between her legs, looking up at her. Elodie's eyes were slits, her chest rising and falling with her panting breath. Clay took two of his fingers and pressed them against her already weeping slit, pushing just slightly.
Elodie groaned as those insistent fingers found their way inside her, tugging and stretching her open, not hurting at all, but making every nerve ending on their way riot as he deliberately rubbed against them. And when he leaned forward and pressed his mouth over her pleasure center, she nearly screamed.
Elodie wanted to arch and grind herself against him, but she physically couldn't do it. Instead, she would be subjected to his timetable.
And he was going to take it slow.
Very slow.
Clay kept his fingers inside her, rocking them back and forth slowly while his mouth claimed all of the area he could, sensitizing it with his tongue. Finally, his lips settled back where she'd been crying for them to be, and Elodie nearly went off like a rocket, but he didn't stay there, mouthing her lovingly, long enough for her to get to where she wanted to be.
He was deliberately teasing her, and it was driving her crazy. "Clay, please!"
"Please what, my love?"
Elodie knew she was blushing bright red already just because of where he was. She'd never—well, rarely—pictured him between her legs, taking her in his mouth as he was. "Stay put! Please, I need to—"
"To what, Elodie?" He grinned evilly up at her.
"You know!" She was much too old-school to be able to say it. She just couldn't.
His head dipped again and she felt the ache of her unfulfilled need double, until she thought she would either die, or orgasm, one or the other.
"I know what, darling? Tell me what you want, and I just might give it to you."
She growled in exasperation. That nasty man was going to make her say it out loud. "I-I want to come. Please. I need to. I have to!"
"Your wish is my command, milady," he replied, and set about his wonderful task.
Those two fingers thrust into her sharply, in a demanding, forceful rhythm, as his tongue coaxed her little bud out of its hood, never letting up, never relenting, until she felt a thousand suns burst within her and began to buck and writhe fervently, despite her limitations.
Clay adjusted himself until he was above her. Just by wiggling a little, he was able to make contact with her sweetness, and slid inside her with the gentlest of pushes.
Elodie nearly sat straight up when he rasped her oversensitive flesh, but then sighed back down again at his forthright possession.
This was where she'd wanted to be all her life—to be Clay's. To be his wife. To love him and be loved by him.
There was nothing more she would ever ask for in life.
Once Clay had exploded within her, then collapsed onto the pillow, Elodie closed her eyes, which had once again filled with tears, and sent a prayer of thanks up to April, wherever she was, for loving her enough to give her Clay.
Her mother always said that people come and go in your life, but family is forever. Love your family, cherish your family, always put your family first. Because, in the end, that is all you really ever have. But Elodie West found out the hard way that there was no such thing as forever, that the wise words of her mother were not the truth. Forever was a myth, a myth that covered up the dark and painful truth of life. A sad and harsh belief, yes, but Elodie's only forever had been being alone since the death of her sister… until now. Finally, there was a light in that darkness. A bright light leading her to a love, a hope, a new beginning. As if a gift of forever was finally being handed to her, Elodie knew it was time to accept it.
As if Clay could read her mind, he whispered, "This is right, Elodie. You and me… forever."
"Yes, I know that now."
He kissed her softly, and added, "Our new forever."
The End
Note from the authors:
If you liked reading this collaboration between Carolyn Faulkner and Alta Hensley, please check out their other collaborated story, Captured by Time. It's a time travel, western romance you won't want to miss.
Captured by Time - Chapter One