He leaned in and brushed a kiss across her cheek. “I love you, Layla Chouset. Tell me again that you love me, too.”
“I love you, Duff Stewart,” she murmured against his neck. “It may take me a while to learn to trust in it completely, and I’ll just apologize in advance for that.”
“Don’t apologize. Just promise me you’ll learn to like it.”
She let out a small laugh. “I do like it, even if it’s not exactly a familiar feeling.” Then, her heart leaping in her chest, she pulled back and twined her hands behind Duff’s thick neck, looking into his eyes. “Duff. I thought I’d loved before, but it wasn’t . . . this.”
“Yeah. It’s never been this. Only with you.”
“I just can’t help thinking that it’s us. The damaged ones.”
His face sobered. “Maybe not anymore. Or maybe that makes us exactly the right ones for each other. Now come here and kiss me, woman.”
She went soft and loose against him as he pulled her into his arms, and when his mouth came down on hers it was as if something in her was set free. Everything felt different with him, and different now than it had been before. But the one thing that hadn’t changed was the chemistry between them.
He deepened the kiss, his hot, silky tongue exploring her mouth, passion in every press of his lips, in the way he held her. She pressed up against him—she couldn’t get close enough—and sighed in disappointment when he pulled away. But it was only so he could stand up and lift her in his arms so he could carry her to the bedroom. There he laid her down gently on the bed, and undressed her slowly. His hands were so sweet on her skin, and she moaned in pleasure when he stroked her breasts. She realized then what she’d felt for the last week or so, and understood how much more sensitive being pregnant had made her. But her nipples were hard beneath his fingertips, aching in the most delicious way. He paused to draw his shirt over his head, and she hungrily took in the sight of his beautiful body—the impossibly broad shoulders and heavily built chest. His tattoos, which were like art on his fair skin. And the metal piercing his nipple, which always seemed insanely hot to her.
She parted her thighs without being asked, and one corner of his lush mouth crooked in a smile as he bent over her to kiss his way down her body. Pausing at her stomach, he circled his tongue around her navel.
“Your skin tastes like honey. Have I ever told you that?”
“I don’t think so,” she answered.
“Well, it does. I plan to tell you every day.”
“Like the flowers.”
“Hmm? You know what part of you tastes the most like honey, princess?”
“I’m hoping you’ll show me.”
He ran his hands over her thighs, then pushed them farther apart, and she loved being so open to him, as she always did. When he licked her, pleasure moved through her like liquid heat, and she wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t stop looking at his muscled shoulders bunched between her thighs.
He licked her again, running his tongue up her wet, ready slit, and she needed to come immediately.
“Duff . . . I need to . . . May I?”
“Mmm, yes. Now, if you like. Again in two minutes. I’ll stay here forever if you want me to.”
“Yes, please,” she murmured as he went back to work, his lovely mouth sucking at her tender flesh.
In moments her climax began, and it was like a warm wave, washing over her like water, then building into a tidal wave that carried her off, out of her head, as she shivered, filled with pleasure. Filled with joy. Only his touch brought her back to earth as he kissed her inner thighs, kneading her flesh with his hands.
“That was damn beautiful,” he said. “Again, my lovely. My love.”
He bent his head and this time he sucked her clitoris right into his mouth and held it there while he swirled his tongue over the tip. Pleasure built so fast she could barely comprehend what was happening before the waves crashed over her again, and she came in a liquid torrent of heat and need and emotion.
Before it was over, she panted, “More, Duff.”
“Anything for you,” he told her.
Once more he teased her to impossible heights with his clever mouth, his tongue pushing inside her while he massaged her swollen clit with his thumbs. And again passion built so quickly she barely had time to realize she was coming; then suddenly she was. She cried out, over and over, her voice going hoarse as her sex squeezed around his hot, wet tongue inside her, leaving her panting.
“Oh, God, Duff. I feel as if I could come forever.”
“I’m happy to make that happen, love.”
Reaching down, her fingers scrabbled at his shoulders. “Take your pants off and make it happen with you inside me,” she begged.
He raised himself up, and his crooked grin was back. So were his dimples. “Anything for you,” he repeated.
As he stood to pull his boots and jeans off, she had a moment to consider what he’d said. But it didn’t make him any less her Dominant. It didn’t mean she was any less his submissive. As he slid over her body, she said, “Duff? I’m yours, you know.”
“Yes,” he said, slipping her thighs over his.
“No, I mean, I’m really yours. I belong to you.”
He held himself over her, watching her face. His brows drew together; then he smiled, and it was a beautiful thing. “Yeah, you are. Mine, lovely. Mine.”
“Tell me again,” she begged.
He held her face cupped in his hand and said, “You belong to me. I won’t have it any other way. And when you’re ready, you’ll wear my collar.”
She would have cried if she hadn’t been so deliriously happy. “I didn’t know until this moment that it’s exactly what I wanted.”