She felt him jerk and throb, felt the tightening, the imminence of his climax.
“God! Ginger!” he yelled, thrusting upward twice into her mouth before finding his release. She sucked him lightly, milking him until his body thudded back onto the mattress and he sighed long and low and deep with pleasure.
Finally she slid her lips up to his tip, kissing it gently before sitting up. His arm was thrown over his face, covering his eyes, as his cut, muscular chest rose and fell with his ragged breathing.
“Cain?” she said softly, cocking her head to the side, suddenly feeling a little bit insecure.
She watched his lips turn up into the hottest, happiest smile she’d ever seen, and she felt laughter bubble up, joyful and free. She’d made him happy.
He moved his arm and looked up at her, his eyes warm and sparkling. “That. Was. Epic.”
Careful of his spent sex, she shimmied over his pelvis and sat on his washboard abs. “Is that right?”
“I don’t even want to think about where you learned to do that.”
Her cheeks felt hot suddenly, and she looked away from him.
“Princess,” he said, reaching for her face and turning it to face him. “I didn’t mean to bring up Woodman. I’m sorry, I—”
“I never did that with Woodman,” she blurted out. “I never did that . . . until now.”
***
It was ridiculous that her words should make a chord of pure, unadulterated happiness thrum through his body, but they did. They did because Ginger loving a man that way would belong to him and only to him. And he wished he had something to give to her and only to her . . . and then he realized suddenly, he did.
“Well, Miss Virginia Laire,” he said, keeping his voice light though his heart pounded with emotion, “you were very good at it.”
“Was I, Mr. Wolfram?” she asked in a thick Southern accent, rocking back and forth lightly on his chest.
She needed relief, and fuck, he wanted to give it to her.
Reaching forward, he unbuttoned her jeans and worked the fly down, but she was still sitting on him, so he couldn’t get them off. Giggling, she unstraddled his stomach and knelt on the bed beside him, pulling down her pants and panties, then sitting on the edge of the bed so she could shuck them to the floor. Cain took a minute to do the same, pushing his jeans and boxers the rest of the way off and toeing his sneakers onto the floor.
But his mood went from playful to reverent as he turned to find her naked, her back to him, still sitting on the edge of the bed. She’d pulled her blonde hair over her shoulder so he could trace the line of her neck and back with his eyes, and he drank her in like a man dying of thirst. The way her waist curved in and her hips curved out. The slight swell of her breasts. The smooth lines of her shoulders. She was a goddess, and he was definitely not worthy of her, though he’d worked his whole life—his whole life—to find himself here, to deserve her. And even if it took the rest of his life to earn her, he’d never stop thanking God for the chance to love her, for the second chance to be loved by her.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for givin’ me that part of you.”
“It was always yours to take,” she said, looking at him over her shoulder.
“Thank you for lovin’ me.”
“I never stopped.”
“Thank you for lettin’ me love you.”
“You’re welcome,” she murmured.
Sitting behind her, he pulled her into the V of his open legs, pressing his lips to her back, skimming them up to her shoulders and kissing each wing, then lingering at the base of her neck, his hands slipping around her body to cup her breasts and pull her closer. His erection strained against her back, and she leaned her neck to the side, granting him access to her throat as he massaged her breasts, playing with her nipples, circling them with his index finger and pinching them gently between his fingers.
He took a deep breath.
“I’ve never . . .”
“You’ve never what?” she asked breathlessly.
“I’ve never been inside a woman . . . without protection,” he admitted, biting on the lobe of her ear, which elicited a gasp from her. “Without a barrier.”
He flattened his palm over her heart, feeling the slight groove of an old scar and, just beneath, its strong beat under his hand, knowing that it was fully mended—from her surgery, from the heartbreak he caused, from the loss of Woodman. It was whole and strong . . . and his.
“Never?” she asked breathlessly, letting her head fall back on his shoulder as his cock throbbed against her.
“Not once,” he said, his lips dragging across her skin, wondering if he had the right to ask her for such a thing. “But I want that . . . with you.”