Page 89 of The Matchmaker's Cottage

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Julia laughed indisbelief as Ethan quite literally burst through her bedroom door, carrying her in his arms.

The haste with which he had moved from the kitchen to the bedroom had been comical, scooping her up and quickly escorting her through the passageway to her bedroom in record time. Putting her down on her bed, he immediately joined her, crawling over her as she giggled, kissing her until she stopped and the giggles turned to moans.

Her head felt like it was in a whirlwind, joy and elation and nerves and a frothy effervescence threatening to bubble up over the surface as she held him in her arms.

This time felt different from the shed, because it didn’t feel like she was borrowing him for the moment or the night. It felt like he was well and trulyhers.

She kissed him back, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him down on top of her, the weight of him delicious and heavy. She could feel his hardness already between herlegs, and it reminded her of having him before, knowing what it felt like, and needing it all the more.

“Ethan,” she moaned against his lips as she tugged at his shirt. “Off, off.”

He reached behind his head and pulled off his sweatshirt and the simple white tee underneath in one movement, grabbing them by the back collar and tugging. He was bare-chested on top of her, and she ran her hands over his pectorals, fingers skimming through the coarse hair, reaching down below to unbutton his jeans.

“Gem,” he groaned as she got her hand in, beneath the undone button and zipper, grabbing and stroking him through his underwear. “You have to—god, fuck—you have to stop.”

“Lie back,” she said, kissing and nipping at his lips before pushing him over until he turned—fully of his own volition, as her ability to actually move him herself was practically nonexistent. When he was on his back, she tugged his jeans down fully, yanking them, along with his boxers, off one leg.

She hadn’t fully seen him that night in the shed, in the shadows, with everything going on. Now, in the soft interior light of her room, she had an opportunity to look at him,reallylook.

There was a strange dissonance to seeing Ethan naked. So many parts of him were so familiar that she recognized them as easily as she did her own. And others were completely foreign. Like this one, she thought, grabbing his length and stroking him up and down. Watching his expression as she did, reveling in the way he squeezed his eyes shut and the guttural sounds he released.

Leaning down, she took him in her mouth, licking the tip and around, pressing his hips down with her other hand as hejerked them up. Going up and down the shaft and experimenting with how deeply she could take him.

If she hadn’t already known how he fit inside her—how hecouldfit inside her—she might have felt a modicum of apprehension at the idea. The same way he was large in build—legs, shoulders, chest, feet—he was largeeverywhereelse as well. He barely fit in her mouth as she used her hands and tried to relax her jaw to bring him maximum pleasure. Self-conscious in a way she normally wasn’t, she wondered if it felt okay, if she was even doing it right for him—

“Stop,” he choked out suddenly, wrapping his hands in her hair out of desperation, the inadvertent tug igniting her senses and firing up her synapses like a Christmas tree. She let out a moan against him and around him and then a choked gasp as he pulled her off him fully. “I won’t make it, Gem,” he rasped, gentling his hold on her head. “You have to stop. Come here.”

She let him sit up, and he drew her into his arms, kicking off the remaining leg of his jeans, and pulling her into his lap. She almost laughed at the reversal—the first time they had done this, she’d been fully nude and he was clothed. Now it was the opposite. Not for long, though, as he had her shirt up and over her head before she could even finish that thought.

Her breasts were at his eye level, and he pulled the cup of her bra down on the left side, taking her nipple into his mouth with little preamble. His other hand came up to pull the cup down on the right side as well, his fingers playing with her reverently, driving her crazy with wanting. She ran her fingers through his hair, tugging him even closer to her, whimpering as he teased and suckled.

“Ethan,” she breathed, a protracted moan releasing from her lips as she helplessly ground down on him.

He flipped her onto her back and tugged down her leggings and underwear, somehow even removing her socks, before he worked his way back up, kissing her ankles, her heels, the inside of each knee. Her legs were spread of her own volition but supported by his hands on the insides of her thighs, spreading her even wider for him. He lifted one leg and kissed the back of her knee. He did the same to the other, nipping at the soft, thin skin.

She could just imagine how she looked to him, open and wet and wanting it so badly, but when she looked at his face and saw her own lust reflected in his eyes, equal measures of love and desperation and longing, she forgot to be self-conscious.

He leaned down and kissed her right between her legs, right in the warm heat and wetness accumulating there.

“God,” he whispered, “you taste so good.”

She moaned in response, running her hands over her stomach, her breasts.

At the sight of her touching herself, even lightly, innocently, the color rose over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, his eyes growing glassy with need.

“Keep doing that,” he said in a tone that could only be described as a growl, and the second her fingers touched her nipples again, he was between her legs, tongue gliding up and over her folds, settling on the little bud at the top and teasing her there.

She had always prided herself on her self-control. Her ability to wait. Her capacity for willpower and inner strength. That version of Julia would have prolonged this. She would have heldoff as much as she could, allowed him to tease and to play, to bring her to the brink and then back down.

But that Julia was apparently gone, because all it took were a couple of strokes and the impression of a finger about to enter her, and she was lost, falling off the edge, coming and coming and coming to the white-hot fireworks behind her eyes, thighs tightening around his ears and fingers moving from her own body right into his hair, tugging him closer, then away, contradicting every movement with the next.

After bringing her down with gentle strokes, he came up and lay beside her, tugging her on top of him, her body pliant and slow from the aftereffects of her orgasm.

“Is this okay?” he asked breathlessly, pulling her close to him, urging her to take him from on top.

“Yes,” she murmured into his skin and shimmied down, their bodies sticking together from the sheen of sweat between them. She reached behind her to grasp him in her hand and guided him to her entrance. Finding the spot and notching him in place, she grimaced for just a moment, trying to find the right fit, to get used to taking him like that.