Page 34 of Raked Away in September

By the time he reached the bed, she had already shrugged out of her robe and nightdress and was laid out before him like some sort of exquisite feast. He gazed down at her, getting hard all over again at the sight of her magnificent curves.

“Can you turn toward me?” he asked, coming to stand beside the bed.

She blushed, looking confused, and turned on her side, facing him.

He smiled and shook his head. “No, like this.” Grabbing her ankle, he pulled her toward him until she was lying crossways on the bed, her legs dangling over the edge. She looked very uncertain until he leaned over her, his fingertips trailing over her luscious body from her shoulders all the way to her knees.

Gasping, she relaxed back into the mattress.

“Let me taste you now,” he said, his cock twitching against his stomach at the very thought.

Bracing his hands on the mattress on either side of her hips, he kissed his way down the path his fingertips had just taken. He spent a long time on her breasts, loving the tiny sounds she made as he suckled her. Her breasts were so sensitive; he could have spent all day on them.

But as she began to stir restlessly beneath him, he worked his way lower, kissing her navel, her soft belly, and the curve of her hips before he nudged her thighs apart. He lowered his mouth to her mound, swirling his tongue around the bud of her desire.

She shot to a sitting position, words of protest on her lips until he did it again. “Bloody hell, you taste good,” he told her, feeling drunk on the scent of her. She was so wet, so ready for him. He wanted nothing more than to bury himself inside her, but first, he wanted to make her come completely undone.

He dragged his fingertips through her teeming wetness as he kept running his tongue over her tender bud. Then he put two fingers inside her, and she let out a keening cry as she shattered around him.

Lifting her in his arms, he turned her the right way in the bed and then climbed in beside her, coaxing her to lay her head against his chest. “Did you like that?” he asked softly, kissing her on the temple.

She simply nodded, and he smiled, contentment welling within him as she enjoyed the aftershocks of her pleasure for a while. Besides, there was nowhere he’d rather be than right here, holding his wife. And that was the biggest revelation of all. He truly did love her. Not just her body, but all of her.

Finally, she lifted her head and stared down at him. “I have so much to learn about making love.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to learn anything, my love. You’re perfect just the way you are. We’ll learn each other together.”

She leaned down and kissed him, and her eyes widened. “I can taste myself on you.”

“I love the way you taste,” he assured her, and then he kissed her deeper, moving over her and pressing her into the mattress. She parted her thighs, and he settled between them, knowing that for the rest of his life, this would be home.

He made love to her with slow, sweet tenderness, murmuring words of love as he worshipped her with his body. He didn’t want it to ever end, but the passion built between them until he had no choice but to surrender to it, and when he came, it was more powerful than anything he’d ever known, because she was his wife, and he loved her.

Afterward, he pulled the covers up around them both, tucking her against his chest, tucking a few strands of her damp, ebony hair behind her ear.

Then, to his surprise, she chuckled softly.

He smiled and tilted her chin so he could meet her gaze. “What is so funny?”

She shrugged. “Do you realize that were it not for the Brazen Belle, we would have never found each other?”

He remembered how badly he’d wanted to know the Belle’s identity, so he could make her pay for the lies she’d told, and he still found it hard to be grateful to her.

“I’d like to think that eventually, I would have gotten the courage to court you. I could never imagine taking anyone else as my wife.”

She reached up and kissed him, still smiling. “I’d like to think that, too.”

He laughed. “Well, perhaps we do owe her a debt.” In his heart, he doubted he’d ever have been that brave because he’d never have believed that he deserved Tamsin.

He still didn’t, but the Belle had forced him to try.

Until the day he died, he’d continue to keep trying.

Epilogue

Three months later…

December in Kent was even more frigid than in London. Rowan’s country seat, Crestwood Manor, smelled of damp earth, salt from the distant coast, and the wild, unclipped hedges of the estate. A cold breeze whipped through Tamsin’s hair, and she shivered in her heavy coat, burrowing her hands deeper into her fur muff.