Her Inconvenient Groom by Niomie Roland

Chapter 21

 

Chantelle watched as Dustin locked her bedroom door, even though the housekeeper was asleep in her annex and the security team were out on the grounds, patrolling. It gave her a sense of safety, the feeling that he was protecting her.

With the flick of a finger, he dimmed the lights. Yet not so much that she couldn’t take a good look at him. His jacket was off, but his nicely fitted and well-pressed shirt emphasized the breadth of his chest and the narrowing of his slender waist. His hair had been brushed back off his forehead at the start of the evening, but now, it fell forward into his eyes.

Really needs a haircut, she thought, and yet her hand came up without her say-so, and brushed lightly at it. He grasped her hand in mid-stroke and brought her fingers to his lips. The gesture made her shiver. It was intimate. Tender. Bordering on the very edge of their agreement. No strings attached.

Nevertheless, her fingers strayed downwards to his jaw, where she felt the roughness of his stubble under her fingers. It felt so, so good. She leaned forward and pressed her lips along the trail where her fingers had passed. The scent of him made her want to sink into his aura, bask in it.

He pulled away, just a few inches, and tilted her face up so he could gaze down into it. “Chantelle,” he said softly.

Why did her name sound so good when he said it?

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“Okay.” He paused again, still pondering. Then he said, “You know there’s no coming back from this, right?”

“For God’s sake, Dustin. Stop treating me like I’m a virgin! I won’t break if you squeeze me!” in a huge show of bravado, to prove to him that this wasn’t a big deal, she grasped the zipper at the back of her dress and began to tug it down, but then to her mortification realized she’d gotten it stuck halfway. Way to make a point, Moreau, she said to herself.

Smiling—but not unkindly—he spun her around so he could have access to her back, and fiddled with the zipper until it slid to her hips, freeing her dress, allowing it to puddle around her feet.

She felt him close to her back… so close that she could feel the heat of his body against her bare skin. She wasn’t wearing a bra… seldom did, and so with only a pair of panties between him and her flesh, she felt more naked than she would have if she were wearing nothing at all.

His hands came down to rest lightly on her hips. She felt his breath against her throat as he pressed his lips there. She stifled a groan.

Again, the roughness of his stubble—did this damn man not own a razor?—scraped against her shoulder, then against her neck once more, around the back of her bowed nape and to the other side. A parade of kisses, like toy soldiers, all in a row.

Then his hands rose to come around her, slowly sliding up to cup her breasts. He seemed to be weighing them, and she hoped to God Almighty he wasn’t judging them. She had never been highly blessed in that department, her breasts barely being much of a handful. But they were firm and round, and tipped with rose and brown, like chocolate-dipped strawberries.

Though her pregnancy was still recent, she’d noticed the change in those breasts, a new fullness, a new heaviness… and now, a new sensitivity, as his touch, as light as it was, made her want to moan out his name.

He spun her around again, and they were face to face. Kissing, first tentatively as if afraid to convey anything that went beyond casual contact, and then intensely, as weeks of repressed hunger took over.

“I have been waiting so long for this,” he groaned against her lips.

Me too, she wanted to tell him. But didn’t dare.

He was still dressed, still had his shoes on, and that wasn’t fair. She found that her hands were already attempting to solve that problem, popping open his buttons easily, and lifting the tail of his shirt out of the waistband of his pants.

Undressing him.

She wondered if he was going to say something snarky, mocking, as men do, but he seemed relaxed, encouraging, enjoying her ministrations but not lording it over her. His skin was warm against the flat palms of her hands. It had been such a long time since she’d made that kind of connection with a man that she almost moaned with pleasure at the feel of him. 

He took his own shoes and socks off, and then stood barefoot, his toes scrunching up in the pile of the carpet. Taking her hand, Dustin led her to the bed like a prince leading the bemused princess to the center of the ballroom for the big dance as the music score swelled around them.

But their only audience was a large and unimpressed-looking cat, who was curled up on Chantelle’s pillows, looking none too pleased at having her beauty sleep interrupted.

Dustin spied her and chuckled softly. “Think she’s planning on hanging around? Not too sure if you really want a witness.”

Chantelle laughed outright: at least he was decent about it. The last man who had been in her bedroom, eons ago, had postponed lovemaking to give her a stern lecture about the unhygienic practice of allowing pets on the bed. There had never been a time in Chantelle’s life when she didn’t share her home with a cat, and as far as she was concerned, they had all the rights of family, so it was a foregone conclusion when she ushered that mouthy idiot to the door without a second thought. You messed with her cat, you messed with her.

But it was clear that Minerva adored Dustin… well, as much as cats were capable of adoring anyone but their masters. Which is to say, she tolerated him with mild overtones of positivity. Chantelle didn’t mind when he asked for privacy. She scooped up the outraged animal and popped her unceremoniously into her bathroom, where she had no doubt Minerva would curl up in the laundry basket and return to her mouse-filled dreamland.

Alone again. Chantelle walked back to the bed where Dustin was lying, hands behind his head, waiting for her. She stood at the bedside and surveyed him.

Goddamn, he was beautiful.

He held out his arms to her, and she fell into them. She was overwhelmed by hunger and amazed by the sheer force of the hunger she felt in return. As she pressed her body against him, she became well aware of his excitement and knew now that the preliminaries were over.

She shivered.

Determined not to allow him to take full control of the situation, she made quick work of his pants, undoing them and tugging them down as he lifted his hips to help her. Then he was naked, and only one thing drew her attention: the powerful erection that thrust towards her, evidence of how excited he was to be with her.

They rolled onto their sides, facing each other, kisses growing hungrier and wilder as he began to nibble at her lips and run the tip of his tongue over her skin. One hand slipped down along her front, pausing only to tease at her hard nipples, and then further to her belly button, where he paused.

“You sure this is okay? You won’t feel any… discomfort with the baby and all?”

She could have smiled at the idea of a man not knowing that sex during pregnancy was totally okay, but it was sweet of him to ask, so she nodded vigorously. “Totally safe,” she promised.

“If you feel bad at all, or if I cause any problems for you—”

“Dustin!” She wanted him so badly right now and he wanted to talk?

“Okay.” His hand ventured further, into her panties, into the light bit of fluff there, pausing as he seemed to delight in the moistness and heat, and then proceeded like an explorer in a new and untamed jungle, seeking treasure or redemption, she didn’t know which.

She sucked in air sharply as that wayward finger slipped into her cleft, still seeking, still searching. Fondling. Stroking and rubbing.

She squeezed her eyes shut because she knew he was looking into her face and couldn’t bear to think of what he would see. Couldn’t bear to think of the power this man would have if he knew… everything.

But his fingers found their way, and soon her hips were rising, pressing up against his hand, as a rare level of excitement took root. He was taking her somewhere unfamiliar, but to her shock, it was a place she was now dying to go.

When he stopped, she wanted to murder him. Her protest was inarticulate; she couldn’t even form words.

But he shushed her. “This will be better; trust me.” He lifted himself onto his hands, placed a condom over his member, then leveraged his body over hers, the same hand that had been between her legs, stirring up trouble, parting her lips to allow him entrance.

He stopped for only one tiny moment, as if wanting to drag it out, until she grated through her teeth, “What are you waiting for!?”

“Nothing, beauty,” he rasped, and slid himself home.

The impact was electric. Mind-numbing, like an unexpected surge of electrical power shorting out a fuse. She felt filled to the brim, and yet her body yearned for more of him. Wished she could consume more of him, not just his body, but his breath and his force.

Dustin began to move, and it was only a matter of time before she recognized and mimicked his movements, until they were moving as one, sharing every sensation. Each felt the other’s pleasure as if it was their own. Every pulse, every shiver, every stabbing pain was shared, because between them there were no borders. No boundaries.

She could hear him whispering, but her clouded, sex-drunk mind couldn’t translate the words he was saying. But she was well aware of their intent.

Then something hit her with the force of a blow, out of nowhere, as if she had been struck by a train when she wasn’t even aware there were tracks under her feet. She screamed in shock as sensation ricocheted through her body, muscles rigid, eyes wide open, sure that she would never be able to breathe in again.

She felt his strokes speed up as he joined her in that delirium, that state in which clear thought was shoved harshly aside by pure, greedy sensation, need and want. And the feeling went on and on and on until she begged for mercy, because she was convinced that after a few more seconds of it and she would die.

He collapsed next to her, head upon her shoulder, and only then did she notice they were both drenched with sweat.

And it was as if she had to train herself to learn to breathe all over again. “Oh,” she said, finally.

“‘Oh’ what?”

“So that’s what it’s like,” she murmured.

“What what’s like?” His voice sounded as sleepy as she felt.

“An orgasm.”

He sat bolt upright, staring at her. Taking a moment to gather himself before asking, “You’ve never had an orgasm?”

Ugh, she thought. Here it comes. “No.”

He was incredulous. “How is that even possible?”

“Don’t judge me!” she cried hotly.

He touched her cheek lightly. “I’m not, sweetheart. I’m just… I wasn’t aware—”

“How could you be?”

“I mean, how?”

“Some women don’t,” she said, hating how defensive she sounded. “Neither of my fiancés seemed able to—”

He looked even more stunned, but quickly straightened out his features. “You’ve been engaged before?”

“Mm-hmm.” She tried to make her answer sound casual, as if it happened to everyone. “Neither of them lasted long. One was just using me to get a higher position in one of my companies, and the other turned out to be gay.”

“Gay?”

“He thought that being with me would help rid him of the desires he was struggling against. He was wrong. I never knew until—” She stopped, once again feeling the humiliation of betrayal.

Dustin pulled her against him and cradled her head to his chest. “Chantelle, baby, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who or what or when. What matters is that you’ve learned something new about yourself. And I’m honored to have been the man to help you discover it.”

She let that soak in and realized to her surprise that he was right. She gave him a mischievous look. “I wonder.”

“Wonder what?” he asked, but his expression told her he knew exactly what.

“Whether another lesson—”

And then, dammit, her phone began to ring, a harsh, jarring sound that cut through their intimate conversation.

He groaned. “Do you have to take that?”

She was torn; she always answered her phone, because global business had no set hours. This time, she was prepared to let it ring When the ringing persisted and she glanced at the screen, she nodded reluctantly. “It’s the security. Something’s happening.”