The Seafaring Lady’s Guide to Love by Fenna Edgewood
Chapter 18
“To swim?” She wrinkledher nose. “Here? Now?”
She leaned back in his arms to look up at him admiringly.
He was hers. They belonged to one another now.
This man, who had frankly terrified her when they had first met. Not that she would ever have let on.
He wielded a power over her even still. The difference was that now she knew how enjoyable that power could be.
Without his coat, in his soft white shirt, he seemed even larger and more imposing than before. She felt small and vulnerable in his arms—and for a girl who was not always inclined to feel like a delicate English rose, it was a new sensation; a rather fascinating one.
She cupped his cheek and ran her thumb over his skin. Strange how a man who could seem hewn from iron could feel as soft as velvet in some places.
She smiled and shivered, thinking of another place he felt velvet-soft. It had been too long since she had felt him there.
He was watching her watch him with a slight smile. His lips were full and sensual, his teeth gleaming white.
She closed her eyes in anticipation as he leaned down to her. His lips brushed hers and her breath caught as he slid his tongue straight inside, rubbing against her own, gently sucking and rasping.
“Feel that?” he whispered, rubbing himself against her, and she nodded. “I need you. Wet and willing.”
“How wet?” She asked, breaking the kiss, suddenly suspicious.
“Very, very wet,” he murmured. And then he was lifting her up into his arms and wading into the water.
She shrieked and wriggled, but her protests were playful, not to mention futile. She knew there was no going back now that he had begun whatever he had planned.
“Tell me, are you wearing a chemise under that dress?” he asked, innocently.
She felt herself blushing. “No.”
He looked at her with amusement. “You really do shuck off the trappings of society quite easily, don’t you?”
“It is hot!” She complained. “Stockings and drawers and chemises are all very well in England, but in the tropics, they are ridiculous and unnecessary accoutrements.”
“I quite agree,” he said seriously. “Not to mention the fact that your luscious nipples are quite easy to see through that bodice. I much prefer you like this.”
Before she could draw an infuriated breath and properly retort, he dropped her.
Not all the way, mind you, but enough to soak her to the skin waist-high.
And then a large, helpful wave washed over, drenching her to the neck.
She sputtered and held onto his shoulders.
He was smiling down at her.
“It’s not fair,” she gasped.
He raised his eyebrows. “You are only wet to the waist,” she protested.
“The benefit of being much taller,” he said, with a grin. He looked down at her wet form lasciviously. “My lovely wet mermaid. My seductive siren.”
“Seductive?” she said, doubtfully.
“Most certainly,” he murmured, removing his hands from her waist to cup her breasts through the wet fabric of the bodice. She felt her nipples, straining and puckered through the fabric as he fingered them, first overtop the muslin, then pulling frantically, desperately, at the short cap sleeves of the dress, and yanking it down low enough to bare her breasts to the air.
She briefly considered protesting, warning that the dress could rip, and she would wind up having to walk half-naked back through the streets to their hotel, but then decided his coat could cover her, and if necessary, he could carry her all the way as penance, his arms wrapped around her protectively to provide a modicum of modesty.
And so, she let him have his way and allowed herself to revel in the feel of his hot tongue as he took one straining nipple in his mouth, teasing and sucking until she was curving backwards, equally desperate, thrusting her breast higher to give him better access, and pulling his other hand up to her empty breast, begging to be touched.
Then he was kissing her chest, up her clavicle, up the column of her neck, back up to her lips, crushing them to his.
She kissed him back, as if no kiss could ever be deep enough, close enough. She rubbed her breasts against his chest and then gasped as his hands reached up almost lazily to spread wide and cup them, lifting them like ripe rich fruit, and running his fingertips over her nipples until she was panting against his mouth.
He moved one hand then, pulling her tight against him, letting her feel his want, and she ground her hips against him, hot lust rising at the feel of his arousal.
He made her yearn and desire, and when she looked up at his face, the man who looked back down was excruciatingly handsome and she had never wanted anything more than what she now felt—for him inside her, possessing her.
“I need you,” she said, hoarsely. “Now.” She felt her heart leap as he nodded, and bent to lift her again.
This time she was more than complicit, reaching her arms up to lace around his neck, and threading her legs around his hips.
He walked them slowly back to the beach, and the rocking motion of his hips against her pelvis was a nearly unbearable pleasure.
She wondered what the sand would feel like against her skin, and had prepared herself for the disruption when he lay her down, not against grit but something much softer—a patch of lush low grass at the edge of the beach.
And then that grateful thought was cut short as she watched him pull his shirt over his head and push his trousers down and off powerfully-muscled legs, letting his erection spring up—large and hot and heavy above her. She felt the wetness between her thighs grow as she glimpsed it jutting toward her—so strangely intimidating in its pure maleness, yet simultaneously so unashamedly arousing.
He stretched out above her, the thin wet muslin that still covered her waist to thigh the only barrier between them. He propped himself on his elbows, letting the rest of his body sink against her, her breasts pillowing against his chest, every part of him pressed along her, skin against skin.
She writhed helplessly under him, her hips already lifting in a desperate arch, his shaft laying hard between her thighs.
She wanted him, now. Not his mouth this time, nor his fingers, but only that—filling her, making them one together, on this wretched day of all days when their togetherness was the only thing sane and good and pure.
She wanted to lose herself in that feeling as he entered her, took her, ravished her on this beach out in the open where anyone could stumble across them.
She should be horrified with herself, she knew, a distant, more lady-like, more conventional part of her thought, but she could not bring herself to listen to that voice any more than she had ever done.
He was hers and she was his and this was right. And should anyone stumble across them rutting on the grass, sweat-drenched and stricken by lust, well, let them look, then pass, filled with envy for what they had witnessed.
She lifted her hips again, harder this time, and rubbed herself against him, finding his mouth with her own, while she hooked her legs around his, pulling him even tighter.
He growled, a sound low and deep in his throat, making her aware that his own desire was similarly unconstrained. He pulled away slightly, shifting to make room for a hand to reach between them and play along the inside of her thighs, then higher, into the wetness between her legs, stroking as she gasped and clutched his shoulders, urging him back down.
Her legs parted as he moved to enter her, sliding inside in a single fluid motion that made her cry out as if in pain.
He froze, his hand on her face, touching her gently as if to make sure she was all right, unbroken.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, urgently. “Harder.”
He thrust again, then faster, and she ground her hips against him. With every entrance of his cock, her pleasure deepened, spiraling higher and faster, more and more out of control. Her breathing grew ragged, she felt flushed with heat from head to toe.
Her mouth searched for his desperately, kissing in a tangle of tongues and lips, his stubble scraping the softness of her cheeks, her chin.
Her nipples had puckered to hard nubs, and with every thrust they danced against his chest, blissfully sensitive.
She could hear the slick sound of wetness as their bodies moved together, faster and harder, and felt delirious with desire, consumed with need. And then he slammed into her fully and her hips left the earth, lifting and meeting him, an explosion of heat and pleasure filling her up. She felt her mouth opening, sounds coming out, but she could not control them, knew not what she said, entirely caught up in her own mesmerizing release.
She felt him shudder over her, then his seed spill into her, and he fell, quivering onto her chest, wrapping his arms around her.
She felt heavy and soft, as if she was melded to the very earth on which they lay, fused with him, both of them wrapped together. She felt tender and protective, and draping her legs around him, pulling him tighter to her chest, smoothing his hair, whispering words of love and praise.
She looked up, past him, at the dark sky with its millions of flickering pinpoints of light, then closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the waves, the wind in the trees overhead, the rustling of the grasses.
They would not always be alive on this earth, but tonight they were—together and one.
“You are mine,” he whispered, first quietly, then louder, the words thick in his throat.
He would travel to the ends of the earth with this woman, take her anywhere she wished to go, do everything he could to make her happy.
“I am,” he heard her whisper back, in a voice tinged with awe. “I am yours.”
Perhaps there would be children.
Perhaps there would be monkeys.
Perhaps there would not.
But no matter what, there would be love.
They would be together, love each other, for as long a time as fate allowed, and in that time, they would be fully joyful—as they were always meant to be.