There With You by Samantha Young
Regan
Thane didn’t want me to return to the annex. To appease his worries, I moved some of my things into the guest suite. This also reassured Robyn, but I was concerned how it looked to Eilidh and Lewis. They loved the idea of me being so close, but with Thane still keeping his distance whenever we weren’t alone, I wasn’t sure if I should dig myself any deeper into the children’s lives.
Who was I kidding?
I was as deep as you got without actually being married to their dad.
The mere thought made my pulse flutter, so I threw it out of my head immediately.
I focused on the historical romance on my e-reader. For the past week, I’d gone to bed in the guest room, only for Thane to sneak in when he was sure the kids were asleep. I’d still had my period, so we did nothing but cuddle, and when I woke in the morning, he was always gone. While I waited for him every night, I read.
Whenever I was having a strenuous day or week (or month!), I liked to reread my favorite books. There was something comforting not only about a happy ending but also in going through the emotional angst of a couple’s roller-coaster relationship, enjoying their pain and passion, because you already knew how it ended. Romance novels were my version of comfort food, except better because they had hot, fantastical sex.
Well, what I thought was fantastical until Thane came along. I smiled smugly. As I got to a sexy scene in the novel, hot tingles awakened between my legs.
“What are you reading?”
“Oh!” I startled.
Thane stood over the bed, his arms crossed, grinning at me. I hadn’t even heard him come in. “Whatever it is, you’re engrossed.”
I grinned back, happy to see his smile. He’d laughed with the children throughout the week so things would be normal for them, but he’d been gloomy with worry when we were alone.
“A book.” I turned back the duvet on the other side of the bed and patted the mattress.
Removing his T-shirt, Thane rounded the bed, never taking his eyes off mine. Despite the approach of December and this month’s bitter introduction to a Highland winter, Thane’s home always sat at a comfortable temperature. And he always ran a little hot.
In more ways than one.
I missed him.
And my period was over.
But I wasn’t sure anything physical was on the table for us while I was under his roof.
“Is it a historical romance?” He slid into bed beside me and wrapped an arm around my shoulder to draw me to his side. All the while he peered curiously down at my e-reader.
I grinned at him. “You remembered I like those.”
He nodded, his eyes smiling into mine. “Let’s have a look, then.”
Feeling mischievous about what he was about to read, I bit my lip and held the e-reader up to him. The tingles between my legs grew insistent as I watched his eyebrows raise as he read. Thane’s hand slid from my upper arm to around my waist, and as his eyes moved over the screen, said hand pressed into my stomach.
Heat licked down my inner thighs, and I swallowed hard, my mouth suddenly dry. “What do you think?”
Thane spoke while he still read, his voice gruff. “It’s … fuck … it’s …”
“Arousing?” I supplied.
He looked at me, his lips quirking. “Very. Is this how you get your kicks?”
I narrowed my eyes at his teasing. “They’re not just about sex.”
“Oh, really?”
“No.” I gestured with the e-reader. “They’re funny and romantic and the heroines are relatable and sometimes they even make me feel like I’m not alone. Romance novels can be witty and emotional and make me cry but in this great, cathartic kind of way.”
He studied me intensely, his gaze probing, sharpening at my words.
Realizing I was veering the conversation away from where I wanted it, I grinned. “And the sex … People call it smut or mommy porn, but there are different kinds of romance. That stuff is great, but I like the ones where the romance, the connection between the couple, is what makes the sex so hot. And it’s sex through a woman’s eyes. It’s the kind of sex we fantasize about.”
At that, Thane’s brow furrowed and he looked back at the e-reader screen. Even through his beard, I could see a muscle tick in his jaw. I smoothed a hand over his face, guessing where his thoughts were. Leaning up, I pressed my breasts against him and whispered near his ear, “You make my sexual fantasies come true.”
He twisted to look into my eyes; his darkened with desire.
I smiled and gestured with the e-reader. “This is just the appetizer these days while I wait for you to come to me.”
“Do you read these every night before I come to you?”
“Not always, but often, yeah.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth and then to my chest. He inhaled sharply at the sight of my nipples hard against the silk, his hand on my stomach clenching the fabric and unintentionally drawing it tighter. “When you say appetizer … do you mean these books make you wet?”
My breathing quickened in time at his bluntness. “Sometimes.”
“Are you wet right now?” His other hand dipped beneath the duvet, and I shivered at the touch of his fingers sliding up my thigh. When he reached my center, pushing past my underwear, his features hardened with want. “That would be a yes, then.”
I arched into him. The e-reader fell from my hand as he played me with precision.
He knew my body as well as he knew his own.
“Mo leannan,” Thane groaned as he kissed me. He rolled into me and I could feel him throbbing with need.
“What about the littles?” I panted as his lips scattered kisses down my throat and he pulled my nightdress straps down my arms to get at my breasts.
Thane looked up at me, his breath on my hard nipple making me thrust against his fingers. “I need to fuck you, or I’m going to lose my mind. We’ll just have to be quiet.”
“I’m on the pill,” I blurted out. “And I … I had a health check a while back. After Maddox … there wasn’t anyone after him, until you.”
Thane’s eyes flashed, clearly happy with the idea of no barriers. “I’m clean. There’s been no one but you for longer than I care to say. So I guess we’re both going to have to try very hard to be quiet.”
I tried. As he kissed and made love to every inch of me, I panted behind my hand and swallowed the cries that wanted to escape. Even with his head between my thighs, his tongue licking and sucking me to orgasm, I clamped a hand over my mouth and muffled my release. Even at the feel of him, heavy and powerful above me, gliding inside, perfect and thick and exactly what I needed, I bit back my gasps.
But when he suddenly pulled out to flip me roughly on my hands and knees, take hold of my nape to whisper in my ear how hard I made him, how he couldn’t get enough of me, using dirty, sexual words he’d never used before, I lost my mind. As wild and playful as Thane was in bed, he wasn’t a talker.
He was acting out the scene from my romance novel.
Love and passion exploded within me, and I had to bury my face in the mattress, my fingers clawing at the sheets because my scream of release was unstoppable.
“F-f-fuck,” Thane stammered as I came in forceful throbs around him. His grip on my hips turned bruising as he climaxed with a hoarse yell, juddering against my ass even as he collapsed over me. “What the fuck, what the fuck,” he murmured breathlessly against my shoulder.
Blood pounded in my ears as I came down from the release, and I mewled as Thane pulled out. I turned and opened my mouth to speak, but he braced over me and pressed a finger to my lips, his wide eyes on the bedroom door.
My heart stopped as I realized Thane had been loud in climax.
We waited, our ears pricked, trying to hear over our racing pulses.
Finally, his gaze came to mine. “I think we’re fine,” he whispered.
“You were loud,” I admonished, grinning smugly.
Thane grinned back. “Couldn’t be helped. I’ve never felt anything like it when you came.” He fell down beside me on the bed, looking a little dazed as he cuddled me into him.
“I’ve never felt anything like it.” I caressed his damp skin and the happy trail that followed a path to one of my favorite physical attributes of his.
Thane’s hand moved under my arm to cup my breast. “I think you took everything I had.”
I chuckled, settling my chin on his chest. We smiled at each other, giddy with endorphins. “I should clean up,” I whispered.
“And I think I need to tell every man I know to get his partner hooked on romance novels.”
I pushed up and straddled him on my way to crawl across the bed to the bathroom. I paused and leaned down to brush my lips over his. “Most of them would just take advantage of the fact that their partner was turned on … they wouldn’t go out of their way to recreate the fantasy. It was so hot, I’m never, ever going to forget it.”
Something flashed in his eyes, something grim, something I didn’t like, but he hid it as he pulled me deeper into the kiss. At the sudden urge to tell him I loved him, I kissed him harder, drowning the words.
Thane groaned and rolled me onto my back, and we had to be quiet all over again.