She laughed. “No. But it’s almost midnight, and we have to go all the way across Town and break into Vanderville’s home.”
He looked down at her. “It can wait a little longer.”
“How much longer?”
“Long enough for me to kiss you?”
She heard the question and appreciated that he asked it. He must have known what she wanted, but she liked that he didn’t assume. She slid one hand into his hair and drew his mouth down to hers. “Long enough for a kiss, yes,” she said, brushing her lips against his. “Perhaps more.”
“More? What do you have in mind?”
She nudged closer to him and his growing erection. Apparently, he wasn’t wearing anything below the waist. “The same thing you have in mind.”
“Thank God,” he said, rolling over her and looking down at her. “I thought maybe you just climbed into my bed to keep warm.” He kissed her long and deep.
“Not at all,” she said between attempts to catch her breath. “The bed looked more comfortable than the table.”
“Much more comfortable,” he said, bending his head to run his mouth along her jaw and then down to her neck. Margaret squirmed with impatience as he took his time nibbling his way to her ear lobe. Once he kissed the spot behind it, she felt a flood of heat between her legs and nudged her hips up to press her sex against his erection.
“You still like that,” he whispered, his breath making her even more impatient for his touch. “What about this?” He slid down and toyed with the drawstrings of her shift. Margaret wished she’d discarded the thing before she’d climbed into bed so there would be fewer layers between them. But he eventually managed to push it down, revealing her aching breasts to him. He kissed one and then the other, his lips reverent.
She didn’t want reverent. She wanted his hands all over her and his body straining against hers.
But he was injured. Of course, why hadn’t she thought of that before? “You’re hurt,” she said. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“This is an excellent idea,” he said, his beard tickling her breast. “I feel better than I have in days.” He slid down further, taking her shift with him and kissing her belly. Margaret knew she should tell him to stop. There was the mission. There was his injury. There was the fact that they’d been estranged for three years.
And there was his mouth.
He’d kissed a path down her belly to the juncture of her thighs, and now he was on his knees, pressing her legs further open. “Still want me to stop?” he asked.
“I never said I wanted you to stop. I said—”
His mouth was on her inner thigh, his beard teasing the tender flesh there. That sensation was new and not unwelcome. He drew closer to her center, and she dug her fingernails into the mattress, willing herself to be patient and to lie still. She didn’t want to clamp her legs on him and hurt his injury.
A moment later, all thoughts of his injury fled, and she couldn’t think of anything but his lips and his tongue and the way he made her feel when he did this to her. She could hear herself panting and crying out, but it seemed someone else made those sounds as the whole of her attention was on Ambrose and the way he loved her.
She was practically weeping by the time he brought her to a shuddering climax. He would have plunged into her then. She wanted him to, but she summoned the last of her strength and pushed him on his back, tossing her shift aside and following him over to straddle him.
He looked up at her, his lovely amber-gold eyes appreciative and full of arousal. She glanced at his wound just in case, but his hands came to rest on her hips. “I’m fine,” he said. “Better than fine, in fact.” His gaze raked over her, making her nipples go hard. She rose up and took him inside her, her body seeming to pulse with the pleasure of it. She was still throbbing from the orgasm, and the feel of him inside her heightened that pleasure.
“Maggie,” he moaned as she began to move. His hands clutched at her hips, not to control, but to hold on as she went faster, then slower, then agonizingly slow as another orgasm built.
“Faster,” he urged her.
“Give me a moment,” she said.
He opened his eyes. “Really? Again?” He smiled lazily and let his hands wander up her body until they cupped her breasts. She moved even slower, pushing him deeper, until her body began to contract again.
Ambrose drew in a breath and closed his eyes again as her inner muscles squeezed him. And then the pleasure rushed in, and she was chasing it, moving quicker, taking him with her. She heard his quick cry of pleasure as he came. She felt the way he swelled and the heat of him as he spilled his seed inside her.
She wanted to collapse on top of him, but she was thinking about his wound, and she rolled to the side and lay beside him, one hand thrown over his chest.
“That was...”
She looked at him, eyes still closed, chest heaving. “Yes, it was,” she answered. “There’s one advantage to abstinence,” she said. It was what she’d always said when they’d come back together after a long absence. But now she realized she didn’t know if he’d been abstinent during their separation. She hadn’t asked that of him. She hadn’t even known if she’d ever see him again. Suddenly, self-conscious, she cleared her throat. “That is to say—I shouldn’t have assumed—”
Ambrose pulled her closer and squeezed her gently. “You were right to assume.”
