With her body sweet and giving beneath him, Samuel couldn’t think. He did not need to, though. He need only act.
He need only worship.
This, no dream, not any longer. This, the woman from the garden drenched in moonlight, the woman in his study with squared shoulders and sharp wit. This, the woman who risked it all to support him in his time of need.
He cupped the back of her head and kissed her hard, showing her how he felt, taking from her the little surprised moan.
She explored him with shy hands, touching his waistband, then yanking away, squeezing his shoulders, then flying off elsewhere, avoiding certain parts of him.
He possessed no hesitation. “Every part of you is mine,” he said against her lips. God, saying that felt good. God, he hoped it was true.
She laughed, tried to kiss him.
“I’m not teasing. Look at me and tell me you understand.” He tipped her chin back, holding her in place, hovering just over hermouth—close enough to steal her breath but not close enough for her to steal what she clearly wanted with those hazy eyes—his lips. “Every part of you is mine.” Releasing her chin, he dragged his hand down her body and raked his fingers between her legs. “Say it, Sweetness. You can trust me to take good care of you.”
She shivered. “Yes. Oh, yes, Samuel.” She clung to his shirt, hid her face in his chest. Such a contradiction, his Emma was—confident and bold, hesitant and shy. She surged up into another kiss, locking her arms around his neck, knocking every thought right out of him.
Arms and legs and lips.
Breath and beating hearts.
Skirts lifted and bodices ripped.
Ripped? Damn. No matter. He’d buy her a new one.
Her thighs like silk as he hooked her knee around his waist, her body like the ocean rolling up to meet him. His body harder than it had ever been with years of celibacy, weeks of lust, and one night of unfulfilled desire crashing through him. He pressed his knee high between her legs, and she arched into his thigh, moaning.
“That feels good,” she breathed. “So very good.”
Damn right. He nipped her earlobe, pressing his thigh against her again. Then back to her lips because she tasted like heaven, and he was ravenous.
“I might never stop kissing you,” he panted.
“Do not.” She grasped at his back. “Do not stop.” She tangled her fingers in the hair at his nape.
Hadn’t she said a kiss was a test of compatibility? The gentleman must give the lady what she needed.
Emma told him not to stop.
He set his mouth against hers, as if he never meant to leave because, as long as she’d have him, that’s exactly what he would do. Never leave. Never stop. Touching her. Loving her. Everykiss he'd given her before had sprung from a moment of passion. She deserved contemplation, concentration, intention. Unfailing and unceasing. As she demanded.
He dragged his hand down her body, stopping at her breasts to marvel at the perfect shape of them before wandering lower and dragging her skirts, inch by inch up her body, rasping them across her cunny, wrenching moans from her until nothing stood between him and her. Nothing at all. Each kiss he marked with a stroke of his fingers across her center, and when he teased the seam of her lips with his tongue, encouraging her to open for him, he did the same beneath her skirts. Her mouth parted on a sigh, and he swept in for a deeper taste, slipping a finger inside of her, too.
Shy and still, her hands coming off his back.
So, he kissed a line to her ear and whispered, “Should I stop?”
“N-no.”
“Prove you mean it.”
Her hands came back to him, smoothing down to his waist, stopping at his waistband. She never ventured farther south, but she did dig her fingernails into his lower back, tugging him more tightly against her. “Do not stop.”
The perfect kiss meant he must give her what she asked for.
His lips met hers once more, swept into her mouth once more, and this time her tongue met his. They tangled and stroked and danced, and he slipped another finger inside her, curled them, grinned as she gasped and rocked her hips into his hand, into his thigh. Her movements shuddering, jerky, innocent yet passionate reactions to his touch.
His thumb searched for the little bud he knew would make her shatter. And hell, but it didn’t take much. She ripped her mouth away from his as she shook, as she inhaled deep and exhaled his name, her eyelids fluttering closed.
