It was not deftest of moves, given they sat on a rug, but there was something right about the closeness, in the heavenly prettiness that surrounded them. They were encased in the loveliest aspect of his home. Whilst they may not have started off in that manner, he was fully determined that, in the future, it would be filled with flowers, sweet smells of summer, and anything his radiant bride wanted. Having her so close again flooded his body with the very animal heat he had tried over the last weeks to master and to little effect, so he continued, the amorous note colouring his words. “This wanting of you is seeped, no, married into my very being until I could no more prise it from me than I could my own skin. I doubt there will be a moment in my life when I won’t have the sensation within me, the desire to be near you, to be caught thinking of you, to know your opinion and thoughts on all matters, to wish to hear your laugh, to see your smile and, believe me, to want your body.”
As he spoke, Maeve had snaked her arms around his shoulders so that she was looking up into his face. Her own expression, which normally seemed to flash with each of her emotions, had taken on a look he had not seen before as she studied him.
“You’re starting to get whiskers again.” She loosened her hold around his neck and stroked a fingertip along his jawline. There was a smile on Maeve’s lips as she looked up into his face, and it gave him hope, trying as he was to contain the urge to beg Maeve to return at least some of his affection.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” This was not the response he had wanted, and Silverton scrambled to think of what she might desire from him. He had attempted, in his speech, to include anything and everything Maeve might want or wish to hear, and yet it did seem enough for her. Perhaps it was for the best—a lady like Maeve could have had a man of twice his worth. Now they would exist in an unequal union of him loving her and Maeve tolerating him.
“It makes me think of the first time I saw you, all bearded, furious, and frowning at me in such an overbearing manner.” She was shifting herself closer, easing her bottom over his uninjured thigh, so she sat neatly on his lap and pressed her rounded breasts into his chest. A method, it seemed, of continuing his torture. Her left hand trailed up his arm in such a caressing manner that, despite how urgently he wanted to know her feelings, his body surged at the feel of her hands on him, clearly more than eager to resume the physical side of their relationship.
“I regret everything I did or said to you in the moments—hell in the last few months—if I could do it differently, believe me I would,” Silverton said as Maeve pressed herself nearer. “I would never—”
“Don’t you see?” Her mouth was so close to his that Silverton was struggling to pay attention to what Maeve was saying. “This is perfect. It doesn’t matter what happened to lead us here. We found each other. We have each other. I think I may well have been in love with you from the first moments.” Her mouth found his, sealing them together with a heady kiss and buoyed by her confession and the sweet, all-consuming taste of her lips. Silverton forgot his promised niceties and claimed his right to kiss her.
He dragged his free hand through her hair, loosening that twisted braid of hers and causing Maeve to utter a low moan. His fingers gripped and rubbed their way over her scalp, which in turn led to Maeve widening her mouth a fraction until his tongue could slip between the seam of her lips. The taste of her, after such a length of time, almost brought tears to his eyes. It overwhelmed him, the flood of emotions and how he was going to suddenly tell her everything. Maeve, too, seemed swept up in the emotion, her body moulding to the shape of his until they toppled backwards amongst the scattered items of food. As her hands slid over his chest and her hips straddled his, Silverton was struck by the fierce notion that a picnic was the worst idea. How was he supposed to make love to her outside?
It did not seem that Maeve cared though. Her nimble fingers had pulled loose his shirt and cast aside the neatly folded cravat to better kiss his throat and chest. Now her target seemed to be prising the buttons of his breeches undone. Her hand stroked and rubbed against the hardened length of his erection as her mouth kissed her way around the tendons of his neck.
Unable to resist, and no longer caring if someone were to see or hear them, his hands clamped down on her hips, pressing her against his cock to mimic in its intensity the act of fucking. She was astride him, the only true discomfort the press of the picnic things and the occasional brush against his wound. Only the cursed layers of their clothes separated him from surging into her. His fingers played over the inner part of her garments until he found the gap in her under things, where his digit stroked its way deeper, finding the silken folds of her sex. The feel of her wetness caused him to gasp.
Their eyes locked, and Maeve smiled that charming, joyous look as she leant back, unbuttoning his breeches before righting herself over him. Her fingers gripped hold of his shoulders as she kissed him.
“It’s been too long,” she said as she mounted him, and the feel of her tightening along the length of him was bliss. The feel of her tenderness and eagerness, the dampness on his fingers, and her kisses were heaven, but nothing, Silverton was certain, could be as delightful as when she looked into his eyes and gasped out his name—claiming him as hers forever.
CHAPTER24
Nothing, Maeve was sure, would ever quite compete with the feeling, the sensation of being filled, stretched by his member. An exquisite bombardment of her senses, which drowned out every other aspect until all she could focus on was the tightness at the core of her being and a strong desire to move until it eased. A delicious thrill went up her spine as she wriggled into the sensation further. It made her feel both excited and fulfilled at once, like nothing else in this world.
Closing her eyes, Maeve allowed her body to adjust to the size of him. The temptation buzzed through her blood to ride him with a punishing hardness until she came, but after such declarations of love and affection, she tempered her pace into a soft rocking movement that felt seductive and lulling, despite the lingering desire to move faster.
Since both of his hands were on her hips, there was a tension and some grip as he pushed into her, the movement catching her eye. She realised both were awkward now, with their feelings so freshly disclosed, and more vulnerable than she had ever imagined possible. She blushed as she leant forward to press her face against his.
Their lovemaking was not to be confined solely to this soft, yielding momentum. When he leant up and captured her lips with his, the surge of his hips as he drove into her more fully, grinding in such a way that Maeve’s head dropped back, and she had to bite down on her lip to stop herself from screaming. With one swift movement, Gregory spun her over until she landed on her hands and knees, halfway between the blanket and the grass, giggling as he adjusted himself over her. The laughter faded as he repositioned her, dragging her bottom up and easing back between the folds of her sex. Maeve grabbed on the edge of the blanket, while Gregory drove her wild with each penetrating glide. The feeling of being so intimately claimed finally caused Maeve to release her chewed-upon lips and cry out with a scream that shuddered through her body, spasming and shaking until she saw stars.
“Not enough, I need to see you.” Gregory had continued to move in sure steady strokes as Maeve had found her release, but now he eased himself out and rolled her over, the bright green blades of the grass cushioning her. Leaning down, he gave her a deep kiss as he lifted and wrapped her legs around his waist before plunging back inside her.
With a gasp, her body almost completely spent, Maeve wriggled as Gregory pressed in increasingly intoxicating movements, the shape of his cock rocking against her engorged clitoris. For the second time, her mind left her body as Maeve’s frame shuddered in shock against him. This, it seemed enough, for Gregory’s intense concentration broke as she came apart. His movements become wilder, and finally, he shuddered into her, his breathing laboured, mimicking hers in its wild erratic rhythm as he collapsed down next to her.
Moments drifted by, and Maeve was tempted to fall asleep, sheltered and held by her beloved husband. But then she shifted closer and whispered, “Your leg seems much improved, my lord.”
Taken by surprise, Gregory burst out laughing. Despite how tired she was, and how much she wanted nothing more than to fall asleep immediately, Maeve leant up and pulled Gregory close to her.
“I love you,” she had said when they’d been making love, but she’d repeat it until she was blue in the face, or rather until she was completely certain he believed her. There was a youthful, almost boyish reddening of Gregory’s cheeks as he adjusted himself, his body coming protectively around hers, shielding her from the stares of the natural world.
“Do you not believe me?” The words were tenderly whispered as Maeve leant in closer, hoping to break down whatever reservations still lurked within her husband’s heart.
Gregory came to rest next to her, occasionally leaning forward to move a strand of hair from her face. Maeve’s entire body throbbed in such a contented, well-loved way that she was almost ready to nod off, but then he spoke. “It baffles me that you would be able to, after what I’ve done.” There was such a weighty vulnerability to his expression, the creased brows and the concentration given to each word, that it shook Maeve to her core how desperate he was.
“It is in the past now—” she tried to say as she stroked Gregory’s cheek with the aim of being as soothing as she could manage, but he cut her off.
“Not to me. When I close my eyes at night, I see my brother attacking you again and again until I think I will wake screaming from the image.”
“I am here.” She kissed him again, their mouths locked together in passionate intensity. Another thought occurred to her, and despite them being draped and wrapped up together, their weary bodies tangled, she eased back a fraction and snatched up his hand which had been laying against her hip, guiding it forward until it rested on the curve of her stomach. “We are here. We are safe. And whatever happened is gone. It is whatwebuild together that matters now. This child is made of love, and we will give it to him.”
Gregory’s dark eyes sparkled for a second before he smiled as the tension eased out of him, and there was even a wobble to his voice as he said, “A boy?”
“I feel quite sure it will be. Is that not what you commanded the child to be when you married me, and am I not an obedient wife?”
Flopping his head back down onto the rumpled blanket, Gregory laughed as he looked up at the bright sunshine high above him. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”
