His mouth came back to hers and she caught his head in her hands. He chuckled and she kissed him fiercely, certain now she could do this much at least.
He swept his hand down her back and pulled her close. Their legs tangled and her day chemise, far shorter than a nightgown, slipped up to her hip. But who cared when his magical mouth sent the stars spinning so fast that only he existed?
When he moved away, she could only gasp for air, dazed yet ecstatic. The hot tide of lust riding her veins was throbbing between her legs.
When he ran his finger along her jaw, his eyes were the blue of truth. He caressed her throat and her collarbone as delicately as a kiss—and she arched to meet him. “Ah, Gareth.”
She ran her hands down his back and impatiently gripped the fine muscles of his ass to pull him closer.
“Portia, honey, you’re a delight.” A jolt of laughter and answering hunger ran through him.
He slipped his hand inside her chemise and cupped her breast. His big hand was shockingly hot, yet her hard little nipple craved his palm, stabbed at it, and shot surges of lust down to her toes.
Yet he stayed perfectly still—and Portia moaned, frustration adding a startlingly harsh edge to her wordless plea. A fine sheen of sweat helped her wriggle under him.
But nothing brought her needy, dripping core the final stimulation it craved. Just a touch from her hand or his, soft or harsh, fast or slow, she didn’t care, not with this madness firing her blood. But she was blocked, condemned to climb higher and higher toward a pinnacle of pure need she’d never known before where nothing existed except the blurring of body and desire.
The only reality was the man in her arms, the one she’d craved for so very long. Gareth’s shoulders filled her hands and his thigh was between her legs.
She rocked against him, unconsciously circling her hips. There was no place here for fear.
He slid her chemise aside and sucked her nipple deep into his mouth.
Portia cried out. Hot, wet—and teeth?
“Didn’t expect that, did you, darling?” he muttered and set about driving her mad with tongue and teeth and fingers.
Vision faded first. Sound existed only for his voice urging her on and her own broken cries, begging for more, and her body writhing against his echoed by fine linen’s susurration. The rich aroma of sex mixed with the salt water’s tang to perfume the air, driving lust deeper into her veins.
And hunger, desperate and achingly sharp for the man above her. Hot and heavy as the slap of the waves on the pilings below the house, sharp as the bite of lust every time he suckled her. Deep and strong as the pulse building in her loins for the man beside her, his shaft blazingly hard against her knee.
“Gareth, please.” She tossed her head from side to side and groped for him again, desperate, uncertain how to spur him on.
“Take it, Portia, take it for me—and for yourself,” he purred like a tiger, that creature of shadows, offering to play in the sunlight.
His hand slipped between her thighs and found her most intimate flesh. He stroked her pearl—and Portia bucked, hard, and tumbled into orgasm. Fireworks exploded through her body, stealing breath and melting every bit of flesh and bone like magma.
She cried out, a long wordless, joyful sound like an unknown bird.
An instant later, Gareth grunted and jerked. Hot liquor splattered onto her thigh and her chemise’s hem, just above her knee.
For a moment, his heartbeat drummed between his palm and her thigh, vital and demanding as the Arizona noontime sun. Then he shifted his arm and his pulse faded into the distance, leaving her to face emotions she’d never thought to manage.
Chapter Twenty
Moving as clumsily as if she’d run across the Arizona desert, Portia laid her head against her husband’s shoulder.
He rumbled approval, lifted his arm, and gathered her against him. At least he didn’t seem to be angry with her.
A single hot tear gathered on her cheek.
“What’s the matter, honey?” He cleaned her delicately with the sheet’s edge then smoothed her chemise down.
“N-nothing.”
He tucked the covers up around her. She sniffled and burrowed closer, insensibly comforted by his heart’s steady beat under her cheek and his arm’s solid strength around her.
“Did I hurt you?” He spun the question out with the same idle intent he used to lure trout to his fishing line.
Like them, she couldn’t resist