Love Is a Rogue (Wallflowers vs. Rogues #1) - Lenora Bell Page 0,97

thighs wider and reached beneath them to cup her firm little bottom with his palms, guiding her into his rhythm.

“Then don’t, Ford. Don’t leave.” She kissed him fiercely and held on to his neck, right there with him, matching his movements. It was too much. Pleasure built and clamored for release and he slowed a moment, prolonging the sensation.

Her arms twined around his neck, their sweat mingled, her hair damp and spiraling around her face. Breasts crushed beneath his chest, cushioning him, pleasure building in his bollocks.

All of this was familiar.

All of this he knew, and knew well.

How to give and take, when to ease off, allow his partner to breath, and when to ride hard, racing for the finish line. He’d had many of these moments before—the soaring plateau before the plunge into pleasure—but this felt different.

The stars on this horizon were thicker, closer together, covering the sky with pinpricks of light.

This welling of emotion wasn’t supposed to roll over him every time he kissed her soft lips. His heart wasn’t supposed to clench along with the muscles of his abdomen as he thrust deeper inside her heat.

Tears weren’t supposed to escape his eyes as her sex clasped him, squeezed him, in a warm embrace as if she’d never let him go.

He stopped and took her face in his hands. He stared into her eyes and she gazed boldly back, and the look in her eyes was the most beautiful, tender, terrifying thing he’d ever seen.

“Beatrice, I love you,” he whispered, emotion roughening his voice to gravel.

She smiled, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I love you, too, my rogue.”

She moved against him. Tentatively at first, just a slight rolling of her hips, sheathing and unsheathing an inch of him at a time.

Her face changed, grew more focused. She furrowed her brow, biting her lip, setting the pace.

All he had to do was be fully present with her. Hold firmly to his control. Not allow himself to go over the edge.

“Oh, oh, my,” she said on a sigh, and her inner muscles gripped and released and gripped again.

“Yes, Beatrice,” he moaned. Now he could ravish her.

He took her with deep strokes, joining their bodies together to make something wholly new.

Beatrice wound her legs around Ford’s hips and dug her fingernails into the solid muscle of his shoulders as they moved together.

Her body had a new purpose. Build and be built.

Love and be loved.

He used his body with the same focus and skill he applied when he used his tools. He demanded equal participation; she had no chance of keeping any part of herself hidden away.

She owned this house—she wouldn’t let Foxton take it away—and now for the first time, she owned her body. It was hers to give. Not a burden, a gift.

This body with its damaged nerves and eager mind. This body with its urges and desires and responses.

How could a man with roughened, callused hands touch her so gently? There was no more potent combination. He sawed and hammered and built things, repaired roofs and refinished floors. But when he touched her, it was with reverence, a whisper of a caress, butterfly wings on her lips, the brush of a rose against her inner thighs.

And then this.

She’d never imagined this. These long, slow strokes, filling her, joining them as one.

She tilted her head back, unable to see the portrait clearly but knowing it was there. She had a feeling her scandalous aunt would approve of these wanton goings-on in her bed.

The pace of his movement increased and she held on to his sweat-slick shoulders, twining her legs around his taut bum and holding on for dear life.

He was going to drive this bed halfway into the wall.

He was going to drive her insane. “Ford,” she moaned. “I’m yours. Make use of me.”

He growled against her throat, filling her again and again until, with one last mighty stroke, he collapsed against her chest, crushing her against the bed as pleasure took him.

His breathing slowed. He slipped out of her body. He threw the coverlet over them and encased her in his strong arms.

“Ford?”

“Mmm?”

“I have to wash up.” He lifted his arm and she hopped off the bed. She threw one of his shirts over her head and went to the washroom and bathed between her thighs with shockingly cold water.

When she crawled back into bed, he’d moved onto his side so she held him from the back, her face pressed against the hollow of his shoulder blade, her arm