Shivering, although not with cold, she put her hands on his chest, finally finding out what he felt like, and he inhaled sharply, tensing beneath her touch. She splayed her fingers, slid her hands over the sprinkling of coarse hair, the hot skin over tight muscle and then the thundering of his heart and she thought it couldn’t be hammering nearly as hard or as fast as hers.
Especially not when he moved his hands down round her waist and up to cup her breasts. Heavier, thanks to the pregnancy, and...oh, Lord, supersensitive. He brushed his thumbs over her nipples and as sparks showered through her she groaned and arched her back in an instinctive attempt to increase the pressure.
In response Marcus nudged her back and then bent his head, and as he closed his mouth over her breast, his tongue flicking back and forth, Celia yelped and nearly came right then and there.
She’d never known anything like it, she thought dazedly, staggered at the sensations coursing through her. She’d had sex. Good sex. And not just with him. But this... This was something else. She felt as if every nerve ending were tingling. As if every muscle were tightening and every cell were bracing itself for heaven.
Was it just her hormones or was it him?
Did she care?
Not really. All she cared about was doing this. Right now.
She thrust her fingers in his hair and brought his head up. Captured his mouth with hers and ground herself against him as he was grinding himself against her.
Enough. She couldn’t take it any more.
And clearly neither could Marcus because he was lifting her onto her knees and shoving his jeans and shorts down. A second later he was running his hands up her stockinged thighs, brushing over the nubs of her suspender belt and groaning, and pushing her skirt up and ripping first one side of her knickers and then the other.
‘You have something against knickers
?’ she mumbled against his mouth.
He choked out a laugh. ‘Only yours.’
‘They were expensive.’
‘I’ll buy you more.’
And then he slid a couple of fingers inside her and she couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about. All she could do was bite her lip to stop herself from crying out, and try to cling onto some kind of control.
‘God, you feel good,’ he muttered.
‘So do you,’ she moaned. ‘I need you, Marcus. Inside me. Now.’
It must have been the sob that accompanied the ‘now’ that told him of her desperation because within a second he’d slipped his fingers out of her, took himself in one hand and held her hip with the other, and whether she thrust down or he thrust up, she didn’t know. All she knew was that just when she couldn’t bear it any longer he was lodged deep inside her, filling her and stretching her and she was losing her mind with the pleasure spearing through her.
‘Don’t you think this was the best idea ever?’ she panted as he began to move and she with him.
‘Not able to think,’ he muttered, one hand clutching at her hip and the other clamped to the back of her neck.
And then nor was she because he was slowly pulling out of her and then driving into her over and over again, and she could feel the tangle of feeling swelling inside her, her head spinning faster and faster until she erupted, crying out his name as she came and then again when, a second later, he exploded deep inside her.
She collapsed against him, stars flashing behind her eyelids and her body weak and trembling, the rasp of his breathing the only thing she could hear.
‘So,’ she said dazedly once she’d got her breath back and her heart rate had subsided. ‘Would you say it’s out of your system now?’
Marcus laughed raggedly and shook his head before resting his forehead against hers. ‘Celia, sweetheart, it’s not even looking for the exit.’
Giddy with relief she grinned and shifted and murmured against his mouth, ‘Then how about this time we finally get naked and find a bed?’
* * *
Celia sat on her window seat in her bedroom, stared out into the moonlit darkness as she listened to Marcus’ deep breathing from where he lay sprawled across her bed, and thought that she might as well face it. She was head over heels in love with the man.
She didn’t know how or when it had happened, only that at some point over the past two months or, more likely, fifteen years, it had, and that now she was aware of the fact it was hard to imagine not being in love with him.
When she thought about the criteria she’d always considered important in a man, he fitted. In almost every way. He was strong, loyal and supportive. Hard-working, driven and ambitious. He had a strong sense of moral responsibility, played to his strengths and accepted his weaknesses. In short, he was amazing.