“We have to hope there’s a way to square with that.” As he increased the friction and left her panting, he turned her head toward him and kissed her lips.
What if I don’t want to?
A release caught Isobel by surprise, but it stole her breath from its intensity. Heat prickled her skin while pleasure tingled through each nerve ending. She moaned into his mouth and curled her fingers into the hair at his nape. Longing still circled deep in her core. Did he feel the same?
“Devil take me for a fool, but I want you. Crave you like the most potent of opiates,” he whispered against her lips. Seconds later, Royce shifted on the narrow bed and scooted her body beneath his. “I’ve missed you like this,” he murmured as he fumbled at the buttons of his frontfalls. He nipped at her lips. “Hell’s bells, I missed you.”
“There’s nothing stopping you.” She wrapped her legs about his, folding them until he was nestled comfortably between her bent knees. Seconds later, the wide head of his member glanced along her sensitive folds to kiss her opening. She held his head between her palms, so he had no choice but to meet her gaze. Questions and sadness glimmered in those hazel depths, now more green than brown. “Don’t hold back, for I’ve missed you too.”
It was the closest she’d come to begging, and for once in her life she let someone else take the helm.
“Dear God, do you even realize how wonderful you truly are?” The barely audible words danced through her ears like the most heavenly music moments before he thrust into her body with such authority that he didn’t stop until he was fully seated.
She fell down, down, down, splashed into those comforting pools, let the feel of him envelop her in a cloud of bliss and comfort while she surrendered everything to a man for the first time in her life.
Again and again, Royce kissed her. Then he moved, stroking into her with long, tender pushes that gently rocked their bodies together. When he dragged his lips down her cheek, along the column of her throat to play with her exposed nipple, teasing it with his tongue and teeth, contractions in her core began once more.
And still he penetrated her. Over and over, he claimed her body in a dance as old as time itself with such care that tears stung the backs of her eyelids. She smoothed her palms along his shoulders. The quiet strength of him as he held her within the cage of his arms brought her closer to the security she’d longed for her whole life. Isobel clutched him close, fairly clinging to him in an effort to become one, loathe to let him go, for he’d become the one constant she could count on in recent weeks.
What seemed like endless seconds passed as they communed without words. Their bodies glided together. Her shift lay plastered to her back from the sweat of her exertions. She kissed his mouth, licked a path on his neck, and as her lips encountered the skin where his stubble began, the contrast between smooth skin and that erotic roughness sent her into a whole new level of delight.
Royce halted his movements. She popped open her eyes, fully intent on questioning him, but the look on his face stole her words and her breath. The emotions there were too shadowed for her to fully identify, but the longer she held his gaze, the farther she fell down a slippery slope she’d never come close to before.
In the space of a few heartbeats, they floated in a realm that no longer included the moon-frosted clinic. Instead, Isobel felt much like flying, but in a different way than intercourse could ever do. She lost a couple of pieces of her soul to him in that moment, and in return, she received matching bits of his. In that perfect second of time, she belonged exclusively to someone and if was as if she’d waited for this to happen since the day she was born. And what was more, she’d found someone who would understand her, who would accept her despite her flaws.
“Royce…” The sound of his name in her voice broke the magical spell.
“Right.” He resumed his quest to send her into madness, for his thrusts grew more frantic as if he remembered what he’d been doing. Harder, deeper, faster he drove, and it was all Isobel could do to match his rhythm. In the end, she didn’t even try. With her earlier surrender, she merely wished him to take care of her needs. Higher and higher she floated as the terrible pressure and need built inside of her.
“Almost.” She touched her nipple, rolled the bud, and the additional stimulation was exactly what she required to dive over the edge of the precipice into bliss. “Royce!” A white void sucked her under, full of pinpoints of rainbow-hued light as she broke into a million pieces to join with it.
He grunted, thrust as deep as he could go one last time, then the doctor followed her into the valley of pleasure. While he ground his pelvis into hers, his member jerked and pulsed. The warm jet of his seed filled her, and she reveled in it. “This… You…” He claimed her lips, treated her to long, drugging kisses that had her body shaking in renewed hunger and joy. Finally, he rolled onto his side and took her with him. He held her so close, their heartbeats jumbled together, and his labored breathing rasped in her ear. “Bloody hell, Isobel.”
“I know.” She wrapped her arms about his middle and rested her head on his shoulder. For a long time, and certainly until well after her breathing returned to normal did she remain in his embrace. But there will questions she had to ask. “What now?” Her voice sounded small and slightly muffled against his shirt. “Will you continue to work in the clinic?”
He hesitated, so slightly most would miss it, but not her. “I’m not certain yet.” That gave her pause, but before she could say anything, he continued. “What will you do once your mother passes? Will you stay in Town?”
Was that a wistful note in his tone or her imagination? She curled a hand into the fine lawn of his shirt. “I don’t know. I was young when my father died so don’t remember much of that time. Now, I suppose I shall have to be a part of it.” The urge to cry rose up in her throat. Isobel swallowed a few times to stave it off. “I detest that death changes everything.”
“You and me both,” he said in a barely audible voice. His arms tightened around her, but she didn’t mind. It made her feel safe and wanted. “Perhaps it means you’ll receive a distinct lack of attention.” Though there was obvious teasing in his tones, she still teared up.
“Yes, exactly.” A few of them escaped to her cheeks, and she let them fall. Perhaps emotions weren’t all that bad after all. “Being grown is more difficult than I’d anticipated.”
“It usually is.” His chuckle washed over her and brought her unexpected comfort. “But this too shall pass.”
“I know, and where will that leave us?” There was no answer, of course, and she snuggled more fully into his body.
For a long time, they lay entwined together as the night feel deeper around them. There was no heat or passion exchanged between them now, only mutual support given and received. In that small handful of moments, there were no demons to vanquish or decisions to make.
There was only peace and rest. As Isobel’s eyes fluttered closed, she sighed. I could become all too used to this…