She gasped. “That feeling—oh—it’s starting—oh—again.”
And with those words, his shaft buried deep inside her, taking all he gave, she brought him to the edge with her. Sweat slicked his body as he thrust with intention, relentless, determined she would find release with him. Her head arched back, digging into green grass and exposing the elegant column of her throat, as she surrendered to mindless abandon. Control began to slip away as his rhythm increased and he lost himself inside her.
“Rory,” she cried into his neck for the second time tonight.
As her quim pulsed around him, he gave in to the animal instinct to pump his release into her on a shout, joining her in the vastness of climax as deep and unknowable as the inky sky above. “Juliet, my love,” he murmured as he collapsed to the side of her.
It was only when he began to return to himself that he realized what he’d said.
There wasn’t a syllable he would take back.
When he pulled his face from her neck, it was to find her watching him, a question in her eyes. “You are quite an expert at lovemaking,” she said. “Empirically speaking, of course.”
A lazy chuckle rumbled in his chest.
As funny as she was intelligent. How many people knew that about Miss Juliet Windermere?
He did.
That was all that mattered.
“Aye,” he said in answer to her observation.
He knew this about himself. He cared for the pleasure of his partner, unlike most men, apparently. He’d been told so on more than one occasion.
She went utterly serious. “You’re more than that, you know.”
“More than what?” Was he was missing something?
“You’re more than your ability to deliver an excellent tup.”
His laugh this time took on a note of discomfort.
“And those words you spoke?” she asked.
“Which ones?”
“Near the end.”
Juliet, my love.
Those words, neither needed to say.
“Aye?”
“Were they simply words spoken in the heat of lovemaking?” she asked, direct. “Words that won’t be felt as strongly in an hour or so?”
She was tossing his words from yesterday back at him.
Good.
He’d spoken them to provoke a response from her, and here it was, at last.
The time had arrived to give them a good airing out—and one word in particular.
He rolled off her completely. “I think we should be sitting upright—and bits tucked away—for this conversation,” he said, doing precisely that as he folded himself into his trousers and buttoned the fall.
She sat up, tucking her breasts into her bodice. “I think you’re right.” She’d begun securing her flower crown.