Bared to the Viscount (The Rites of May Book 1)
Page 21
“This will be yours every day and every night, my love, if only you’ll marry me. A pirate marriage, if you will, full of every wickedness you and I can imagine.” Sliding his hands lower, he gripped her buttocks and lifted her up so her legs were nearly around his waist. “Let me show you a little of what I mean, and perhaps you will be convinced.”
The head of his cock pressed against her swollen, slick folds, and it was all she could do not to impale herself upon him instantly. But she held back for a moment as she remembered John limping into the church that morning. “You shouldn’t try to lift me, John. I’ll hurt you. You’re injured.”
A low growl came from his throat. “Pirates laugh at injury,” he said. “And, believe me, love—at the moment, I’m feeling no pain at all.” His eyes met hers, burning with need. “All I need right now is to be inside you again. To claim my most precious treasure.”
And steadying her back against the cupboard, he thrust up inside her, stretching her, filling her gloriously.
It felt so good, so incredibly good, to have him inside her, the sensation of pressure so deep and so hot. His desperate need for her fired her own desire, and she pushed her hips downward to meet his thrusts, gripping him with her thighs, locking her legs over his clenching, surging buttocks.
Heat pooled in her belly, and a high sweet pleasure began to sing through her blood. Sparkles and streaks of golden light began to flash behind her closed eyelids. How could he raise her to this peak again and again, so quickly and so completely every time?
The slide of his cock in and out of her, the feel of his hard shoulders beneath her arms, the musky smell of him, the sound of him groaning as his own arousal grew—they were indoors now, but the heady magic of it spiked through every nerve ending, as surely as when they’d been outside beneath the murmuring pines and the stars and the moon.
Only...there was another sound accompanying them now, and not that of rustling leaves or the songs of night-birds. It was the cupboard, banging and rattling as the teacups within clattered together in rhythm with John’s thrusts.
“John!” she cried breathlessly. “The noise! Miss Lawton will hear...might come down.”
“Damn it all,” he grunted, and swung around towards the kitchen table. A push of his hand to clear a space and he lay her down on her back. “Spread your legs wider for me,” he commanded, and leaned down over her, his biceps pressing the backs of her knees up toward her shoulders, splaying her, opening her more deeply to him than ever before.
His feet still on the ground, he pumped into her harder, harder, leaning his weight forward on his elbows, spearing his fingers through her wildly disordered curls.
This deep possession thrilled her, pushing her higher towards the climax that she knew would soon shake her to her core. She gripped his back with her legs, her ankles pressing just below his shoulders blades, and his muscles rippled beneath her calves as he rocked and rocked into her.
The rough roar of his breathing matched the wild thundering of her blood, and the boundaries of her flesh and his seemed to blur as they had before—their muscles clenched and strained together, and heat bloomed through them, and soon she was soaring, and he was soaring, and the bright, clear light that filled her filled him, too, and as one they pulsed outward into what seemed to be a warm, velvet, star-filled sky.
The pleasure of it was blinding, obliterating, beyond flesh, beyond names, beyond time or space. There was only that pure, sweet brightness that meant her soul merging with his.
And they hung within it for what seemed like an eternity.
The world rocked and pulsed and glowed, larger and wider than before, and her heartbeat shimmered in time with it.
Gradually, though, she became conscious of John’s weight upon her, a separate form from her own. Her breathing steadied, her heart slowly resumed its normal human dimensions, once more allowing itself to be contained within her chest.
The smooth, familiar wood of her kitchen table was at her back, the pots and pans she’d scrubbed a thousand times hung on their hooks around the walls above them, the gingham curtains she’d stitched as a girl hung over the window.
But John was still with her—warm and solid, his chest rising and falling against hers, his hair brushing her cheek, the scent of him surrounding her, the fullness of him still inside her.
How extraordinary.
It seemed impossible and inevitable all at once. And she could have this. Always. This miracle of making love to him could become part the life she lived.
A dream in reality.
John gave a sleepy, contented sigh and rolled his weight off of her, stretching himself out beside her and drawing her snugly against his chest, as though this were a perfectly normal thing for a wealthy viscount to be doing, to be lying half-naked on a table in a humble country kitchen, with his head against the salt cellar and the sugar bowl at his back.
And contrary to anything she would have expected just moments before, she laughed. “Dear Lord, John—remember I told you how many people have confessed their sins at this table?”
He chuckled, his ribcage rumbling against hers. “Then it’s very appropriate that we’re here. And how can anyone blame sinners if their sins make them feel like this?”
“It’s rather hard to believe anyone gets anything virtuous done at all.”
He propped himself up on one elbow and look down at her tenderly. “And I must say, you look utterly delicious laid out like this—the most alluring meal imaginable. In future, I fully intend to take you on as many tabletops as possible.”
“I hope you will.”
“See, there’s another advantage to marrying me. I have a great many tables at Parkhurst Hall, of varying heights and dimensions. And also divans, and ottomans, and a quite sturdy desk in my study...and a well-stuffed leather armchair I’d definitely like to try. A good many stairwells, too. And linen closets. And the buttery. Not to mention the stables. Even the ice house offers some tantalizing possibilities. I look forward to mapping out the whole estate with you.”
She laughed and buried her face in the warm crook of his neck, her hands exploring the wonderful contours of his chest and ribs.
He pressed a kiss against her ear. “We really must be married now, Mary,” he said. “Miss Lawton would have to be deaf not to have heard some of that.”
A hot blush swept over her. “Do you think so?”
“I don’t know which of the two of us was shouting louder at the end. But don’t worry—laudanum is powerful stuff. At least your brother won’t have heard a thing.”
He pulled her up then, so she was sitting on the edge of the table, and gestured for her to put her dress to rights. He yanked his trousers back up over his hips and buttoned them hastily. No one could have said they were properly dressed—he was still shirtless, and his shoulders bore small red marks she supposed she must have left with her fingernails at some point in the proceedings, and his hair looked to have been through a mild hurricane—but still, he knelt down formally by her feet.
“I’m asking you now, officially, Mary Wilkins,” he said, taking both her hands in his. “Will you have me? Will you marry me? Will you be my match in this world and the next? Will you help me make a life I can be proud of?”
She looked deep into his eyes, those loving blue eyes that had always seen the best in her, that truly saw her as beautiful and worthy of cherishing. And her heart melted.
“Yes, John,” she said. “Yes, of course. I am yours. I have always been yours. And I cannot imagine any life I would want if I could not live it with you.”
“Hallelujah!” he cried, and jumped up to grab her in his arms and kiss her soundly. “And as a clergyman’s daughter, you know you can’t go back on your word. That would be shameful, you know.”
She found herself laughing again. “I won’t go back on it. But, oh, heavens, John, what on earth are we going to tell people? Everyone knows we went into the woods together. How will we ever explain?”
�
�We’ll tell them the truth.”
“The truth?” And visions of all they’d done together flashed through her mind—their naked bodies intertwined, outdoors under the open sky, here on the kitchen table in the vicarage, his shoulders above her, his sweat on her skin, his hips surging into hers. “I’m not sure that’s going to help my reputation.”
“No, Mary. The truth.” He took her hands in his again and smiled at her with his eyes sparkling. “The only truth that matters, which is that I fell in love with you. And we were alone together because I was proposing to you. Which is exactly what I was doing, as a matter of fact. Perhaps not with words, but with my body.”
She drew in a deep breath, drawing the scent of him inside of her. “I did understand you correctly at the time, didn’t I? Even if I got myself confused about it later.”
“Yes, you did. Though we’d best not give the neighbors all the details of that. Let’s let them believe I got down on just one of my knees.”
Mary laughed, pure happiness bubbling through her. “Then perhaps you might ask me once more, John, if you don’t mind. In just the way you did before.”
And so he put his mouth to her breast and showed her what he meant, all over again, as he intended to do every day, for the rest of their lives.
Author Note
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About the Author
Lara Archer is a multi-award-winning author of historical and contemporary erotic romance.
Whether you love handsome dukes in lavish ballrooms, or hunky forest rangers on redwood-covered mountains, you’ll find stories that warm your heart and fire your desires!
Other Works by Lara Archer
Available Now:
Bared to the Viscount (The Rites of May Book 1)
Wild at Heart (Walk on the Wild Side Book 1)
Coming Soon:
Bared to the Heiress (The Rites of May Book 2)