He helped her out of her dressing gown before tossing it onto the floor.
Adopting a serious expression, he inspected her skin from her neck down to the tops of her breasts. “Oh yes, it’s definitely spreading. I’d better experiment and see if stimulus changes things.”
The touch of his tongue, and then his mouth on her breast, arrested her laughter. The contact sent a jolt of sensation down to that place at her center where she was suddenly restless with the need to be touched.
As if he’d heard her thoughts, Val stroked a hand down over her abdomen, settling it there for a moment. His mouth tugged on her nipple and her hips shifted restlessly. With his free hand, he caressed her other breast, and only when she moaned did he relent and move the hand at her pubis to dip down over the spot that ached. He slicked a finger into the moisture there and Caro’s hips lifted again.
He teased and stroked her until her body was vibrating with need, and when he pressed into her with first one finger, then another, she gasped at the flash of pleasure it sent through her. “More,” she demanded, though she wasn’t sure what more she wanted. Only that she needed it.
When he began kissing his way down her body, she almost wept. “What are you doing?”
She felt the warm puff of his breath against her skin. “I’m trying to give you what you asked for, dear wife. Trust me.”
But it was difficult to do so when her body was aching with unfulfilled passion.
He slid his arms beneath her legs and braced her knees over his shoulders. Then she recalled an illustration she’d seen once in a book the girls had passed around at school. Her eyes widened. “Oh! Is that something that people do outside of books?”
She gasped at the sensation of his soft huff of laughter against her mons.
“It’s something the people in this bed can do if you like it,” he said, kissing her on the inner thigh.
His hot breath on her most intimate parts felt odd, yet utterly intoxicating, and when she felt his tongue on the sensitive bud at the heart of her, she wasn’t too shy to thread her hands into his hair and clasp him to her.
Over and over again he stroked his tongue there and soon used his fingers to press into that empty space that longed to be filled. Alternating between his tongue and his fingers, he brought her to the edge of bliss more than once, then finally, gloriously, he kept going until, like a shooting star, she splintered into a million tiny pieces and slowly fell back to earth.
Chapter Twenty
While Caro came back down to earth, Val tried to get himself under control. He’d never felt this kind of overwhelming desire. Perhaps it was from the duration of his longing for her, or simply the fact that she was—at long last—his wife. Whatever the reason, he needed her now.
“What if we didn’t wait until tonight?” he asked, sliding skin on skin up her body until his thighs were cradled between hers. If she wanted to wait, he would simply have to douse his entire body in a cold bath. It would be unpleasant, but he could endure it for her sake.
Her eyes were still drowsy with the aftermath of her pleasure, but at his words, they widened. “I thought we’d already decided not to wait.” She glanced down to where his hardness nudged against her center. “In fact,” she said on a groan, “I think it would be best if we didn’t.” She bent her knees, which lifted her softness to stroke against him.
Bracing on one arm, Val used his other to take himself in hand. “There may be pain,” he said tersely. “But I’ll try my best to make it as brief as possible.”
“I know you will.” She leaned up to kiss him. “I trust you.”
He knew it wasn’t an easy admission for his proud wife to make, but Val was too overwhelmed with emotion to say so. He let his kiss tell her what his words could not, and with one sure thrust, he pressed into her. He felt her gasp against his shoulder where she gripped him tightly, and he regretted causing her pain. Then pulling back, he felt her body close around him, as if to keep him within her. Closing his eyes against the pleasure, he kept going until he was almost to the edge, then thrust back in again, this time seating himself fully inside her body.
“All right?” he gritted out, every muscle in his body tight in an effort to keep from pounding into her.
“Yes,” she said in a strained voice. “It’s uncomfortable but not painful exactly.”
“Too uncomfortable to continue?” he asked carefully. He would stop if she needed him to.
She thrust up her hips experimentally. “Oh, no, please continue,” she said a little breathlessly.
That was all the encouragement he needed to begin a series of steady strokes that soon had her moving against him in a rhythm as old as time. It wasn’t his first sexual experience, of course, but it was his first time making love to Caro, and with every touch, every stroke, his body knew this was different. He’d known all those years ago it would be good between them, but what he hadn’t realized was just how holding, touching, loving her like this, would fill his heart.
He could feel her breathing becoming erratic as her hips began to thrust up with more force. With one hand he reached down to caress the bud of her pleasure and was rewarded by a soft cry as Caro flew over the edge and lost herself in the aether.
With a curse, Val let himself go, pushing into her again and again and again, until he felt the telltale tingle at the base of his spine that signaled his impending climax. With one last thrust, he gave a sharp cry and hurtled into nothingness, pouring himself into her.
When he came back to himself, he was ashamed to realize he’d collapsed on top of her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, scrambling to move over.
But Caro, who’d been holding him close, clung tighter. “Don’t go yet,” she said softly. “I like it. The weight of you lying on me.”
Puzzled, he let himself relax again. “Far be it for me to contradict a lady.”
“It’s pleasing to me.” She laughed. “It’s…it’s primitive maybe. Which probably makes me every sort of hypocrite, considering how much I rail against women’s roles.”
“Not necessarily.” He cushioned his head against her breast. “This is simply what you like. Instinctively maybe. There can’t be anything wrong with instinct, can there?” He realized as he spoke that perhaps his words could apply to himself as well as Caro. Ever since they’d met again, he’d dismissed his chaotic emotions as base impulses, but really, hadn’t he just been acting on instinct? Where Caro was concerned, at least, it seemed he was most often led by his heart. And that wasn’t anything to feel shame over. No more than the way she liked the weight of his body on hers.
His whole life he’d been taught to suppress his own impulses. Whether holding his temper or being polite to people he found insufferable, or even obeying his father in choosing a bride not based on his own preferences but what society demanded of him.
But he was learning his feelings for Caro were true. And if that was true, then surely he could trust his instincts elsewhere. The revelation left him a little awed.
“Maybe,” Caro agreed, unaware of his thoughts. “So long as it doesn’t infringe upon someone else’s freedom, I suppose it’s allowable.”