“You already know that I do.”

“Then why are we still talking?”

He angled his head to capture my mouth with his and I tilted my head back as his kiss deepened. His hands were suddenly inside my dress, sliding around to cup my breasts. When he rubbed his hard, calloused palms across them, I almost shrieked with pleasure right then and there. My sensitive nipples were now taut peaks and he stroked them with his thumbs, as if plucking strings causing vibrations down to my deepest depths. I fell back against him.

This was happening. Finally. And I hadn’t even had a chance to tell him about my feelings. Slowly, I pulled away and turned back to him.

“Can we—?”

But he shook his head and pulled the front of my dress down to my waist. “No more talking,” he said roughly before ducking his head to suck one of my nipples into his mouth. The contact was like fireworks—the good kind, not the kind that made me scream in terror. No, these fireworks were brilliant, scorching, overwhelming.

His mouth and tongue were doing wicked things. I let out a small grunt of surprise when his teeth ever so lightly grazed that sensitive point. I thought it was an accident until, seconds later, he did it again. My back arched, pushing more of my breast into his mouth.

He responded by gently taking my shoulder and gently lowering me to his plush mattress without ever stopping what he was doing. Soon he was lying beside me, still covering my chest with hot, wet kisses. When he shifted, his thigh pinned mine to the bed and my hands gravitated to his hard chest.

And then I knew—just as I’d been suspecting for months—this was going to be so good.

 

 

Chapter 30

William

Jenna is making sounds—small sighs and gasps and a few louder moans that increase in volume the more I caress and taste her. And the more she does, the harder I get, until it hurts almost everywhere. I’m so tense, I feel like I’m going to explode.

I want to explode. Inside her. Right now it’s what I want more than anything. Almost more than breathing. It’s like…being hungry and then eating, but never feeling full. The more I taste her, the hungrier I get.

I reach down to pull the rest of her dress from her body and she helps me by lifting her hips from the bed to let me remove it. Her hand is still stroking my chest in the way that I like, with firm, hard strokes instead of that tickling light touch that I can’t stand.

Jenna is not wearing a bra under her corset bodice, but she has a pair of modern women’s underwear on. I’m glad she didn’t go with more period-appropriate underclothing, because these are small, lacy…sexy. They’re low-cut and a pretty shade of lavender that looks gorgeous next to her skin under the silvery light from the moon above my tent. The next time I paint her, she’ll be wearing that shade of lavender. Or nothing at all.

I’d prefer nothing at all. I’m so desperate to have her that when I grab the panties to pull them off her, I’m a little too forceful. She lets out a shocked breath and I mutter my apology.

She smiles and shakes her head. “No, it’s good. It’s sexy. Pull them off as hard as you want.”

That’s all I need to hear. As they come off with a vicious yank, she makes that sound again…almost like a sob. But she’s not crying.

She’s smiling and luminous.

She’s naked.

And she’s on my bed.

I’m fumbling with the lacings on my breeches, almost willing to cut through them to get them off as quickly as I can. Unlike Jenna, I opted for period-style underwear, which look weird by modern-day standards. They’re, loose and falling almost to the knee with a drawstring at the top.

But I’m out of the breeches and the underwear in less than two-thirds of a minute. And, for the first time ever, we’re both naked.

Just a few seconds after registering that fact, I cover her warm body with mine, skin against skin. My mouth finds hers again and then all rational thought becomes like a stick floating in the middle of a rushing river, being torn this way and that by vicious currents. This desire is the most powerful force in my head and my heart.

At last. I’m naked and Jenna’s naked underneath me, touching me, kissing me. Her sighs and moans are like music to me. And they are like a blacksmith’s bellowes to the desire burning inside, fanning it even hotter.

She’s giving herself to me, and I’m taking what I’ve wanted for so long.

In the distance, there are people talking, laughing, throwing more wood onto the pile to feed the bonfire. And the drums. They are beating, pulsing, thumping, a primal, rhythmic beat.

It’s Beltane—the mating season.

And like an ancient, powerful magic that I don’t actually believe in, it’s taking me over.

My hands move over her soft skin, insistent. In theory, I know what to do. I’m sure instinct will probably take over, but I want it to be good for her. I may have done extensive research, but that may not be enough.

I shift so that I’m lying on her, but I brace myself on my elbows so as not to crush her. Then I pull my mouth away from hers and she looks up at me. Slowly, she opens her legs…and I hesitate.

I swallow, feeling again like I’m unworthy. Like I might be unable to give her what she wants. She reaches up to touch my face. Her lids are heavy over her heavenly blue eyes. “Can I show you what I like?”

I don’t move and she cups my shoulder with her hand. The touch burns and my eyes close. “I want to make you feel good, Jenna.”

“You are, Wil. You are.”

She pushes against my shoulder so that I’m now lying down beside her, and then she straddles me. Her firm, beaded nipples are against my chest, and the heat between us is expanding into a scorching furnace. Every surface of my skin that touches her softness is on fire.

She starts by kissing my chest, taking my nipples in her mouth as I have done to her. Her hands are roaming my thighs, slipping between my legs to explore me. My hands are smoothing down her back, cupping her butt, cinching her waist to mine.

We’re burning like a molten star. We’re generating a new type of heat, a fusion, that particular nuclear reaction found at the center of a star, that incomparable heat and light extending out for billions of years.

“Jenna, I need—”

“I know what you need.”

“Then let me inside you.”

She moans. “Yes.” She pulls back and my eyes once again fixate on those perfect, radiant breasts. They look as if carved from marble by the master hand of Michelangelo. Every shape, every curve, every peak in perfect proportion. A masterwork of art.