She replied with a long, low moan, and I began to move. Taking her by the hips and holding her still, I sank in as deep as I could go, listening carefully to her. After nearly two months of no sex, she was tight. She felt incredible, her muscles clenching me like a fist. My heartbeat thrummed in my throat, my mouth dry. I imagined how she must look, spread out across that table for me.

I slowed, reaching one hand underneath her where I could rub her clit and the other to tangle in her hair. Even as I pulled at her hair, jerking her head up, I was thankful that since she’d lost her hair and it had grown back, she no longer had anxiety associated with fingers—my fingers, at least—in her hair.

Thank God, because I loved running my hands through it.

She moaned as I brought her closer to climax. I sank my teeth into the pliant flesh under her shoulder blade.

“Don’t leave a mark,” she gasped.

I released her. “Way down here?”

She didn’t answer, but I concluded that her wedding dress must be backless. The thoughts of seeing her in it almost did me in.

Later today… Finally. She’d be mine in every way.

And she was mine right now. I deepened the pressure where I rubbed her, and she rewarded me with the familiar sounds of her climax. At the end, when she said my name as a desperate plea, that was what did me in.

Only a few more thrusts and I was coming, too, in mind-blowing waves of brain-frying rapture. A full minute of my life passed where I had no awareness of anything but the pure pleasure of emptying myself into Emilia’s supple, waiting body. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was experience her. The feel of her beneath me, of her chest rising and falling under mine. Of her satisfied, contented moans.

I kissed her back, her shoulder blades, everywhere my mouth could reach. Then I lifted myself off her and reached untie her wrists. She was pliant in my arms as I helped her up from the table and guided her to the bed. It took longer than normal, but when she finally lay down, she let out a hiss of a breath when her bottom hit the sheets, immediately rolling onto her side.

“Well, that’s going to be fun…no sitting down tomorrow.”

“Roll onto your stomach.” I undid the tie at her wrist with a simple pull of the slipknot. Turning from the bed, I lifted the blindfold, went into the bathroom, and grabbed a towel and a bottle of pain reliever. When I returned, I dunked the towel into the melting ice bucket and wrung it out before fumbling my way toward the bed.

I put the ice-cold towel across her ass, murmuring a brief warning first. She tensed when I did it, but offered no protest. Then, after more fumbling, I gave her two pills and a bottle of water, which she leaned up to take into her mouth straight from my fingers.

Down, boy, I had to order myself when arousal flickered again from that simple action. I moved to my side of bed, and she ordered me to cover myself with a sheet so she could pull off her blindfold and use the bathroom.

I complied. When she approached the bed, she replaced her blindfold and crawled in beside me, wrapping herself around me. “You have to be gone by sunrise.”

I pulled her against me. “Why?”

“So no one sees you leaving my room in the morning.”

“I hate to break this to you, but all the wedding guests already know we’ve been sleeping together for the past two years.”

“Smartass. The night before the wedding and all the bad luck and everything.”

“That did not feel like bad luck. That felt very, very good.”

“Adam…”

“Okay, okay, I’ll be out before five. Which means I have over four more hours.” I was talking big, though. I knew perfectly well I was too exhausted to go again without some rest.

She yawned, as if reading my mind. “I’m sleepy,” she whispered, putting her head on my shoulder. In minutes, she was asleep, and I relished the sound of her breathing, burying my nose in her hair and drifting off into a pure, contented doze myself.

I wasn’t quite sure when it started, because I was definitely asleep at first, slowly becoming aware of a warm body pressed to mine, a weight on my chest, a mouth on my mouth. I was on that twilight edge between dream and reality, not quite sure what was real and what was manufactured by my subconscious mind. But slowly, slowly, reality took hold in an almost seamless way, and everything appeared as if in a fugue.

Emilia was kissing me, straddling me.

Without even opening my eyes, I reached up, cupping her breasts, and she shivered, sliding against me. I was rock hard again and ready and had, apparently, slept through any foreplay that had taken place.

This time was slow, and it took longer—a fact that didn’t bother me one bit. Emilia reached over to the nightstand and then handed me the condom, which I quickly took care of. Seconds later, I was inside her again as she rocked on top of me, her melodious moans in my ear.

I tried to take her hips and drive her movements, but Emilia shoved my hands away, bracing herself on my shoulders as she moved at a maddeningly slow pace. I hooked my hands around the back of her thighs, running my fingers along the soft skin there. We climbed slowly, together, every movement of her hips over mine taking us one step closer.

Soon, it was too much, and my hands were on her hips again, driving us toward that finish line together. This time, she didn’t shove me away, her movements becoming as urgent as mine. I was close, so close when I felt her still and tighten around me with her orgasm, nudging me over the top toward mine. And we came together—pulsing, ecstatic delight washing over both of us.

She slumped immediately, sliding to her side of the bed, slick with sweat. “Whatever that was, it was fun, and you should definitely do it more often,” I said.

She sighed. “I thought you were awake. You were grabbing me and muttering dirty stuff. You must have been dreaming.”

“I don’t remember, but I’m sure it was the best kind of dream.” I kissed her temple.

We slept again, locked in each other’s arms, peaceful and secure. It should feel like this every night. And yet, after all we had done together, the last thought that zinged through my mind made me feel like a kid on Christmas Eve.

When we came back to bed this evening, we’d be married.

Chapter 22

Mia

When I woke up, the sky was already lightening. My first awareness was of soreness, everywhere. Mostly in between my legs from all the sex and the use of muscles that had lain dormant for far too long. But also on my ass, where he had spanked me. And around my wrists, which had been tied together. And, of course, the raw and tender skin from where his abrasive growth of whiskers had rubbed my skin wherever he had kissed me—which was everywhere. My stomach, my breasts, the insides of my thighs. My neck. My ears. Even the small of my back had been scraped raw by his delicious, sandpapery kisses.