He didn’t know what else he could say to make her see, to make her believe that he was sincere. What he did know was that he wasn’t letting her leave this room without having fought for what he wanted. When he’d ridden out to speak to her father, to confess, he’d known clearly what he was giving up, and he had regretted the loss deeply. He hadn’t sat down and thought about that in so many words beforehand, but on that ride he’d seen Ashleigh in his house, living there. He’d seen them together, seen himself cradling a tiny baby. He’d imagined building tree houses in the woods and teaching his kids to hunt and fish in that wilderness. He’d imagined having all the things he’d never had as a child, and giving them to his own children. Those visions had made him want to turn back almost as much as they’d spurred him on.
He couldn’t convince her with words. There weren’t enough words. He didn’t know enough of them. He leaned in and kissed her, trying to put everything that he felt into that press of lips. At first she didn’t respond. He thought maybe he’d failed, that he’d lost her, until she began to kiss him back.
At the first sign of reaction he let go of her shoulders. He needed her to be naked. He needed for there to be no barriers between them. The mid-summer night had been almost as warm and humid as the day, and she was wearing a flimsy dress, all blue and white striped, to accommodate the heat. He found the zip at the back and fumbled it down until he could push the thin material off her shoulders and down until it puddled on the floor at her feet. He kept the kiss going as he unhooked her bra and sent it after her dress. Then he pulled her close, needing to feel her skin against his.
Ashleigh broke the kiss with a gasp, sucking in air. Paul took the opportunity to half carry her over to the bed. Her little slipper shoes fell off along the way. He needed to show her just how much he needed her. He kissed his way down her body. If she sent him away after this, he wanted the memories imprinted in his mind. When he sucked a stiff, rosy nipple into his mouth, letting his teeth graze it, she arched off the bed with a cry. He paid the same attention to her other breast, reveling in the way the skin of those perfect globes was flushed and the pink nipples were swollen when he was finished. He continued his path, pausing at her stomach. He framed her navel with his palms before placing a reverent kiss against the soft skin. His child, their child was in there.
He slid his fingers under the thin strings of her thong and pulled it down and off, leaving the bed himself until it slipped free of her feet, and returning straight after as he tossed it in the general direction of her other clothes. He parted her legs to make way for him. There were more memories he wanted. He wanted to indulge in the smell and the taste of her until he couldn’t forget it. She was still shaved and he took a moment to run his large palm over the smooth skin before he descended. At the first touch of his mouth, Ashleigh cried out again. He held her hips steady as he licked and sucked, nipping the tender flesh to make her moan. He felt her body start to shake and then tense. He drew her clit between his teeth and suckled it until her moans became almost a constant wail and he felt her climax shivering through her body.
He moved up and over her, holding himself on straightened arms as he pushed into her body. He held still, waiting for Ashleigh to open her eyes and look at him. When she did, he continued to hold, memorizing the pure sensation of being as close to her as was possible, of being completely enveloped by her. Uncertainty still clouded her eyes, but Paul was sure he saw the possibility for something else, something more. When his cock twitched of its own accord, demanding movement, friction, Ashleigh’s eyes fluttered closed and her body flexed in instinctive response. The spell was broken. Paul pulled back, then thrust, hard and deep.
Ashleigh’s fingers had been lightly gripping his waist, but now she brought her hands up to clutch his shoulders, to hold him to her. Paul hissed when her nails dug into the raw skin of the brand. He’d forgotten about the burn. He forgot about it again when she began to move with him. There was nothing like this on earth, nothing like the feeling of being so intimately connected with someone he cared so much about. He dropped to rest on his elbows so that he could rest his face against her shoulder, so that he could feel the pulse beating in her fragile neck, so that he could swim in the scent of her skin.
Her breath was coming in desperate gasps, as was his own. He felt the movements of her body alter from rhythmic to erratic. He knew she was close to peaking. He lifted again, giving himself the position to add more power to his thrusts, making steady long strokes into her core. He watched her climax hit her, watched it filled her up, and listened as it escaped in wrenching half-screams. Her body demanded that his follow, pulsing and squeezing him tight. He let the tension in the pit of his stomach free, felt it warm his limbs and shoot through his cock in throbbing waves. He threw his head back and tempered his bestial roar of release behind gritted teeth.