Eventually the frothing waves settled to a gentle, soothing lap.
“Ahhh.” Isabella exhaled, so languid and heavy-limbed, it was a wonder she didn’t sink through the mattress to the stone floor. “That was…” Remarkable. Stunning. Fun.
Aye, fun. But the gentle lapping hadn’t stopped.
In truth, the churning had started up again before it ever fully settled. Her stomach tightened. The muscles in her abdomen clenched and quivered, began to ache anew.
Her breasts ached too, feeling heavier, weightier than she could remember. And her chest felt surprisingly chilled. She brought one unsteady hand to the dampened, previously sucked-upon tip to find it puckered into a tight knot. An exposed knot—one not covered by warm lips.
And still the lapping continued on.
Her hips squirmed as her mind swam up from the depths. “Nich…o…las?” Awareness returned with crystalline clarity. She arched forward, her quavering stomach muscles aiding the effort.
“Nicholas!” A tiny wail emerged when Isabella’s outstretched fingers encountered his broad shoulders and she determined what he was about.
Horrors!
Wicked, wonderful horrors!
She immediately flopped back onto the bed, even as her hips lifted higher into his mouth. “Oh heavens! A poxed fox on you—you cannot kiss me there!”
Her lower body disagreed, happily, horridly, flailing again of its own accord against his mouth.
After delivering the most astonishingly intimate kiss yet, he lifted his head to ask, “Are you still nervous? Even the tiniest bit?”
Was she? Startled and disconcerted, yes. Nervous? “Nooooo…”
“Pleased?”
“Beyond expectation?” She answered as though it was a question. Then sought to remedy that. “Deliriously so.”
His agile tongue licked slowly up one side of her sensitized folds and back down the other. Another shudder tore through her. “Ever been to the beach? Visited the ocean?”
“Ah…nay.” Now that was odd. She’d pictured it so very clearly.
His tongue delved around intimate places too wondrously wicked to name. She caught her breasts up in each hand, pinching the hardened peaks the way his teeth had earlier.
“Fascinating,” he mused. “Want to go?” And still his naughty kisses continued.
“With you?” She sighed. Naughty or not, everything he did felt sooooo devilishly splendid. “I’ll go anywhere.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” His voice smiled again and he climbed up her body. “I do believe it’s time I took us both to heaven. Hold on, sweetheart, you might see sparks again. I know I shall.”
A second’s fumbling and his shaft was indeed nudging for entry. Entry her body greedily offered, having an inkling of what was in store.
Once nestled in place, Nicholas pushed inside slowly and Isabella felt new and different muscles shifting to receive him.
“All the way now…” he murmured before pressing deep, pausing at the last remaining resistance to brace his elbows beside her shoulders. He cupped her face within his palms. “I love you, Issybelle. Thank you for bringing me sunshine and hope.”
Then he forged inside the rest of the way, his body filling hers so completely she did see stars, even caught a few on the way down when deep into the night, he told her of the constellations spinning outside their window, painted pictures of the beach they’d visit and the life they’d have, romping with their children over Frostwood Hall and beyond.
And through it all—the gentle washing he administered afterward, the repast of bread and wine, the laughing battle fought with berries upon the giant bed, Isabella saw a man who loved her dearly. And always would.