Page 70 of Ella’s Desire

Her mouth curled in a slow, sensual smile that shot an arrow of lust straight into his cock. “If I do, it doesn’t mean you’re coming with me.” She peered around him, lifted his arm and loosened the gambeson. “You wear it as though it is new.”

He refrained from grunting with satisfaction as the weight was lifted off him. “It is new.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “You aren’t going to feign that it’s been worn to countless victories for my benefit and regale me with stories of your military prowess?”

He held her stare. “You’re not that kind of lady.”

“Nay.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I’m not.” She perused the small cave. Light shone in from outside despite the rain, the cast gray and muted, but still sufficient to see. Sufficient even to make out the color blooming in her cheeks, her mouth.

“What kind of a lady am I?” She stepped toward him and his heartbeat tripled.

“A lady who knows what she wants. Who she is.” He couldn’t take his eyes from her. The chainmail rested over the length of her torso, rising over the swell of her breasts.

She stopped directly in front of his chest and slowly looked up. Her mouth was scarcely a whisper from his own, her breath sweet and warm. Her fresh scent of sunshine and flowers curled around him and held him captive.

“What do I want?” she whispered.

He had lost Ella’s heart, he knew that. But it did not mean he couldn’t try to still win her over with the mutual pleasures they had shared.

“Me.” He ran his hands down her arms and intentionally skimmed the sides of her breasts. “This.”

She gasped against his mouth.

“I’ve missed you, Ella.” He brought one hand up to her face. The rain and cold had chilled her skin and left it damp to the touch. He ran his thumb over her jaw. “I’ve missed your mouth on mine, your hands on me. I’ve missed those sounds of pleasure you make when I—”

She threaded her hand up the back of his neck, pushed up on her toes, and pressed her red lips to his mouth. Her kiss was hungry, desperate, and he returned it with equal vigor.

24

Everything that was wrong in the last few days suddenly went right as Ella’s mouth connected with Bronson’s. The spicy, heady taste of him, the way he cupped her bottom firmly in his grasp and flexed the hardness between his legs to the sensitive softness between hers. The metal plating of their leg guards clacked together.

He held her to him and gently walked her backward until she was pressed between him and the stone wall, its cold barely registering through the frenzy of her desire. His hand moved over her chainmail shirt to her breast to tease at her with a skill she hadn’t spent nearly enough time appreciating.

“Take it off,” she panted between kisses.

He obliged, first pulling hers away, then removing his own. She bent over and worked furiously at the straps of her leg guards. Her cold fingers fumbled with the water-swollen leather straps. It was all she could do to keep from pulling out her dagger and slicing through them. Her body was burning with longing for Bronson’s touch, for the fire of his loving.

Lust pounded an impossible beat between her legs. She wanted him. More than when they’d first begun to play, more than that first night she’d gone to him. She hadn’t known the extent of his affections then. Not like now when she’d spent nights alone dreaming of his strong body moving with hers, his tongue teasing and tasting, his fingers—

The straps at her greaves finally gave way and the right one fell. She gave a little grunt at her victory. So close. Only one more.

Bronson had already freed his leg guards. It was enough. She needed only one leg to wrap around his waist, to pull him deep inside of her.

With a moan, she straightened upright, into his arms. Their mouths slanted over one another’s, their frenzy shared. He fumbled with the belt of his hose as she did the same with hers, so that they sagged down her thighs. He shoved the hose lower on her freed leg and lifted it to his waist, opening her to him.

His hand moved, positioning himself. Ella threw her head back, unable to take the waiting anymore.

He slid inside of her with a solid thrust that left her crying out with the most incredible pleasure. She clung to him as he pumped into her, their bodies flexing and rolling in the same desperate rhythm they’d always matched so well together.

He clung to her bottom, his face buried in her hair as he nipped and kissed her neck and drove into her again and again and oh-so-blissfully again. The bud of her sex had swollen to almost impossible sensitivity and each thrust sent promising heat radiating through her. She was close. So close. She buried her face in his chest as her body began to tighten.

“Nay,” he groaned. “Look at me.”

Overwhelmed by her senses, she obeyed, her eyes finding the intensity of his dark green gaze as his hips jerked into her. He clenched his teeth and gave a savage growl as her crises gripped her. She spasmed around him as waves and waves of pleasure dragged her under until she was breathless from crying out.

All at once the energy of their coupling dropped away, like a candle flame snuffed out. Bronson put his sweaty forehead to hers.

“Ella.” There was a deepness to his voice, a sensuality that came only after they’d been intimate. It touched her in the most fragile, painful place of her heart. The exact spot that had once been certain she’d loved him.