Page 101 of Where the Wattles Bloom

‘So it’s a little … untamed, if you know what I mean.’

He blinked, his expression going blank for a moment. Then he laughed, a deep husky tenor. Rowena hadn’t been sure what to expect but it hadn’t been that. Dropping his face to her belly, his chuckle vibrated right through her centre.

When he was done, he propped his chin again, grinning up at her, clearly still amused.

‘You can laugh,’ she accused lightly because his grin was infectious, ‘but trust me, I’ve seen the business end of a lot of women and I know how well-groomed they are.’

‘I’m forty years old, Ro. Not fifteen. I know women have hair,’ he whispered, ‘down there.’

‘Not today they don’t.’

‘I’m sure I’ll cope.’

There was that smile in his voice again. ‘I’m serious,’ she reiterated. ‘You could probably find a lost civilisation.’

He let out a hoot of laughter before his expression changed to something much more serious. ‘I don’t care,’ he murmured as he rubbed his chin back and forth on her belly. ‘I just want to taste you really fucking bad.’

His guttural frankness, the sudden blaze of hot blue flame in his eyes, set off a storm of sensation, all coalescing beneath the soft scratch of his whiskers to create a hundred kinds of havoc.

Well, crap. When he put it like that.

Releasing her grip on the underwear, she threaded her fingers through his hair. And, with her breath hot in her lungs, their gazes locking, she gave him a gentle push down.

When his mouth landed on her for the first time, Rowena almost levitated off the mattress. Nothing could have prepared her for how exquisitely sensitive she was or how Lachlan seemed to know exactly what she needed.

She didn’t have to direct him, he just knew, his shoulders pushing her legs wide, his fingers teasing her nipples as his tongue served up long, languid strokes everywhere. Patient strokes, playful strokes. Strokes that pushed and held her to the precipice, that hummed through her like a tuning fork, until he delivered the final master stroke, directly to the one spot he’d avoided.

Soft as a sigh.

It was the softness that did it. And finally, after months and months of frustrating nothing, she was there. Hovering for the blink of an eye before falling, her fingers buried in his hair, her heels drumming against his back, his name on her lips as he held her through the rapture.

*

Rowena wasn’t sure how long it took her to recover, but when she came back to her body and looked down, there he was, resting back on his heels, watching her with a grin so big anyone would think he’d invented orgasms.

‘I don’t like to brag,’ he said, ‘but I think that went very well.’

She laughed. ‘You’re pretty sure of yourself there, mister. Aren’t you worried I faked it again?’

‘Nah. I’ve got bruises between my shoulder blades that say otherwise.’

Rowena supposed she should be embarrassed by how physical her release had been but, in her post-orgasmic state, she couldn’t muster a single give-a-damn. And the relief? That was almost as paralysing as the sexual malaise. She wasn’t somehow broken or unfixable; she wasn’t some kind of sexual dud. Her body worked.

Maybe that boded well for the baby?

The thought ignited a warm spark in her chest and she huddled it close. ‘So … this is you smug, huh?’

‘You say smug,’ he said as he rose from the floor to lie beside her on the bed. ‘I say accomplished.’

Well, she couldn’t argue there. The man had performed a miracle. And for that he deserved a little quid pro quo. ‘Just give me a sec for my bones to resolidify and I’ll return the favour.’

A frown creased his brow. ‘I didn’t do this for some kind of payback, Ro.’

‘I know, Lachy.’ She bugged her eyes at him. ‘But I think it’s only fair I get to show you how good I am with my mouth.’

His frown evaporated as the grin came back. ‘That good, huh?’

Rowena, already smug, just smiled.