To Have and to Hold (Finders Keepers #4)

Chapter Eleven

When he’d left the room before she’d so much as removed all her clothes, she had been certain she would not find a way to seduce him. Even now, half asleep as she was, she lost sight of her goal. His lips pressed hot against hers, tilting her head and opening her mouth so his tongue swept into her mouth.

For an instant, her mind woke up, tightening her muscles in instinctive response. But his hand travelled softly down her side, tracing her curves, and she forced herself to relax.

This felt good. Nothing, not all the conditioning she had put on herself, would take that away from them—her—now.

If she were to convince him of her affection, this would be necessary.

And, if she could find a way of enjoying herself, so much the better.

The kiss gentled, as though he was actively attempting to hold himself back, and Cecily gripped his shoulders, tugging him closer. Her thoughts tangled into knots, muddying with all the different things she wanted. Her knee nudged the hard ridge between his legs once more, and he let out another huff of air that travelled straight through her.

She would not deny her desire. Not this time.

Odysseus. Percy. The two men blended in her vision, blurring until she could not distinguish one from the other. The stranger, and the man she’d spent years resenting. The man in the mask, and the man whose face she knew better than her own.

Now she kissed his mouth, kissed his cheeks and the cheekbones there, kissed the graze of stubble along his hard jaw, kissed his forehead. Her chest felt oddly full, oddly tight, though she didn’t know precisely why, only that this felt different from anything she’d ever experienced. Her body lit with every press of his hands, winding her tighter, tighter.

Occasionally, by herself, she had experienced a craving for something. Fullness. And she had never understood what it was she wanted.

Now she knew. She ached, empty and wanting.

Percy’s hand slid to her backside, squeezing as he let out a muffled groan against her neck. Her mind emptied of all her plots and ploys. All that remained was her desperation to get his hands on her bare skin.

Lust was a frightening thing. She had been content. Now she was ravenous.

She nipped at his lip, urging another strangled sound from him, the knowledge that she was undoing all his careful restraint lighting her up inside. Brick by brick, his control came tumbling down, until the hand that gripped her hip slid her on top of him, right against the hard ridge of his arousal.

Her body moved before she gave it permission, and she pressed her aching core against him. Rolled her hips, rubbed, pushed until the friction made fireworks explode behind her eyes.

This was all right. This was good. This didn’t involve any invasion of her body, it did not make her feel as though everything felt too much, too overwhelming. There were no inhibitions between them.

No, there was something else entirely.

Her nipples hardened almost painfully, her breasts heavy and aching.

Percy, his face a mask of strain and pleasure, eyes hazy and yet focused entirely at her, looked as though his jaw might crack. She rolled her hips again, drawing another groan from him—coming from so deep inside him, she felt it rumble through her. In a way, it sounded almost like pain.

His hands ran up and down her waist as though to calm her, sometimes gripping as though he intended to remove her from him again. The press of his fingers seared into her soul.

“Percy.” Her voice was a whine, a sound she’d never heard coming from her lips. “I want—” She didn’t know, not exactly, only that he had everything she needed. And for once, she felt as though he could give it to her. “Please.”

He cursed, low and fluently, under his breath, and reached up her sides, thumbs skimming her ribs, until he reached the tender underside of her breasts. “Is this what you want?”

“Yes, I—I think so.”

That same thumb slid over her peaked nipple, and she let out a squeak of surprise at the bloom of pleasure. The tension between her legs notched a little higher. All the other times they’d come together, he’d touched her, and although some part of her had enjoyed it, nothing had ever felt like this. In the end, just as he abandoned his place in her bed, he’d abandoned those attempts to please her. And so, as a result, this heat, the restless, needy coil in her lower belly, winding tighter with every movement of his hands and roll of her hips, was entirely new.

His nightshirt, damp from her arousal, served to prevent flesh touching flesh. And perhaps that was a good thing, even if the hollowness, the wanting , only grew with every brush of his hands against her.

Sweet torture. Delicious torment. Endless, unquenchable desire.

She wanted more, yet did not know how to ask for it.

“Please,” she pleaded, only half aware of what she was saying.

He sat up, bringing his face closer to hers, but instead of her lips, he pressed his mouth against her breast. Hot, wet tongue dampened the material, sending another pang of pleasure through her.

“Percy.” His name caught between her teeth.

“Take it,” he urged, fingers flexing against her hip. “Take everything you want from me.”

For years, she had been doing just that. How selfish. How short-sighted, when they could have been doing this for all that time.

Her breaths grew shorter. Fractured. He hissed through his teeth as she ground down on him; even though the layers of clothing, she felt him twitch. She felt half mad in her lust, like she had discarded every artifice she had been wearing. There was nothing between them but this mutual, desperate, all-consuming want.

He sucked her breasts, flicking her nipples with his tongue, cupping them with his hands, murmuring praise over and over, as though he was as lost as she. She already knew his restraint lay tattered behind them both. His hand at her waist urged on her, encouraging her to continue her gyrations against him even as her body trembled and her movements grew jerky.

Everything was out of control.

The pleasure in her body tightened.

“Please,” he said, his turn to beg, though she didn’t know what for. He thrust up into her, the movement seeming involuntary, as though he could not quite stop himself. “Please, Cecy. I want to see your face.”

The heat gathered between her legs, pleasure that pulsed and tightened with every brush of his length against her folds. Closer, closer, until she could see nothing but the dim outline of his face, eyes locked on hers, every line of his features tense. He rocked against her again, or perhaps she rocked against him, and she broke.

An eruption of heat and pleasure, a river breaking its dam, rushed through her, roaring and almost violent in its intensity. She gasped, moaned, shuddered even as Percy told her to be silent, to be quiet, to say his name again because he needed her, he needed to hear her say it, and she thought perhaps she did, only she could be certain of nothing but the way her body felt, endless waves of perfect pleasure.

Only when it faded, when she came back to herself and found Percy’s arms locked tight around her, did she realise that he was still talking. Murmuring about how perfect she was, how much he adored her, how much he wanted her, still wanted her, wanted everything. And she shifted against him again, the sudden flash of pleasure blinding.

Her breath trembled on its way out, and she moved again, testing her limits, wondering whether it was too much—if she could take it, if she needed space between them—when Percy moaned. The sound slipped from his lips like a prayer, or perhaps a curse, and he stiffened under her, his erection pulsating. Hot dampness soaked into the nightgown separating them, and after a belated second, she understood that he had reached his climax, too.

The last vestiges of sleep left her, and she buried her head in Percy’s shoulder. His hand came to cradle her head, gentle despite his deep, panting breaths. Awareness slowly filtered through. She was straddling him, her legs on either side of his hips and his arms fully enfolded around her. The dampness between her legs wasn’t unpleasant enough to encourage her to move—and she wasn’t entirely sure she could, anyway. Her legs trembled and she felt as though the strength had drained from her limbs.

Well, that was . . . That was . . . It had been magical.

And it had been with her husband .

There was no difference between him and Odysseus, after all. No reason for her to lock up. Nothing to obstruct this delight.

“Are you all right?” he murmured, breath still a little shaky by her ear.

She had been the one to undo him.

And he had been the one to shred her into pieces and put them back together again.

She felt reborn.

“I think so,” she said. “I—” She almost wanted to ask if this had been enough to persuade him to take her as his wife once again, in every meaning of the word. But perhaps, although she wanted it more than anything, it would be more tactful to wait.

Her entire body trembled. Tact had nothing to do with what she’d just done. That had been all lust.

His hand stroked along her hair again, and she realised belatedly that he was probably trying to quell her shaking. A laugh escaped her, though it quivered on the way out, and her nose stung.

Her intentions with seducing him had been to convince him to want her—all parts of her. She’d been certain that if he knew she would give him everything as a wife, then he would be content to take her back. Take up the reins of their life as though he had never let them drop. What she hadn’t anticipated from the act was this sense of vulnerability. As though he had cracked her chest open to reveal her still-beating heart. A violent sensation, though he had been nothing but gentle. And now she felt as though she were bleeding all over him.

She’d wondered what the sensation of love felt like, and now she wondered if it was this—this fear of losing him, this overwhelming sense of being open when she had spent so long trying to close herself.

If this was love, she didn’t know if she wanted it.

She wasn’t sure if she could live without it.

“Talk to me,” he murmured. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

She buried her face in his shoulder. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“To leave?” The hand stroking her hair stilled, holding her against him. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t want you to decide I’m not worthy as a wife.”

“Cecy—”

“I know I’ve not always been . . .what you wanted—but if you give me a chance, I will make it up to you.”

“Cecily,” he said, attempting to ease back, but if he saw her face, all would be lost. “The problem was never that you aren’t what I want.”

“The problem has always been that I am not what you thought I could be.”

By his stillness, she knew she had found her mark. “All I ever wanted from you was your love, my darling.”

And in all their years, she had done nothing but deny him.

“Can you forgive me?”

“It’s already done.” He nuzzled the side of her face, warm lips brushing her ear. She squeezed her eyes tighter, knowing tears beckoned, but not wanting to cry after such an act, in case he thought she’d returned to her own ways, determined not to enjoy the things he offered her. “Can you forgive me?”

“Whatever for?”

“I meant to take my time with you. Take you in my bed.” He gave a wry, not entirely steady laugh. “This was not precisely that.”

“I wanted you to lose control,” she admitted, and this time, when she looked at him, she wasn’t afraid. “And I think—I think I don’t have to pretend that you are Odysseus.”

His breath released as though she’d punched his gut. “No?”

“You are my husband, and you love me.”

In the light, it appeared as though his eyes glistened. “Very much.”

“How do you know?”

Those tear-softened eyes searched hers for a moment, and then he urged her off his body. “Let me clean myself up and we can talk.”

Talk . A single word had never sounded so menacing before.

Still, she shuffled up against the pillow, watching as he lit a candle, the glow glinting off his silvering hair. Twenty years separated them, and she had once thought it an impediment, but now she admired the wisdom it gave him. The patience. She’d never appreciated what a gift his love was, no matter how foolishly bestowed. A man of her own age, a man ten years his junior, might have given up on her already.

But here he was, standing in this sparsely decorated room, cleaning himself with a washcloth. With a sigh, he abandoned his nightshirt entirely, tossing it to the side of the room and returning to her naked. This was—surely it couldn’t be the first time she’d seen him without his clothes, but she’d never appreciated it before. The strong lines of his shoulders, the way his curling, dark chest hair greyed the same as his hair. The softness around his waist that she’d felt under his nightshirt but had never truly seen until now; when they’d married, she suspected that he’d been made up a little differently. Four years had taken their toll on his body, but as he approached her, she reached out her hands.

He watched her gravely as she rested her palm against his heart, its beat a little elevated, and rested the other on the rounded curve of his stomach. Underneath, his length lay limp and spent under a still-dark thatch of hair. Though, as she watched, it appeared to thicken slightly.

His laugh was rough as he took her chin and tilted it to him. “No more time for that tonight, love.”

Love . The word cut through her, hitting those same chords as before, the echoes speaking its own melody. And she knew. She knew .

“I think I do,” she blurted, her hands still on his body, her eyes on his. “I think I do love you, Percy. I just didn’t know until this moment.”