“Sed!” she cried as her thighs began to quiver and the flesh between them throbbed with impending release. “Don’t make me come without you. Not our first time.”
She almost regretted her request when he pulled back with a loud sucking pop and slid up her body. When he found her and slid deep inside, claiming her inch by inch with repetitive hard thrusts, he filled more than her body. He filled every part of her.
Sed buried his hands in her wet hair and alternated kissing her passionately and staring into her eyes as he thrust with a slow, deep rhythm that matched the rhythm of the ocean. Her toes curled. Her belly quivered. Her fingers dug into his back so she didn’t drift away in the current of her desire. He churned his hips each time their bodies came together, grinding himself against her, making her moan with pleasure as he rubbed his pelvis against her throbbing clit.
Waves were creeping ashore as far as her calves now. An urgency consumed them both, as if they were racing the tide. Sed’s strokes hastened—driving his rigid length hard and deep. His fingers—which had been gently tangled in her hair—dug into her scalp, and his tender kisses became hot and desperate.
He tore his mouth from hers, gasping as he fought for control. Watching the twitch of his eye and the set of his jaw as pleasure consumed him sent Jessica flying over the edge. She cried out, her back arching off the beach as her pussy clenched in waves of bliss. Sed gasped brokenly, ramming into her—once, twice—and then he held himself deep inside as his cock jerked with hard spasms of release.
Breathing heavily, he collapsed on top of her, crushing her beneath a mass of firm muscles and heated male flesh. She wrapped her love in a warm and rather sandy embrace, holding him tight as she caught her own breath. But not her wits. Her wits were never within reach when Sed was between her thighs.
“You realize I plan to top this before the night is through,” he murmured into her ear.
She rubbed her lips against his jaw, her heart thrumming with anticipation. With expectation. He never let her down.
“I’d like to see you try,” she challenged.
Chapter Five
Sitting in the back of the limo on the way to the reception, Sed held Jessica’s left hand between both of his. He stole glances at her as if he were in elementary school and experiencing his first crush. Her dress was soaking wet and stained with dirt and something green he hoped was just algae. Her make-up was entirely gone, except for the two dark smudges beneath both eyes. Her hair was a limp, tangled mess with a twig of seaweed lost in its strawberry-blond waves. He refused to inform her of the ocean’s reminder of what they’d done in its surf.
His woman had never looked more beautiful. Not even the first time he’d seen her and she’d stolen his heart. She’d been riding a Ferris wheel on the boardwalk and he’d stood there at its base like an idiot the entire time, watching her laughing face return with each loop around. She hadn’t looked more beautiful when he’d proposed the first time or the second. Nor the first time he’d witnessed her sexy O-face or the hundreds of times he’d seen that blissful expression since then. She hadn’t been lovelier when she told him she was pregnant. Not even when he’d stared up the aisle when she’d called his name and he saw her racing toward him in her wedding dress, dazzling in detailed perfection. No, he decided, she was most beautiful at that very moment—sitting beside him quietly, completely bedraggled, and unaware of how giddy it made him that she was his wife.
Of course, giddy wasn’t an emotion Sed Lionheart displayed outwardly. That didn’t mean he didn’t feel it.
Jessica fiddled with her wedding ring, rubbing it into her flesh as she stared at her lap.
“My mother is going to kill me for showing up at the reception looking like this,” she whispered.
“I thought you decided you don’t care what she thinks.”
She pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth and swallowed several times.
“Are you okay?” he asked. The woman had seen her share of morning sickness the first couple months of her pregnancy, but recently it had become a rarity.
“All things considered.” She dropped her head back to look up at him. “I don’t care what she thinks, but it still hurts my feelings when she yells at me.”
“I thought she just made you mad.”
“Well, yeah, that’s how I always react when I get my feelings hurt.” She blinked at him. “All this time with me and you didn’t realize that?”
“Uh…” He flicked his gaze to his clasped hands, which were resting on his knees. “Of course I realized that. But sometimes you get mad because you’re angry, right?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “But not often.”
All those times she’d been spitting mad at him was because he’d hurt her feelings? Why hadn’t she told him that sooner? And why was he such a bonehead that he hadn’t figured it out on his own?
He slid an arm around her lower back and pressed her against his side. “I’m sorry for making you mad all the time.”
She released a breathless laugh. “No, you’re not. You purposely make me angry so the passion blazes between us. I’m on to you, Lionheart. I know what you’re up to.”
“Well, I do think you’re hot when you’re pissed off, but I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“I know you don’t mean it. Otherwise I would have killed you in your sleep by now.”
He laughed. “I’m glad you’re more intelligent than violent.”
She looked down at her folded hands and then licked her thumb and tried to rub a spot out of her skirt. “I just hope Mom doesn’t nag me. I’m happy—the ceremony, the beach, now. All the moments I’ve been alone with you today have felt perfect, even if they weren’t what I envisioned. The rest of the day has been one disaster after another. I can’t imagine what will be thrown at me next.”
“I’ll run interference,” Sed said. “I honestly don’t mind. Your mother can’t stand me anyway. I doubt she’ll ever forgive me for knocking you up before we were married.”
Jessica snorted. “She still doesn’t believe that I got pregnant intentionally. Like I’m too stupid to remember to take my birth control pills. Just because that’s the reason she had me, doesn’t mean I’ll make the same mistakes she did.”
“If she gets too unbearable, I’ll send her packing. Okay?”
Jessica shook her head. “No, I want her there, even though I’m sure she’ll be unbearable. She’s going to be heartbroken that I didn’t wait for her to give me away.”
“Unfortunate.” Sed smiled. “But not really. It meant a lot to me that you gave yourself to me.”
Her jade-green eyes widened, as if
she hadn’t realized how perfect that little split-second decision had been. Because the woman struggled to let go of even an inch of her independence, he would never forget her giving herself to him so willingly.
“It did?” she asked.
“Yeah, because I know how independent you are. I think by giving yourself to me you’ve finally realized that resistance is futile. You’re mine and mine alone. I’ll never let you go.”
“As long as I allow it,” she challenged.
“And how long will that be?”
She smiled. “Until the day I die.”
“Beyond death,” he insisted.
“That’s still up for negotiation.”
“You know you’ll never be able to resist me with a halo.” He winked at her.
“A halo? Won’t that get in the way of your horns?” She extended her index fingers on either side of her head.
“I’ll just wear my halo at a cocky angle over one horn. It’ll be sexier that way. You won’t know what hit you.”
She laughed and wrapped both arms around his neck. “I do love you.”
“Beyond death?” he asked.
She looked up at her eyebrows as if contemplating what his request entailed. “Yes, beyond death.”
He grinned. “I love it when I get my way.”
She poked him in the ribs. “I let you get your way,” she said.
“And why’s that?”
“Because you’re even more wonderful when you’re happy.”
“I am definitely happy.”
“And I’m dedicated to keeping you that way.”
“I want to do the same for you. So about your mother…”
Jessica released a heavy sigh and rubbed at her forehead with her hand. A hand, he noted, missing the ring that she’d been wearing for months—the one he’d carried in his pocket for two years after she’d flung it at him in anger. Had she finally decided she could be done with the cheap piece of shit once and for all?
“I’ll try to get along with her,” Jessica said wearily.
“And if you can’t?”
“I’ll ask her to leave,” she said.