In the Lord's Embrace Page 2

  He slid them out from under her and began unbuttoning the little ivory discs on her blouse, kissing every inch of flesh as it was revealed.

  “These lips,” August hummed against her breast, “have been without purpose not being able to kiss you.”

  The blouse parted to either side, revealing Maeve’s still youthful frame covered over in a single layer of cotton undergarments. August did so love America, if for no other reason than the simplicity of its women’s lingerie.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, pulling his own shirt over his head and letting it fall somewhere on the floor. Maeve in the meantime pitched herself up on her elbows as she manipulated the blouse down her arms before wadding it a ball and throwing it across the room. Her eyes focused on August’s muscled, bare chest. He heard her breath catch in her throat.

  Leaning over, August placed his arms on either side of hers, slowly covering her body as he brought himself down on her.

  “These eyes…” He pulled a lingering kiss from her lips. “These eyes have missed seeing you gasp in pleasure and and my ears long to hear you scream my name while you writhe beneath me.”

  That made her moan, and the earthy yet feminine timbre of her siren’s call beckoned him further. He shifted his hips, once again letting her feel just how much he long and elonged for her.

  “And this body.” Again, he pushed his erection against her. Maeve’s legs still covered in the material of skirt, spread to align their centers. Her face, arms, chest… everything flushed over in her inflamed state, her breath shallow and racing. “This body has missed the feel of your wetness and your heat pulsing against it and wrapping around it.”

  “Holy hell, August. We have entirely too many clothes on.”

  Indeed. The flush of her skin had spread down further, and even through the cotton undershirt August could see red burning.

  She was growing impatient. After so long, he couldn’t hold it against her. But he refused to rush. Too long had he dreamed, yearned, hungered for her to show her any less attention than paying homage to each spot of flesh, each hue of color his body would paint over the canvas of her pleasure as he made love to his Maeve… his wife, for the first time since fate had brought them back to the other.

  Sitting back on the balls of his feet, August hooked his fingers under her skirt and pulled it down over her hips and past her ankles, adding to the pile of discarded garments on the floor. He reached out his hands to her and pulled her to a sitting position. She took the hint of his intent and pulled her undershirt over her head of her own volition.

  This time, it was August’s breath that hitched as his eyes took in the sight of her breast, milky white and speckled with the heat of her arousal. Her nipples were hard, begging for attention. Before August could fully grasp his own actions, however, Maeve was pushed flat against the mattress as he fell atop her, his lips sucking at the right nipple while his hand cupped the other, rolling the hardened peak between his finger and thumb, pulling, teasing.

  Fearing that he may have forsaken his gentlemanly intentions, August was relieved when he felt Maeve’s hands run through his hair, pulling him down harder on her peak. She was positively unhinged now; little gasps mixed with girlish moans as he suckled her, pulling as much of her into his mouth as his thought possible. Pulling away, August trailed wet kisses as the oral manifestation of his love mirrored its evidence on the opposite side, his other hand rising to rub the moistened, pebbled perk.

  Suddenly, August realized that his hips were thrusting against her leg, seeking friction through the thick cotton weave of his slacks. Maeve must have come to understand his need as well, as she pulled out from under him and coaxed him unto his back.

  “August,” she breathed as a devilish grin came over her face, “these hands have missed pulling the clothes off you, piece by piece.”

  Help me heavens, she’s reflecting my own words back, he thought. August felt himself harden further at her game. This time, it was Maeve who hooked her fingers under the hem of his pants and pulled them down past his hips. He sprang free of the garment’s entrapment as Maeve’s hungry eyes narrowed with determination.

  “My tongue…” she began, and he felt his insides tighten in anticipation. Oh, sweet mother of mercy, please. “…has missed feeling the tip of your …”

  She paused, confused. Maeve had rarely engaged in such free-spirited talk before, but oh, how he longed to hear her give further into the temptation. Yet, August could tell she was finding it difficult to select a word she felt comfortable saying.

  “My staff, Maeve, if that suits you.”

  Impishly, she nodded, lowering her lips to his tip and speaking, her mouth so close he could feel the vibration of her voice tease his erection.

  “Yes, it has missed your… staff,” she repeated before her tongue darted out and swirled around tauntingly.

  It served only as an enticement, but August was not long denied as moments later, her lips closed around his erection, taking him in her mouth completely. Working over his whole length in steady lappings, he felt the swirl of a climax too long denied quickly building.

  “Maeve…” August moaned. “I’m going to… Oh, May… I want to be… Ungh… inside you. Please…”

  Her eyes turned up, though her mouth and her movements paused otherwise. Slowly, she withdrew, her tongue dragging along the hardness before gently flicking over the tip once more.

  One piece of clothing remained as barrier; Maeve’s white-cotton pantaloons bore the burden of August’s unleashed lust as he sat up and tore at the thin fabric, rendering it in shreds about the quilted bed cover in seconds. Bared to him, August could gather from Maeve’s heaving breaths that made her breast rise and fall before his eyes likes some magician’s trance-inducing trinket that her desire to be saddled upon him was as strong as his need to be sheathed inside her.

  He backed against the headboard, beckoning forward his love, his bride, his…

  “A stor mo chroi ….”

  Maeve stopped short, her arms on either side of him, her center poised precariously over his yearning cock.

  “What did you say?” she asked in disbelieving tones.

  “A stor mo chroi?” August repeated, this time as a question. “I think I said it right. Do you know it?”

  She nearly laughed. “Of course, August. It means ‘my treasured one.’ It’s not the phrase that took me by surprise. It’s that…” She licked her lips as a playful smile overtook her. “You sounded so … Irish. Say more, August, please! Gaeilge a labhairt le mo.”

  At her request to speak Irish, she positioned her wet, waiting center over him and sank own slowly upon him. She wanted him to speak Irish, when he could barely utter even a word in his own tongue, so enraptured was he with the feel of her around him?

  They both moaned in the pleasure of their union, August’s hands finding harbor on her hips, inducing an undulation of steady back-forth, up-down motions, each embrace of her core over his cock another prayer answered and another promise fulfilled.

  “August, speak to me.”

  He gasped as he kissed her bouncing breasts with some difficulty. “Mmm, Maeve, mo shíorghrá.”

  My eternal love…

  “Tá tú go h-álainn,” he continued as the motion of her hips began to outpace his own push and pull.

  You are beautiful…

  “August, don’t stop. I’m…” Swallowing hard, she threw her head back as her wetness increased tenfold. “I’m… ungh…. August, I’m so close.”

  “Mo anamchara…”

  My soul mate…

  “A chuisle...”

  My heartbeat…

  “Oh, Maeve… Sweetheart, you’re burning me whole. There shall be nothing left of me. You feel so good.”

  “Ahhhh…. gust…” Her moans were coming fully now as she worked herself up and down his cock in dizzying movements, moving with a rage that could only be propelled by both love and need.

  “Maeve!” August cried out, feeling the
pent up fullness of his own climax coming upon him. “Maeve, an bpósfaidh tú mé?”

  “Yes!” She crested, screaming her reply to his passionate, Irish proposal. “Yes, August I will marry you. I’ve only ever wanted to marry you. Oh, Oh… Aug… Aug….”

  They collapsed on the bed, panting and sated. Three years apart had not dampened their ability to find pleasure. All Maeve needed to know was that he was hers that he would take her as his wife.

  As long ago he should have.

  Maeve scooted alongside him, laying her head on his shoulder and cuddling against him. Her arms loosely wrapped over chest and embraced him.

  “My heart…” she said, tapping her fingers. “My heart has missed this heart.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Augusta was always full of questions, and why should today be any different?

  “The justice of the peace,” Maeve answered. “Your father and I are getting married.”

  If she was surprised by the announcement, the child made no show of it. Blindly accepting this was as expected as running to get eggs from the market or logs for the fire from downstairs, August continued on merrily, her hand embraced in Maeve’s.

  “Ma, did you sleep well?” the child suddenly questioned.

  August caught a quick look of worry flit across Maeve’s face. “Well enough, darling. Why?”

  Augusta shrugged. “Thought I heard you yell last night. Thought you might have had a nightmare, is all.”

  Red as the sun, Maeve blushed, and August felt as though he might have suffered the same.

  Without warning, Maeve stopped dead in her tracks, her face going white. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Oh, August. August, we can’t get married. “

  Dumbfounded, he spluttered. “Wha… Why ever not, Maeve?”

  She looked at him as though he were slow. “A ring, August! We haven’t a ring.”

  With gallant revelry, August pulled the silk sachet from his coat pocket and pulled the diamond and sapphire studded piece from its safe keeping.

  Smug as a Prussian, he grinned. “Is this not a ring, Maeve?”

  “How did you…?”

  Placing a finger on her lips, August stopped her. “I purchased it on an errand to London years ago, Maeve. I have kept it safely at my side. You see, I bought it for a certain Irish lass whom captured my heart with a single kiss by a waterfall as a lad, and I have waited far too long to slip it on her finger.”

  “Oh, August…”

  In a backroom of the town hall, without pomp, without circumstance, but with devolution and enraptured by her smile, she became his forever, his wife, his love.

  The boy who had kissed this lass at the age fourteen in the woods above Killarney never could have understood his happiness and his life would lie only her arms. This man, however, looked to his ladies, his wife and his daughter, and knew that at long last, his heart—and theirs—were right where they needed to be. It wasn’t a question of Ireland , or England, or even America.

  It was wherever they were. It was here.

  Together.