Page 81 of Across Time

I don’t finish the sentence. That’s how fast he closes the distance between us, pushing my back to the refrigerator as his mouth crashes on mine. A hard, possessing kiss with his hands tight on my hips. What I’ve longed for all these months.

“All I have ever wanted was for you to stay,” he says, his mouth moving to my jaw.

“You never said that. Not once.”

He huffs a pained laugh against my skin and pulls back, framing my face with his hands. “How could you not have known? Marie knew. The whole town knew. I haven’t been capable of wanting anything else since you arrived.”

His mouth moves over mine again, and I melt, arching against him, heedless of anything but this desperate want inside me. Unbound at last after a whole summer of deprivation and restraint, with his arm wrapping around my waist and rib cage, pulling me tighter and tighter, his lips moving over my jaw, my neck. His fingers slide from collarbone to the top of my dress and my breath comes in tiny pants, frantic to feel that first button pop free. But instead, he eases away, his breathing heavy, his forehead pressed to mine.

“I…” he swallows, wincing as if in pain. “I want so much from you right now, but you just arrived. I should…let you rest.”

I grab him by his shirt and pull him back to me. “I want a lot of things right now too. And none of them are rest.”

I see the war raging inside him, the heaviness of need, tempered by doubt.

“Henri,” I whisper against his lips. “I’m not fragile. Remember the guy who pinned me to the dirt over a chocolate bar? That’s the version of you I want right now.”

With a low growl, he lifts me then, wrapping my legs around his waist as he carries me to his room, kicking the door shut behind us. And then I’m in his soft bed and he’s beside me, rolling me to my back. He finds my mouth, his tongue stroking mine, creating a sharp, desperate pulse between my legs, an emptiness that demands a cure. His hands slide down to my ass, sinking in to pull me hard against him.

I wasn’t raised in a convent, but this is all new to me—the way his erection pressed to the juncture of my legs is enough to make my knees spread wide. The way the rasp of his breath and small groan of desire against my skin make my heart rate soar. I spent so many years proud of my self-restraint, proud I hadn’t given in when everyone I knew had, but if Mark had made me feel anything close to the way I do now, I’d have given in within minutes. Seconds. The way I have every intention of giving in to Henri right now.

His hand goes to the top button of my dress and then he stops, with an expression of pure tortured lust on his face. He swallows. “Is this okay?”

When I nod, he unbuttons it to the waist with frenzied hands and pushes it off my shoulders, revealing the lace bra I bought that day in Paris months ago. “Dieu,” he says, running his finger over my tight nipple, visible through the sheer lace. “You have no idea how the thought of doing this tortured me.” He lowers his mouth and his warm breath washes over the tight peak of one breast before his mouth lands on it, through the lace, softly clinging with his teeth as he pulls away. I arch, stifling a cry.

“I want to hear you,” he groans. “I want every single one of your sounds because I’ve been imagining them for months. Tell me what you want.”

“I have no idea,” I gasp. “Just more.”

His mouth descends to the other breast, repeating the action, while his hand is gliding along the soft skin of my inner thigh, lightly pressing against the outside of my panties. My breath hitches and then stops entirely as his fingers slide beneath the hem, gliding along my core.

"Merde," he groans, his eyes fluttering shut. “Ask me to stop. I’ve wanted this too much, and for too long. Ask me to stop or I won’t.”

I reach for his belt, tugging it free. “I don’t want you to stop,” I whisper, while I fumble with his buttons. “I don’t care about waiting. I don’t care about marriage. I just want this.”

His eyes blaze, but his mouth tips into an almost-smile as it descends. “I care about marriage,” he says beside my ear, his fingers still moving. “Just maybe not for the next hour.”

My hand slips into his pants. I can barely wrap my fingers around him, but when I attempt it his whole body stiffens.

“God,” he says hoarsely. “Yes.”

“Are you ready?” I ask.

“My readiness was never in question,” he says with a gasp as my hand glides over him. “But yours is. The first time can be…”

“I know and I don’t care,” I breathe, arching into his hand. “I’ll never be more ready than I am now.”

He kneels above me, between my spread knees, still almost completely dressed: shirt in place, pants hanging halfway down his hips, and pushes my skirt around my waist before tugging my panties down. It bears no resemblance to all my fantasies about what a first time would entail—a room lit by candlelight, me in a negligee, nestled in a sea of pillows—but that’s because I never realized before what it meant to truly want something. I don’t need a perfect setting or a pretty story—I can’t imagine being able to notice anything but him.

His eyes have gone hazy, feverish. “If you had any idea what you look like right now,” he says, the words trailing away as he takes in my spread legs, the way I’m bared to him with my dress half off. He flinches. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” I reply, arching toward him. “Now.”

He pulls his cock free and leans over me, letting the wet tip glide, press to my entrance and then, slowly, he begins to move, entering me in tiny pulses, forcing me to stretch wide enough to accommodate him.

“You’re alright?” he asks, his eyes unfocused. The heavy thickness of him feels like too much, like something that could break me. But I can see the effort it takes for him to restrain himself, teeth sinking into his lower lip, breath coming fast.

“Don’t go slowly,” I tell him. “Just do it.”