Page 60 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
“Splash of whiskey wouldn’t hurt,” he said gruffly.
“You’re not going to kiss it better?” She clenched her eyes shut in remorse at breaking their unspoken rule.
For interminable seconds, there was only the crackle and snap of the fire. She wanted to open her eyes and see how he was reacting, but she couldn’t make herself do it. The fact that he didn’t move away, however, made her heart pound hard enough she felt it in her throat.
“There’s things we should talk about.” His voice was rusty, but quiet in a way that sent flutters through her.
She opened her eyes and nodded, not sure what she was agreeing to. Mostly she was watching his lips, thinking how smooth they looked, how she wanted to feel them against her own…
Warm. That’s how they felt. He leaned closer and his lips were soft and warm as he brushed his mouth against hers. There was a hint of dampness and those lovely, tickling whiskers against her chin.
She drifted her eyes closed again and tilted closer to create a firmer seal, then brought her hand to his shoulder, touching the heat of his neck, inviting him to kiss her harder.
Oh, she’d been aching for this, the fulsome taste of him as he made a growling noise in his chest and tenderly consumed her, rocking his mouth across hers, stealing her breath and thoughts. Beneath her hand, his thigh was solid as iron.
Her body grew so hot, she actually jerked back to be sure she hadn’t caught fire. His hand was in a fist of tension on his knee.
When she looked up at him, his expression was flexing with conflict. “We ought to talk about things, but Christ.” His breath left him in a rush. “All I can think about is touching you. Kissing you.”
“Me, too,” she breathed.
“Come here.” He gathered her in his arms as he stood, moving her with such casual strength, her stumbling feet barely touched the ground before she was in the cradle of his arms. He was catching her before she fell.
Maybe she ought to have been scared of such casual power. He could easily defeat any resistance she offered, but there was none in her, and he would stop if she asked him to. She knew that in her soul.
As they melted into the shadows behind the pile of logs, and her feet touched the ground, his mouth found hers again.
She shuddered and reached for him, giving herself up to the sensations that accosted her. His beard caressed her chin, her cheek, the crook of her neck while he licked into the hollow beneath her ear. She brought his mouth back to hers, and he molded his lips to the clinging pull of hers. Her hands kneaded across the layered muscles of his chest and upper arms and shoulders. She didn’t understand why that made heat flare in the pit of her belly, but it did and she wanted more. More of him. All of him.
His hands were just as busy, moving with equal greed as he stroked her back and pressed the layers of her skirt into her bottom. His wide palm stayed against her cheeks, making slow circles that drove her mad and she didn’t understand why.
“Virgil,” she gasped.
“Stop?”
“No. Keep going…” She twined her arms around his neck so she could lift herself against him, wanting to feel him pressed all over her front, but their clothes were in the way. It was frustrating.
“I want to be inside you. I want that so bad,” he groaned into her neck while his fingertips clenched into her hips. He sucked her earlobe, making her shake with need. He was shaking, too. “But we can’t.”
“I know,” she moaned. Her hands wouldn’t be still. He was like a muscled beast. A massive wolf that she was allowed to pet and rub and make groan with pleasure. As her hands slid from his back to his chest down to his hips, she hesitantly slid one to the front of his trousers.
When she squeezed his shape through the heavy denim, he drooped his head against her shoulder and hissed, “God, Marigold.” His teeth caught her earlobe again, and he breathed heavily as she rubbed and explored.
Ben hadn’t been one for a lot of kissing and fondling, but Virgil sure was. Even though he seemed to be helpless under her curious touch, his own hands started to move again, massaging and running his splayed fingers up her sides, thumbs catching beneath her breasts to lift them. Slowly, slowly, his thumbs climbed to press into her nipples.
“Oh,” she breathed, startled by the way he seemed to pinch her into a vise of pleasure with that simple pressure on the tips of her breasts.
“Get into my drawers if you want to,” he whispered, rolling his thumbs in a way that made words lose meaning.
When he dropped his hand between them and opened his fly buttons, she slid her touch into the warm, loosened layers of denim and cotton and found him thick and hard and heavy in her palm.
He sucked on her lips in a blatant way that made her sex feel aching and hot. Swollen. She was conscious of dampness gathering in her sex. Her body was involuntarily clenching, sending small notes of pleasure through her whole body. She writhed, pushing her tongue into his mouth with a flagrant lack of inhibition.
“That feels really good, but do it harder.” He wrapped his hand over hers in a crush, demonstrating how tightly she could grip him.
“That doesn’t hurt?” she said in a laugh of wonder.
“It feels so fucking good, Marigold.” He guided her into stroking up and down and brought her fingers to the slippery eye. “Rub your thumb here.” His voice was low, almost drunken as he taught her how to make him groan.
