Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

W e glided up the stairs in a tangle of hands and kisses. I was barely conscious of the steps, the rooms changing around us as we went. All I knew was the moment he laid me down on the bed and began to strip my clothes off with such frantic heat that I was left utterly breathless.

Ambrose's mouth did wicked things over each of my nipples, cascading down my soft stomach until he settled once more between my hips. The heat of his tongue against my pussy was always surreal, but tonight, as the realization of my affections for him dawned, it was so much…more.

And he was able to bring me to finish with finesse, the room spun from the rush of it.

There came a dark chuckle from between my thighs as my body settled back against the mattress and my breathing slowed. "Already undone, sweet girl?"

"I can't help it," I groaned, propping up on my elbows, too dazed to be embarrassed. Ambrose's long thumb did gentle circles on the inside of my thigh and moonlight shimmered against the come on his lips .

"Roll over, on your hands and knees," he instructed. I did as I was told, happy to be malleable under his capable hands. I trusted him, wholly and completely. "Good girl, you listen so well, don't you?"

Ambrose's hands came over my ass, spreading the flesh there and taking a long, luscious lick from my clit to my asshole. My back arched instinctively and I moaned, opening myself more for better access.

"I said I was going to make you beg tonight." Those warm hands caressed from my ass to my shoulders, gripping them as he slammed my rear back against his hips with a smack. "Fuck, I need to have you like this."

"Take me then," I whimpered, throbbing to be filled. Needing to be filled by him.

The broad head of his cock teased my clit, slicking through my need, but instead of letting me push back, letting me take him, he laughed. "Not yet, greedy girl. Beg."

I threw a glance over my shoulder, arms weak with trembles underneath as I did.

"Please," I whined, my lip found its way between sharp teeth as my hips fought against his hold to sink onto his dick. "Please, Ambrose."

He leaned over, careful to still my needy search as his nails bit into my flesh. I groaned and his warm chest came against my back. "Please, what?" Ambrose's breath tickled my heated skin.

" Please fuck me, please ." I fought against his hold, desperate for more than the tease he was supplying while my pussy soaked his head. " Now , I can't take it anymore! Please! "

Ambrose wrapped his hand around my neck, pulling us both upright so we stood on our knees. His cock slipped past my sex, gliding against my lips and clit. Selfish, deprived, and aching with blazing need, I began to rock against the thick, veiny shaft, relishing in the way his rigid length hit my sensitive bundle of nerves.

"Oh," I mewed, tossing my head back onto his shoulder as his fingers applied just enough pressure against my neck that tingles skirted over my skin. His other hand massaged my nipple between two fingers.

"Look at you, such a depraved little thing. Taking what you want." His teeth grazed my ear and I shivered, gasping as I slid against his cock and the spiral of release churned in my core.

Ambrose growled and flung me back down onto my hands and knees once more, leaving me without my much needed friction. "Not yet, Vivian. Not until I say."

"Ambrose, please ," I practically cried, my head sank into the mattress. I was wound so tightly that I feared I might die if he didn't fuck me. "I'll do anything, please make me come. Fuck me, fill me, I'm yours, just use me already."

His cock rubbed against my entrance again, soaking in my arousal and I gasped. "Damn right you are. And don't you for a fucking moment forget that you're mine. "

He slammed into me without so much as a pause.

My breath locked at how different it felt from this angle, how absolutely full it made me. How the head of his cock butted up so beautifully against an undiscovered sensitive spot inside me.

"Ambrose," I exhaled. Coming to all fours, my fingernails dragged the cotton beneath.

"Yes, baby?" he grit out, wrapping his hand in my hair like a bandage and craning my neck back as he settled himself in.

"I want to come again." My voice, huskier than before, thrilled me.

"It would be my pleasure." His strokes from this angle stifled every possible thought and my breasts swayed with the ragged motion of it. With each thrust, the liquid heat of release wound tighter and tighter and I knew there was no way I could survive it. One of his hands wound around my hips, teasing my clit as he fucked me, twirling and pressing until I was shaking.

"Ambrose!" I cried out. Strands of hair burned as his pace increased and the sound of our sticky skin filled the room.

I was going to come at any moment, there at the edge of oblivion, my muscles ached and my heart pounded deafeningly in my ears. I grasped at my orgasm like a starved woman, slamming my ass back against him, encouraging him to finish me because fuck, I deserved it. If there was any chance that I would die at the hands of White Dove, I wanted to spend every waking moment until then just like this.

The movement of Ambrose bringing me up, his chest to my back and his teeth in my shoulder, made me shatter. Liquid splattered down my legs, soaking the both of us and the bed, and I was lost to it, coming out of my skin and blinded with the force of release as every muscle inside me squeezed itself into exhaustion.

It was sweltering bliss, unrelenting waves of ecstasy.

And Ambrose found his own release as a result, filling me to the brim, gasping in my ear until we both collapsed together, panting.

I couldn't think, couldn't formulate the words for how I felt even when brought his arm under my head and pulled my body into his. I was heavy, exhausted, sated in a way I didn't know was possible.

"I swear to whatever god exists, if you ever leave me, I'm not certain I can go on. Nothing compares to this." A feather light kiss pressed into my forehead.

I think I smiled. I wanted to.

"Are you asleep?" Ambrose asked after a moment.

"Not yet," I murmured, lifting heavy lids to take in his sweaty, glistening skin.

"Would you fancy a shower? I'm absolutely soaked. "

"A shower sounds nice." I unhinged my joints, ruminating on how loose they felt, like a weight had been removed from my shoulders and my entire body could relax—I was unaccustomed to the freedom.

"Come on, allow me to cater to you."

He helped me up, taking me into his chilled bathroom and letting the shower heat as he rummaged around in a cupboard for towels. I stood, hands clasped around my torso, shivering.

Finally, as the mirror began to fog, Ambrose guided me into the clawfoot tub. The water was hot. Ripples cascaded over my skin almost as delirious as the orgasms had been and I sighed, a smile kissing my lips as I let my arms fall.

The curtain slid shut and Ambrose's large body pressed into my ass, the hair of his arm tickling my stomach.

"I've never showered with another person before," he rumbled, placing gentle kisses over the bite mark on my shoulder, which stung more under the water than it had before. A tender ache and reminder of his reckless abandon.

Flames licked to life in my veins.

His confession brought all those confusing feelings to the surface again. It served as a reminder of the realization I had downstairs before he thoroughly fucked me. I twisted in his arms, pressing my front to his.

"You don't believe me?" Those thick brows dipped.

"I do." I smiled softly, letting the water soak into my hair and weigh my neck back.

"Then why do you look so guilty?" His lovely lips quirked and I focused on those instead of the steel of his eyes, letting my gaze drift to the dimple in his chin.

"Maybe because I've taken to sleeping with my professor," I lied, pressing my hips into him.

He chuckled, running his spindly fingers through my hair, giving a sharp yank. "You're lying to me. "

"I am not!" I laughed, breathless as he tugged my hair farther into the water, placing his mouth against the base of my throat.

"Again? After being such a good girl, you're going to lie?"

"Ambrose, I'm not lying." I gripped his biceps to steady me, the slick floor of the bathtub suddenly like an ice rink beneath.

"Yes, you are. You do this little thing with you lip and it's a dead giveaway." He released me.

"Now who's lying?" I teased.

He scoffed, squirting his shampoo into his hand, all sandalwood and spices. "I've tried to remain honest with you from the get, haven't I? Even with a secret that could very well get us both killed, I have been honest."

Guilt was fierce and quick, a bolt of lightning striking my heart.

"I'm sorry," I muttered as my shoulders fell. His fingers leached into my hair and massaged the lovely sandalwood soap into the strands. "You're right. You've taken a great risk being honest with me."

"Don't apologize." He flexed my head back into the water to rinse the suds. "When you're ready, you'll share it with me."

My lip quivered with the emotion fighting in my throat to come out. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, because I did, damn it all. It was swift and fierce, but I did. I loved him for all he was and all he could be. Every ounce of him.

I loved him.

Tears mixed with shower, fat hot droplets I hoped he couldn't differentiate between.

"I don't think anyone has washed me so gently, even as a child." My voice was thick, though he gave no inclination he noticed.

"I imagined you were the sort of girl who had a nanny you considered your mother. I thought maybe she would have been tender to you. "

"Maybe, if we had a nanny stay long enough. We had so many different ones I couldn't even tell you all their names. But I remember Mom, when she'd bathe me or brush my hair, she'd do it so hard and with a fucking scowl on her face like she resented the fact I even existed."

"I'm so sorry, Vivian," he murmured, placing a gentle kiss to my temple. "You didn't deserve that."

"No, I didn't. I still don't. And I know that…it's just…"

"It doesn't take away the hurt."

I nodded. No, it didn't. Knowing that I deserved better, now and then, didn't take away what had been done. In some ways, it made it hurt worse. Taking the dull ache of acceptance and aggravating it into a gaping, oozing wound once more.

As Ambrose washed every inch of my flesh, taking special care to clean our sex from between my thighs, I stayed quiet. The mess of emotion overwhelmed my heart.

Whatever plagued his mind—be it White Dove or my own silence—rendered him mute as well.

Once we finished, wrapped in fluffy towels and with clean teeth, he brushed my hair with such care that my tears stayed. We didn't even bother to dress as we slid into his clean sheets, bodies pressed tight together to share warmth. I only ever wanted to do this for the rest of my life. Here, in his house, in his bed.

That is where I wanted to exist.