Read Wedding at King’s Convenience for Free Online Page B

her as he moved one hand to the spot where their bodies joined and touched the pad of his thumb to the most sensitive flesh at her core. She gasped, trembled in his arms and shrieked out his name as her body whipped into a frenzied release.
    And no more than a heartbeat later, Jefferson gave himself up, at last, to the crashing need and surrendered himself into her keeping.
    Hours later, Maura stretched out on her bed and felt blissfully languid. Every cell in her body was replete. Satisfied. And even as she lay there, just an arm’s reach from her lover, she felt hunger begin to stir inside again.
    She turned her head on the pillow to look at Jefferson and smiled to herself. He’d been well worth the agonizing wait, she told herself even as a small voice in the back of her head warned her against feeling too much. Wanting too much.
    Outside, a storm was building. She heard the first tapsof rain against her window as a cold wind rattled the panes. But here, in the cozy master bedroom of the farmhouse, a peat fire burned in the corner hearth and she lay on sweet-smelling sheets beside a man who touched her as she’d never been touched before.
    Instantly, that nagging, annoying voice started up again. Careful now, Maura, it warned, he’s not the forever kind of man. He’s not staying — neither here in your bed nor even in Ireland. He’ll be off now that he has what he came for. So don’t be a fool and fall in love.
    So she wouldn’t take the fall. But she couldn’t help feeling for the man.
    He would go home remembering her and this night as something magical.
    Seemed only fair, since so would she.
    “I think I may be dead,” Jefferson murmured.
    Her thoughts crashed to a halt as he looked at her, his eyes the pale blue color of cornflowers in summer. There was the shadow of a beard on his jaws and his black hair was nearly standing on end. Not surprising considering how they’d spent the last few hours.
    Maura’s heart turned over in her chest. Soon, very soon, he’d be walking out her door. And as she considered it, she knew she had to have him again. One last time before he became nothing more than a sweet, tender spot in her soul.
    Laying one hand on his abdomen, she slowly slid her palm lower and lower. His breath caught in his chest as she wrapped her long fingers around him and felt that hard, eager part of him leap into life again. “Not so very near death, I’m thinking,” she said with a teasing smile.
    He hissed in another breath, blew it out and said, “You could rouse a dead man, Maura. You’ve just proved it.”
    She grinned, feeling a delicious sense of female power rise up inside her. To know she had this effect on a strong man was a heady thing indeed. To know that he was watching her, waiting for her to make her next move, only enhanced the sensation.
    Her fingers moved over him, the hard, silky feel of his skin pulsing beneath her own. Then she reached farther down and cupped him, gently rubbing, stroking until he lifted his hips off the mattress and into her touch.
    “You do want me dead, is that it?” he managed to wheeze.
    “Oh, no,” she answered, shifting position to straddle him, “I want you alive, Jefferson King. Alive and inside me.”
    His hands came down on her upper thighs and she smiled at him, scooping her arms under her hair and lifting them high, displaying her breasts for his pleasure. Her hair fell down around her shoulders in a tangle, her nipples peeking through the black strands. And when his eyes narrowed, she knew she had him. Rising up onto her knees, she looked down at him as if he were her captive.
    He reached for her, his hands moving over her body with a greedy touch and she nearly purred at the feel of him against her. But she wanted more. She wanted another time with him. She wanted to ride him and look down into his eyes and know that no matter where else he went in his life, he would take this mental image of the two of them together with him.