Lost to You (20 page)

Fire singed the fibers of my skin as Christian slid his palms up my body and down my arms to lace his fingers with mine, then brought them between on chests. His elbows hit the bed, bracketing my body, his weight propped by the easy bend of his knees. Our hands were tied between us, our chests rising and falling in spastic quakes.

Christian nudged the side of my face with his nose. I felt him breathe me in, felt an impossible connection with this man who hovered above me. His mouth grazed the side of my face, his voice soft in my ear. “I love you so much, Elizabeth.”

His nose traveled my cheek until he brought us face to face. His expression was severe, twisted lines of devotion and lust.

So beautiful.

He swallowed deeply and shifted. I felt him at my center. He barely marked me, the slightest penetration as he searched for air and his hands tightened on mine. But he didn’t look away. Searching. Longing. Loving.

“I love you,” I whispered, the words a promise, an encouragement that I wanted this as much as he did.

There was no turning back, nothing I could do to win back my heart.

Christian swept a gentle kiss across my lips before he pulled back an inch to look down on me. He tightened his hold as he gathered me closer.

Then he slowly filled me.

His elbows dug farther into the bed and his mouth dropped open with a ragged grunt.

An overdose of sensations hastened through my nerves as Christian took all of me. He seared into my body as he stretched me, the burn the most exquisite kind of pain. It was a branding. A seal. And I’d never be the same.

Now Christian held me whole. This was a bond we could not break.

For a few seconds, we both lay still and listened to the short gasps heaving from our lungs and the blood pounding through our veins. Nose to nose, we stared.

Christian unwound our hands, shifted to bring one to my face. Tender fingers brushed back the hair clinging to my damp forehead.

And he smiled. This stomach-flipping, heart-lurching, earth-shattering smile. But it no longer was a smile of manipulation, not one to bend me to his way. This one was genuine, filled with love and adoration and everything I wanted us to be.

This smile was only for me.

“Are you okay?” he murmured. He splayed his hand wide, his fingers supporting the back of my head while his thumb caressed over my cheek.

I wet my lips, taking in the man above me, the only one I would ever love. My fingertips fluttered over his lips, and I whispered, “Perfect.”

I tilted my chin and lifted my mouth to his. The kiss started slow, soft and tender, flicks of tongue and grazes of teeth, as tender and slow as the movements of his body as he cautiously began to move within me.

Pressed together, he kissed me deeper, our mouths filled with longing as I opened to him, body and soul. I ran my hands over his shoulders and down his back. The muscles were rigid and strained as they bowed and twisted as he worked over me.

Tentatively I moved, lifting my hips to meet him.

Christian slipped one hand down my side, his fingertips digging into the ridges between my ribs. A smooth palm cupped my bottom before he flattened it over my hip and ran it down to my knee. He tucked me closer and hooked my leg over his hip.

Pulling back, he filled me, deliberate and strong.

I gasped and clung to his shoulders as I began to match him move for move.

“Oh, God, Elizabeth.” His fingers dug deep into my thigh. Incoherent mutterings of pleasure slipped from his mouth to mine, and I devoured them while he devoured me.

That feeling built again.

Everything was frantic, the love that solidified this bond between us, the sounds that filled his room, mumbled words of devotion, every desperate touch.

I knew he was getting close. His movements were quick, jerky, his breaths clipped and labored. “Elizabeth...uh...you feel so good. So...good.”

This time he was begging and I was clinging because I needed more.

His hand slipped between us because Christian knew.

I curved my arm around his head, and he buried his face in the crook of my neck.

And I was lost.

Lost to him.

Pleasure rushed, surged and crashed, saturated every inch of my body.

Christian jerked and cried out in my neck, held himself rigid before all the strength left him and he collapsed on me.

We lay like that for countless minutes, our worlds shaken.

Christian rolled to his side, taking me with him. He placed his palm on my cheek, caressed this thumb over the edge of my lips. He gazed at me as if I were the center of his world. There was nothing I could have done to stop this when I realized he’d become mine. “I’m going to love you forever, Elizabeth Ayers.”

I looked up at the man who now held everything, my trust, my future, the nature of my heart. Reaching up, I ran my fingers through the thickness of his black hair. “Don’t ever leave me, Christian.”

Christian frowned, his blue eyes sincere as he leaned forward to whisper at my forehead. “I couldn’t.”

Read Elizabeth and Christian’s full story in
Take This Regret

http://amzn.to/TTREbook

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