Sealed With a Kiss (35 page)

“Don’t…don’t leave me tonight.” She wanted to beg him to never leave her. His passion filled eyes drilled her as he seemed to look deeply within her, questioning her desire for him.

“I need you, Rufus. I’m not ashamed of it. I ache for you.”

“Oh, God. Naomi, sweetheart, I need you, too. I’m hungry for you, out of my mind with it. All these weeks without you.” Heated sensation streaked through her as his sweet mouth found her waiting, hungry lips. Jolts of fiery craving claimed her and she capitulated completely, her head lolling against his breast, her body limp with desire. He took her up in his arms and into her bedroom

He settled her on her feet beside the bed where he’d last loved her, faced her, and found her zipper with his fingers. She stepped away as the dress fell to her feet, and his breath was momentarily lost in anticipation of ecstasy as hot desire shot through him. She had dressed for him, had planned for them to make love. His gaze roamed slowly from her feet, moved up her long, shapely legs, and rested on the vee that cradled her sweet, moist tunnel, her citadel of love. Then it meandered slowly up to her full breasts, bare to his hot gaze except for the tiny scrap of nothing that caressed her nipples. She was beautiful. Intoxicating. How had he stayed away from her, denied himself the fulfillment that he needed so badly, that in his entire life he had found only within her arms? He shuddered violently with the fierceness of his arousal. Breath hissed through his teeth when her hand found his hard flesh and caressed him lovingly through his slacks. Shaking with desire, he picked her up, lay her gently on the bed, removed her intimate garments, and quickly stripped himself. His gaze drifted up and down the reclining body of his
naked maja,
a smile playing around his lips, unable to believe that she was his.

Desire gripped her and her body trembled in anticipation as she stared rhapsodically at the virile man who stood over her, powerful and beautiful in his nudity, his proud sex ready and eager for her. Her tongue slowly rimmed her slightly parted lips and her arms opened to him as her body took control of her mind. She gloried in her womanhood when he fell trembling into her waiting arms. His weight upon her heightened her need, fueled her impatience for his possession. She heard his softly murmured words of assurance, telling her of her beauty and that he adored her. He wrapped her to him and tension curled in the pit of her belly as his strong, hard legs brushed her and her nipples tingled against his chest. She felt the full measure of his hot, steely flesh against her belly and cried out in want.

Somewhere in the distance she heard a loud crash and twisted her body up to his. “It’s all right, baby. Just the clock falling to the floor.” Tremors swept her as his mouth covered hers tenderly, hotly, in a mind-drugging kiss, as if to rekindle her rushing passion. She strained against him in shameless supplication, but the continued his assault on her senses, curling his tongue around her nipple and pulling it slowly into his warm mouth, punishing her senses as he suckled her voraciously.

“Rufus, please…”

“Didn’t I ask you not to call me Rufus when we’re together like this? Tell me what you want. Tell me.”

“Rufus, darling. I…oh God, honey, I’ll die. Please, get in me.” She felt his smile as he kissed her belly.

“We’ve got all night, sweetheart. Just give yourself to me.”

Dizzying currents of heat danced through her body as his fingers strummed it, stroked it, played it skillfully like a priceless lyre, and she cried out, writhing and undulating beneath him. Desperate for consummation, her desire at fever pitch, she spread her legs and took his hard, silken flesh into her soft hands. He raised his head and looked down into her face with love-lit eyes. Then he pressed gently against her, but she grasped his tight buttocks and thrust upward, sending a rush of air from him and a loud moan from her lips.

Her body quickly attuned itself to him, and she met his powerful thrust as their bodies moved in perfect unison. Soon the tide of ecstasy began to course through her and she tried to hold it back, to stay with him.

“Let it go, baby. Let it happen. Give yourself to me. I’ll be with you all the way.”

The waves of ecstasy began at her feet and spiraled through her body, settling in her core and gripping the man she held within her. She cried out from the sweet torture of it as he buckled above and they flew together, their passion undimmed, free.

Shaken beyond words, Rufus looked down at the woman whose body encased him and kissed her tenderly and lovingly. Then, without releasing himself, he turned on his side, bringing her with him.

“I love you, Naomi.” He felt her body stiffen. “I have for a long time. I realized it the night I got back home from Nigeria, and I should have told you then, before we made love, because I knew.” He held her closer when he felt the tremors of her emotional reaction.

“I realize now that I didn’t tell you because I didn’t trust you not to exploit it, and because I couldn’t see you in the setting I envisaged for my boys and myself, even though I told myself otherwise. Yet I asked you to trust me. I was wrong in every way, and I know it. You’re what I want and what I need.”

“Oh, Rufus, there’s so much you don’t know.” He turned to her and kissed her soft brown cheek.

“Not as much as you may think. And before you tell me I want to say something, and it’s important. Whatever happened to you in the past, Naomi, can’t be undone, and it’s not what matters. What the past has made of you is what counts with me. I just want to know if you still love me.”

“Oh, yes. I think I started loving you the minute I saw you. I’d watch you with Preston and Sheldon, how you loved them and how secure they were in your love. I knew you had a great capacity for love, and I wanted you to love me. I pushed you away because I thought because of your past experiences with your wife and mother, you’d reject me when you found out about Aaron.”

She told him about her son, beginning with the day she’d learned of her pregnancy. “Once I knew he wanted to find me, I had to see him. And then I had to choose between the two of you. I couldn’t let Aaron get away from me a second time.”

Quietly, he thought over what she’d told him. She’d be a wonderful companion and lover, wife and mother. He had misjudged her badly, but she’d helped by misleading him. Judd was right; pain had to have been her constant companion. But not anymore; he’d see to that, if she’d let him. She began to squirm, to move away from him, and he tightened his hold.

“From now on, we trust each other. We could have spared ourselves a lot of sleepless nights and heartache if we’d believed in each other.”

He rolled her over on her back and let her feel him growing within her. “If you’ll marry me, I’ll be a happy man, Preston and Sheldon will be delirious, Judd will be out of his mind, and Aaron will get off of my case. What about you?”

She sucked in her breath as his gaze consumed her and his intoxicating virility fired her womanhood. “I’ll be ecstatic.”

* * * * *

ISBN: 9781459222946

Copyright © 2012 by
Gwendolyn Johnson Acsadi

All rights reserved. By payment of the
required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable
right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this
text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse
engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and
retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or
mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written
permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill
Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely
coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books
S.A.

® and ™ are trademarks of the
publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States
Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other
countries.

www.Harlequin.com