Chapter Two
Two years ago
“Celia, are you still working? You were meant to be done half an hour ago.” Celia looked up, hunching her shoulders slightly in guilt. Her mother had always told her that it made her look like a scared squirrel, but she couldn’t stop herself from doing it even under the best of circumstances.
“Oh, um, I meant to be done, but then I thought that if I could just finish up with these fliers, then—”
Joyce frowned at her, shaking her head. “Not the way it works, kiddo. When you’re scheduled to clock out, you need to clock out. No exceptions.” Celia tried not to look as if she were wilting, but Joyce sighed, shaking her head. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. Just keep an eye on it in the future, okay?”
Celia nodded, and her manager’s face softened a little.
“Look, the museum’s still open for another hour or two. Why don’t you go catch the special exhibit? I don’t think you’ve been yet, and you really ought not miss it.”
“I will,” Celia said gratefully, gathering up her things. “That sounds fantastic.”
There were several reasons that Celia chose to work at the museum. It was only a short distance away from her apartment, it offered good insurance and it provided her with a free meal at the cafe every day, but those were just perks. A part of her had been drawn to the museum for its art and for the opportunity to see exhibits that took her breath away.
Celia grew up dreaming about museums and art, even though her practical parents told her that art was a tough field to get into. Now she was an adult, and even if there was very little money left in her bank account at the end of the month, she still had all this art.
She stashed her things in her locker and made her way to the upper floor where the special exhibit was being hosted. The exhibit featured the work of a sculptor that she had never heard of before, but when she entered the dim gallery, his inspirations were very clear.
The wood and brass sculptures towered above her, the forms organic and rounded. Despite the smooth curves of the wood and the warm glint of bronze, there was something absolutely menacing about the statues, especially as she went deeper into the room.
The exhibit was imbued with a kind of sensuality that made Celia uneasy. Here was one sculpture that, from a certain angle, seemed to show a figure with its hand clenched in another figure’s hair. Another one seemed to be running its prey down to the ground, and a third featured a kneeling figure looking up at something with what could only be defined as lust in its abstract face.
Celia’s heart beat faster and she knew that she was blushing. Her face felt as if it was on fire, and it was from embarrassment as much as it was from the sensuality of the exhibit. She had a few acquaintances who would roll their eyes and say that it was par for the course; that of course Celia Breeland was shaken up by plain wooden statues. However, they would never have guessed that something about the savage art resonated with her, that touched her to the core of her untried heart and body.
She paused in front of a sculpture that was half as tall as she was. The figure was definitely female, though slight, and the hint of a smile across the figure’s face was knowing. Two hands, startlingly detailed, came up to cup the figure’s small breasts as if offering them to an unknown watcher, and Celia licked her dry lips.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Celia thought that she was alone in the gallery. The sudden words directed at her made her yelp, and that was answered with a low chuckle that sent a shiver up her spine. Unconsciously, she wrapped her arms over her chest, spinning to where the noise was coming from.
Celia had always thought that museums were sacred places, somewhere below churches but certainly above shopping malls and restaurants. The man who was slouched at the bench against the wall certainly did not agree.
He had hair as black as ink, but even in the dim light of the gallery she could tell his eyes were a piercing blue. His face was utterly masculine, certainly handsome, but there was a sensuality to his lips that she absently thought would push him to beautiful. There was no telling how tall he was as he slouched on the bench, his elegant clothes in disarray and his hands carelessly resting on his thighs. His eyes seemed to flicker over her, taking it all in with a kind of wry amusement.
“I beg your pardon?” Celia asked, her voice rising a little.
“The girl. The one you’re looking at as if she holds all the meaning of life.” There was something foreign about the man’s accent. He spoke English as if it was his mother tongue, but she knew that no one in Eastwick had an accent like that.
“I just think she’s lovely,” Celia stuttered, and the man tilted his head to once side.
“Is that all you think?”
“No,” Celia said, her voice as soft as a sigh. “There’s something mysterious about it as well, isn’t there? It’s like she’s... she’s offering herself up to something. Something we can’t understand.”
The man chuckled and sat up a little straighter. “Come here,” he said, his voice soft and rich. “I can’t be calling across the gallery at you, can I?”
Celia wondered if she should politely take her leave and resume her tour of the gallery, or even duck out of the room and go home. However, the disturbance this man caused in her had nothing to do with alarm. It was fascination, she decided, and she came a little closer.“There’s a love,” he said when she was standing in front of him.
In this position, Celia was taller than the man she was speaking to, but she could tell now that that was only temporary. The man—Irish, she thought—was tall, and sprawled out on the bench, he made her think of a soldier taking his rest.
“So you don’t think it’s a mystery?” she asked, and Celia wondered why her voice was so breathless.
“Not at all,” he replied with a slight wink. “I think she’s offering herself up to her man.”
Celia’s face went pink and she took a step back. “You think that’s all for... for just a man?” she asked, and she might have turned away if the man’s hand hadn’t snaked out to take her own. It was warm enough to make her gasp, and the moment he touched her, a spark of electricity jumped between them, sharp, almost painful. It felt as if it had sensitized every nerve in her body.
From the surprised look on the man’s face, he had felt it as well, but he did not let her go. Instead, when he looked up at her, his eyes were darker, almost a deep sapphire.
“Now that’s not what I said,” he murmured, his accent a little thicker. “I meant her man. Not any man, not any idiot who asks or who spends a bit of money on her or who says beautiful things to her in the dark of the night.”
“Her man.”
“Yes. The one she takes to her heart. The one who consumes her even as she consumes him. There is only one, and to him she will give anything.”
“And what does he give her in return?” Celia asked, aware that her voice was trembling. In all her twenty years, she knew that she had never felt like this before, as if she wanted to burst out of her own skin. Something about this mysterious man made her mouth dry, made her want to run and come closer.
“He gives her everything,” he said simply. “What any decent man offers to the woman that is his. He gives her everything.”
The man rose to his feet, revealing himself as tall enough to tower above her. The smile he gave her was bright and amused, as far from the solemn things he had been saying as it could get. Celia lurched back, wondering if he had been making fun of her, but his hand came out to steady her.
“My name is James,” he said. “I came in here to get a bit of a rest from my troubles, and who should come along but you.”
“Me?”
“Yes,” he said. “The perfect cure for all that ails me.”
“I’m not a bottle of aspirin,” she said, startled, but he only grinned.
“You’re a beautiful girl who I would very much like to take to dinner,” he said. “Come on, I was thinking of sushi.”
***
Celia thought that sushi would be all that happened between them. He took her to a beautiful restaurant where they were seated on gorgeous tatami mats, the fish in front of them an incredible display of the chef’s art. She had had supermarket sushi before and found it dull, but now she discovered the difference a four hundred dollar dinner could make. When she protested the cost, James grinned.
“What’s the point of having cash if I can’t use it for what I like?”
“What is it you like?” she asked without thinking, and he touched her hand again.
“You.”
The food was delicious, but her anxiety only mounted over the next hour or so. When he walked her back to her car, Celia finally turned to him.
“I’m not sleeping with you,” she murmured desperately. “I mean this is lovely, and the sushi was great, and you are so handsome, but I am not going to just fall into bed with you.”
She had been braced for all manner of reactions, but she was still surprised when James laughed and nodded.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” he drawled. He had said that his accent was pure Dublin, and to her ear, there was a lilt to it, as if he were singing each word, just a little. “Very sorry indeed, but that is of course your choice. I always want it to be your choice.”
She felt a rush of emotions then. There was relief of course, but there was also what felt like a tide of regret, and a part of her couldn’t stop looking at his mouth, how beautiful it was and how wicked.
“My choice,” she echoed, and his eyes darkened slightly.
“Of course. But I would like to offer you another choice now.”
“Yes?”
“Would you like to kiss me?”For some reason, his words hit her like a gale. Her entire body felt suddenly as if it was too warm, and her skin prickled as if with lightning. The answer was yes, but before she could even shape it with her lips, her body was moving forward, almost falling, and she was caught in James’s arms. They closed around her with an utter certainty and strength. When Celia lifted her face, he kissed her, his mouth moving over hers with a sensuality that took her breath away.
Celia felt the immovable bulk of her car at her back, and in front of her James seemed just as solid, just as strong. Instead of feeling trapped, however, she relished the press of his body against hers. His mouth lingered over hers, gentle and light until her lips parted. His tongue slid over the fullness of her lower lip, sending a cascade of pleasure through her. With her gasp, she swallowed his kiss, took it deeper until his tongue was sliding inside her mouth in blatant imitation of what they both wanted.
“Oh God, James,” she murmured, and the soft sound he made, somewhere between a moan and a groan, curled red-hot through her body.
She might have kept on kissing him, but then she felt the bulge in his trousers pressed against her belly. It didn’t alarm her. Instead, it was the opposite. Feeling his need for her made her own need shoot high into the night sky. In that moment, Celia knew that she could not trust herself around James, that if he asked her to come to his bed, she would not say no.
The lack of control over her own instincts shocked her, and she pushed him away. For a moment, James didn’t budge, and then with a soft regretful sigh, he pulled away from her, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets.
“So, we are done with each other for tonight?” he asked, and Celia felt a tide of regret as she nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, a red blush coming up to stain her cheeks. God, she could be such a child sometimes. Other women would have no trouble taking such a handsome man to bed, but her…
Before her self-deprecating thoughts could get out of hand, however, James reached forward and touched her chin, making her look up at him.
“Never be sorry for telling me what you want,” he murmured throatily. “I will always want to hear that. Perhaps some day, you will say something that will make us both smile.”
He kissed her, this time on the forehead. For a moment, Celia thought he was simply going to disappear into dimness, but he pulled out his phone instead. “I want to see you again,” he said softly. “May I have your phone number?” For a moment, she stared, and then she fumbled for her own phone.
“Of course,” she said.
Her own contacts were astonishingly small. There was her estranged mother, and a handful of co-workers that she had contacted for various professional reasons. When James texted her, she smiled immediately at seeing his name on her screen.
“Well, that’s that for tonight then, little love,” he said. “I’ll see you again soon, all right?”
Celia felt strange as she returned to her own tiny apartment. Everything felt brighter, new. It was as if the world had changed, but she knew that wasn’t it. She was the one who had changed instead, and when her phone chimed gently, she knew why.
I can’t stop thinking of you, James’s text said, and she couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
***
Celia realized she was in love the day James had to break a date.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, some four weeks after they met. “I need to take this call, and it’s not one I can avoid, not really.”If Celia were honest with herself, she had only the vaguest idea what James did for a living. She knew that it paid well enough for him to do mostly as he liked, and that sometimes it involved long calls to London and occasionally Beijing. She sighed.
“Oh, well, I was looking forward to dinner,” she said, “but I understand.”
That night, however, it occurred to her that she could bring him dinner instead. Celia felt distinctly nervous as she drove to Eastwick’s small casual Italian restaurant, picking up a few dishes that she thought James would like. The whole time she drove over to his elegant hotel, she thought about chickening out. He was probably too busy for her, likely he would be irritated that she showed up without notice. She practiced saying ‘oh, no big deal, I’ll just head home,’ in her head all the way up the elevator.
However, nothing could have prepared her for the way that James’s eyes lit up when he saw her at his door with the food in hand.
“I didn’t expect you,” he said, letting her in immediately. “Is this for me?”
“It is,” she said, ignoring the way her belly rumbled. “I just wanted to make sure that you got some food even if we weren’t eating together, and I can just take off.”
“No,” he said, hurriedly checking his watch. “No, please stay. I can take the call in the bedroom. It’ll take maybe two hours, but after that I would love to eat with you.”
She agreed happily, curling up on his couch with her bare feet tucked under her. In the other room, she could hear his low voice, and the Italian food, tucked into his suite’s oven to stay warm, was delicious.
He acted, she thought, as if no one had ever brought him food before, and that thought made Celia ache a little. She didn’t like to think of him working alone here, hungry enough to get something fast and dull when he was done.
She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, James was spreading the food out on the small coffee table, bringing out some plates and silverware.
“It’s not as nice as a restaurant,” James apologized, “but there’s not much open this late.”
Celia laughed a little, sitting up. “It’s fine,” she said. “I mean, most nights I’m eating noodles out of a Styrofoam cup. You don’t have to take me to a nice restaurant every time we’re together. I’m glad I could bring you something good.”
The smile that James gave her wasn’t one of his usual roguish grins. Instead, there was something almost shy about it, and she felt as if her heart squeezed slightly in her chest.
I want to be so kind to him, she thought. I love him.
It was not the revelation it might have been. She had felt it before. Every moment that she spent with James, she could feel herself falling towards him. She felt something warm whenever she met those blue eyes, and her blush had no embarrassment in it when he touched her hand or her cheek.
Sitting on the couch in his hotel, however, the remains of a chicken al fredo and a pasta e fagoli between them, Celia realized that her feelings were not lust, or even infatuation. It was love.
That was why the next night, when he walked her to her door, she latched her small fists in his shirt, clinging to him as he kissed her.
“Celia?” he whispered, pulling back to look into her eyes.
“Come in,” she said, her voice reedy and unsteady. “I want you to come in.”
“All right,” James said, and there was a hesitation to his voice she had never heard before.
Celia pushed her own trepidation aside, drawing him into her apartment. It was the first time he had been inside it, and he looked around curiously. As he did so, she could see with new eyes how shabby it was, how very different it was from everything he was likely used to.
“I’m sorry it’s not finer,” Celia whispered, and James turned that bright smile on her.
“It’s yours, and that’s all that matters,” he said. “What would you like to do now?”
Celia stared at him for a moment, her heart sinking in her chest. Wasn’t he interested in...? “Well, I rather thought you might have some ideas,” she said hopefully, but James still didn’t take the hint. He prowled her apartment like some kind of large cat, solemnly taking in the way she lived. Celia felt as if she wanted to fall through a crack in the floor when he came to stand a few feet away from her.
“This is new,” James said presently, and she felt herself flinch a little.
“I guess it is,” she nodded.
James sighed a little, and she cringed. Was she being ridiculous? Maybe he had wanted to before, but that was simply because he hadn’t known her that well. Were things different now that she did know him? Had he decided that she was simply too ridiculous to deal with.
“Celia... tell me what you want?”
She was blushing so badly that she was on the verge of telling him that she didn’t want anything, that she only wanted to be alone now. The only thing that kept her from saying that was the thin waver in his voice, the slight hint that he was not in fact in control of himself. He stood back from her as if he were almost afraid of her, and the idea that he might be nervous too helped.
“I... I can’t...” she stuttered, and James reached for her before pulling back abruptly.
“You’re putting me in a very strange situation here,” he said, and there was a slight hint of amusement in his voice.
“Am I?”
“You are. Do you remember what you told me the first time we spent some time together? Because I do. I remember very well. You said you didn’t want to sleep with me. I liked that. Do you know why?”
“Not at all. I honestly thought that that might make you hate me or something.”
James chuckled, shaking his head. “Well, I might have been a little sad that that was your answer,” he said. “The truth was that I liked it. I like a woman who can say no to me. That’s because when she says yes, it means that she really means it.”
“Saying yes...” Celia said, understanding what he meant and what he was asking of her. She tried to open her mouth to speak, but it felt as if the words were dammed up behind some terrible wall. James stepped a little closer to her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body, feel the slight rustle of air when he moved into her space.
“I want you to tell me what you want, Celia,” James murmured compellingly. “You said no loud and clear so that I could hear you. Now I want you to say yes in the exact same way.”
Celia thought she would die from the heat that had flooded her face.
“I can’t... I can’t...” she said, her voice little more than a squeak.
“I think you can,” James murmured, tilting her face up with a gentle touch to her chin. “I do believe that you can do anything that you put your mind to. I have complete faith in you.”
She started to say that that was probably misplaced when he leaned down to kiss her. There was nothing rushed or hurried about this kiss. Instead it was soft and tender, skating over her lips as if he had all the time in the world. The only places he touched her were her lips and her cheek, where his fingers skated over her face.
Celia knew that he was waiting for an answer, but she closed her eyes and let herself fall into the kiss he was giving her. This man, this man who was still so new to her, was awakening her to parts of herself that she had never known existed before. It felt as if warmth was coursing through every part of her, wrapping her heart up tight, tying her into knots as she groaned with need for him.
When James pulled back, Celia made a wounded sound. James chuckled, but she could sense the same fire in him that burned in her own core.
“Say it,” he murmured thickly. “I want you to tell me what you want, Celia.”
“I want you to kiss me again,” she whispered, aware that her eyes were large and longing.
She was afraid that James might tease her for such a simple request, but instead he purred with pleasure.
“That is an excellent start, my darling little one,” he said just before his lips slid over hers again. There was a darkness to this kiss that hadn’t been there before. It was as if she had uncovered a hunger in him that he had carefully been keeping from her. She could sense the need in his body that made her own cry out, and instinctively, she shaped herself to him, her curves to his angles.
James broke the kiss with a deep groan, his hands landing on her shoulders and holding her back slightly.
“God above, woman. Do you know what you do to me?”
“Your accent,” she murmured, slightly dazed. “Why does it get so much thicker when we kiss?”
“Because a single kiss from you could make a monk lose his focus,” James said shortly. “Celia, you’re killing me.”
She looked at him aghast, wondering for a moment if she was truly just that bad. He saw her fear, and he immediately gathered her into his arms, nuzzling the top of her head sweetly.
“Poor little one. I promise I won’t tease any longer. Please—tell me what you want.”
She shivered as he started to run his hands tantalizingly up and down her back, his mouth finding the sensitive points of her neck. He might not be willing to go farther, but he made the most of what he was willing to do, driving her crazy with his gentle touches, his whispered words and his careful teasing. Finally, Celia found the courage to speak what they both wanted, what she wondered if she had wanted ever since she had laid eyes on this man.
“I want you,” she murmured, not daring to look him in the eyes.
The noise that James made shook her to the core. It was a sound that spoke of need, and if she had heard it without knowing James, she would have been frightened. There was something darkly primitive about it, something that made her think of wild days when people were driven by their primal instincts.
James swept her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing and he carried her to the alcove that held her bed. She had a moment to be grateful that she had just changed her sheets the night before before he laid her down on it, climbing half on top of her.
She had barely caught her breath when James stole it again, kissing her with a wildness she had only seen hints of before. She knew he had always enjoyed kissing her before, but this was barely short of a frenzy. Instead of being afraid, however, she raised her face to his, her hands groping delicately along his shoulders. She could feel how powerful he was, how tough and strong. She gloried in his male body, and when he reached down to pull her shirt over her head, she squirmed a little to help him. Her sandals and skirt followed, and then she was in her panties and her bra; an unmatched set in faded colors more than three years old. When she would have gone to cover herself, James chuckled.
“Here, let me take care of that.”
The bra he unfastened with skilled fingers, tossing over the edge of the bed. She thought he would simply slide her panties down her legs, but instead he simply grabbed the fabric and pulled, tearing them off of her completely. The sudden sharp motion took her breath away, and James looked down on her with a grin.
“I’ll buy you another pair,” he murmured. “Perhaps ones without little flowers on them.” Before she could blush all over again, this time about how silly her underwear was, James was over her again, kissing her with a barely restrained violence that called to her. Now his hands were roaming all over her body with a covetousness that stopped just short of ownership, and she could not deny that there was a part of her that welcomed it. He shaped her nipples to aching sweet points, and then he dropped his mouth to them, suckling greedily, she groaned with need for this man.
“I’ve never felt like this before,” she panted, and James laughed, a deep throaty sound that made her body buck against his.
“Oh darling, this is just the start of it.”
He started to touch her, his hands sliding over her round thighs to the core of her, but Celia surprised them both by touching his shoulder.
“Please,” she stuttered, “can I see you, too?”
James froze for a moment, and then with a soft sound of need, he rose from the bed. She felt the loss of his presence for a moment, but then she was enthralled by watching him strip off his clothing. He was a handsome and arresting man when clothed. When James was naked, there was something brutally beautiful about him. His body was all lean muscle dusted with dark hair, so different from her own that she knew she needed to touch it.
Finally, Celia let her eyes drop down to his waist, where his cock jutted from his body aggressively. Biting her lip, she reached for it, and when she finally found the courage to wrap her fingers around it, James groaned, thrusting lightly into her hand. She was fascinated by the feel of this most elemental part of him. The skin over the iron hardness was soft, a bead of liquid at the tip.
“I want...” She choked on the words, a hot blush coming up to her cheeks.
James’s hand stroked over her cheek, both loving and commanding. “I’m yours, do what you want with me.”
She threw her hesitation to the winds, acted on an ancient instinct that came from somewhere deep inside. She leaned forward and flicked the tip of her tongue over James’s cock, relishing the hot skin and salty sea taste of him.
The effect on James was immediate and powerful. His entire frame shuddered, and when she looked up in surprise, his eyes were dark.
“God, what you do to me, beautiful girl,” he crooned, and he bore her down to the bed. This time it was different. This time they were both naked, and she groaned at the feeling of his bare skin sliding over hers, making her groan with pleasure. She wanted nothing more than to feel him, everything he was, his entire body, and that was before his hand came down between her legs, spreading them wide. She resisted for only a moment, and then her reluctance melted away when he leaned in for another kiss.
“So beautiful,” he crooned. “Let me make you feel so good, pretty one.”
She threw her head back against the pillow, groaning out loud as James’s fingers slid over her humid skin. They were strong and skilled, drawing a sweet dampness from her channel. He drew that dampness up to the apex of her folds, finding the knot of sensation hidden there. He circled her clit with a knowing touch, using the warmth and pressure of his body to hold her still as he touched her, arousing her beyond anything she had ever felt before.
From deep within her, Celia could feel a sweet tension twisting through the very core of her being. Something inside her was tightening up, making her shudder. She dug her fingers into James’s shoulders as she stuttered her need. James, his body covered with a fine sheen of sweat, seemed to know exactly what she needed. He moved over her, murmuring softly comforting words, telling her over and over again that it was all right, that it was meant to feel good.
“Just let go, my darling, let go, I’ll catch you.”
In the end it was his words as much as anything else that compelled her lie back, her eyes fluttering shut as her body seemed to sweep up into a dangerously hot pleasure.
“Oh! Oh my God!” she cried, and her entire being convulsed with a kind of fiery climax she had never experienced before. It seemed to go on forever, racking her over and over again with a pleasure that felt as if it was changing her on some elemental level, as if she was being molded directly from the heat into something new and wonderful and strange.When Celia’s body finally stopped shaking, she gazed up at James with eyes that were just short of awed.
“Are you all right?” he asked huskily, and she nodded. She would have answered him, but her throat felt far too raw to reply. Instead, she only looked up at him with wide dark eyes, hoping that he would understand what it was she was trying to say.
He did.With a soft noise of need, he came over her, his weight pressing her softly into the mattress. Celia caught her breath at the power of his body over hers, but there was absolutely no fear in her at all. Instead, all she could think was how good it was, how very delicious he felt over her. There was a need deep inside her that had not subsided even with her climax, and instinctively, Celia knew that James was the only one who could give her the release she craved.
He hovered over her briefly, his pale eyes locked with her dark ones. In that moment, it felt as if they were bonded in a very specific way. It felt as if a part of her soul had flown into him, found a home there.
“Are you sure?” James asked, his voice deep and hoarse. “I want you, but...”
“If you are sure, I am,” Celia murmured. She reached up to lay her soft hands on his shoulders, and he groaned. She knew that she could not move him if he did not want to be moved, but in that moment, she was the one with all the power, the one who ruled over all. The control she had over him was intoxicating, but in that moment, they both very much wanted the exact same thing.
“Take me,” she murmured. “Please. You are what I want most. You are what I need.”
“God, when you say that, I can’t stop,” James ground out, and he knelt between her legs.
Even as sure as she was, she could feel a slight tremor of fear when she could truly sense how much bigger he was than she was herself, how he could destroy her if he wished to do so. Then he was kissing her again, and she whimpered with need, every fear forgotten.
Celia could feel the blunt tip of his manhood pressed against her, and then with a swift and powerful thrust, he was lodged fully inside her. She uttered one sharp cry as she felt a single moment of pain, and then he was moving above her. All of the pain was forgotten in the tide of pleasure that flowed over her, and she could feel her body responding to his, rolling forward, up and over as he showed her how very good she could truly feel.
“Oh my God,” she whimpered, and James made a sound that was barely human as his thrusts grew even faster, even deeper. She could feel him trembling as well, and in a deep corner of her brain, she knew that he was coming apart just as she was. He needed release as much as she had, and she wanted to give it to him.
Taking a deep breath, she dug her heels into the bed, thrusting up to meet his motions. It was like throwing gasoline on the fire. In a moment, he was clamping down on her even tighter than he had before, moving over her with a need that made her cry out. She would have clung to him even further, but then she could feel the pleasure start to come over her again. Her body was tightening, she was shaking, and at the moment of her crisis, she dug her nails into his shoulders, not caring if she left a mark.
Instead of trying to push her off, James hung on to her even tighter. His thrusts grew more erratic, more wild, and then she was coming. Her pleasure cascaded over her like a torrent of water, washing her along helplessly in its wake, and she shouted with her climax.
James’s pleasure followed hard on the heels of her own, and he held her still as he thrust into her one last time. She could feel the warmth of his pleasure spilling inside her, and there was a small part of her that was alarmed by it. However, it all felt too good to question in the moment, far too good to worry about it. Instead, they both went bonelessly limp in each other’s arms. After a moment, James rolled off of Celia and gathered her in his arms. She met his eyes with a smile, and she felt as if no one in the world had ever made love before. They were brand new. They were perfect.
Celia leaned in to kiss him, and she could feel the love she had for him blooming under her heart.