Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) by Annette Blair

placed his wife naked beneath them. “I do the work to undress you, I make the choices,” he whispered, as he kissed her brow. “You’re a fine figure of a woman Larkin Rose Blackburne.”
    Then he went around the bed, removed his dressing gown and slid beneath the covers in the same naked state as his oblivious bride. Ash slid to the center of the bed, took Larkin into his arms, and she burrowed into him—for body warmth, at least—a fine state of affairs, until she went back to sleep.
    His body had no intention of resting; it had other pursuits in mind. Hard pursuits that would take a great deal of throbbing attention, and if he moved her just right in his arms, like so, he could at least snuggle that aching part of him there, at the warm moist apex of her, where he and she would be the most comfortable.
    She arched when he did, not taking him in, quite, but nestling him more snugly, so that his man part did a small dance, joy and enthusiasm in one tightly-wound package, a great deal of energy with no place to go.
    Ash cursed and ignored the pointless pulsing thrust, and took to savoring the feel of his bride’s skin beneath his hand, like silk or satin, unblemished and perfect. He skimmed the cleft of her spine starting at her shoulders, learned the breadth of her hips with his palm, the better to embrace and stroke. Her shoulders were wide, her waist trim. Her breasts crushed against his chest, he had yet to explore, other than in the bath, oh, and in the tree, which had nearly got him killed.
    Nevertheless, he wanted a breast in his mouth. Now.
    His body agreed.
    He moved her again, found himself a handful, and tweaked the nipple with his thumb.
    “Ash,” Lark whispered, giving him greater access.
    “Lark?” he said. “Do you like this?”
    She found his mouth, no doubts there, she’d initiated the kiss. As he kissed her back, he continued to tease her nipple, budding it and torturing it, and her hips came for his, not once, but twice, then a third rhythmic time.
    “Lark, do you want this?”
    She surged again, her hips begging for his, her breast pouting for more attention, her mouth open and greedy. Lord, she could be sensuous, but he wished she were awake.
    He tried to tuck her face into his neck, pull her back into his arms, to settle and sleep. “Not tonight,” he said, for both their sakes.
    When the day came that he finally took her, he wanted her to know what he was doing to her, no matter how much she seemed to appreciate sexual byplay in her sleep—her drink induced sleep, he must remember.
    But she would have none of it. She whimpered and threw a leg over him, tossed her head back and her breast forward so that there was nothing he could do but take it into his mouth. A man would have to be mad to refuse such a gift.
    Larkin whimpered and moaned as he suckled her, begged him to continue, if only she knew it, with each thrust of her hips. He was near to spilling his seed, but he’d only given her half his attention, and it did not seem fair.
    “Lark,” he said to wake her. “Lark, love, wake up enough to know what you want.”
    “Ash?” she questioned and he knew he’d gotten through.
    “Lark, do you want me to touch you?”
    He moved his hips to indicate his meaning. “I’ll only touch you if you want me to.”
    She looked frightened for a minute, half asleep then half scared to death in two beats, but he took her hand and guided it between them, closed her palm around him. “There is nothing to fear. I am only made of flesh, see?”
    Her hand on him felt divine. He could spill in a blink if he let himself. In the shaft of moonlight crossing the bed, he saw her fear recede; saw her beauty trebled the same way. His wife, he thought, almost breathless. His wife was truly beautiful.
    She moved her hand along his length, tentative at first, then with a surer knowledge. She saw when she’d moved him, acknowledged the change in his breathing with a feline smile.
    “Do you know what