The Bridegroom by Linda Lael Miller

harder.
    Gideon sighed. He’d told her he had to work in the morning; he was growing impatient because she was keeping him awake. “What is it?” he asked, very quietly.
    She hadn’t meant to say what she did next, it simply came out. “The way Lark is—”
    “Pregnant?” Gideon prompted, with a tinge of amusement in his voice.
    In for a penny, Lydia thought, in for a pound. The darkness gave her courage—or just made her reckless. “The way she is with Rowdy—”
    “Ah,” Gideon said. “That.”
    “That?”
    “If I show you what makes Lark shine like she swallowed every streetlight in town, will you go to sleep?”
    A thrill of sweet terror went through Lydia. “That depends,” she said, suddenly breathless.
    Gideon rested his hand on her lower belly, began easing the shirt upward, baring her thighs and then more of her, and still more. With a low, sleepy groan, he nibbled at her earlobe, sending fire racing under every inch of her skin, making her quiver.
    “Depends on what?” he asked lazily.
    “I’m—I’m not sure,” Lydia admitted.
    He chuckled at that. “I’m going to hate myself for this,” he said.
    Lydia squirmed as the unnamed need intensified with every featherlight pass of his fingers over her bare skin. Gave a little gasp when Gideon suddenly parted the nest of curls between her legs and began to caress her in earnest, though very slowly.
    “Oh,” she whimpered, stunned by the delicious sensations launching themselves from that tiny nubbin of flesh to race skyward like Chinese rockets. “Oh.”
    “Umm-hmm,” Gideon affirmed, his fingers making circles, going around and around. Moist before, Lydia was wet now, and the slickness of her skin increased the rising, panicked pleasure with every movement of his hand, however slight.
    “Ooooh,” Lydia gasped.
    “Shh,” Gideon said, teasing her now, plucking at her, drawing a strange, silent music from the very core of her body, leading her, note by note, toward some shattering crescendo.
    Lydia’s hips began to move, with no prompting from her mind, causing the bedsprings to squeak slightly.
    Gideon chuckled into her hair and worked her harder, and yet with a tenderness that opened new places inside Lydia, revealed a world of fierce desire she’d never dreamed was there. “Easy,” he mumbled. “You don’t want to get there too soon.”
    Lydia had no idea where “there” was—all she knew was that she wanted more of what Gideon was doing to her—much more. That she would surely die if he stopped caressing her.
    “Oh—Gideon—” she pleaded “— Gideon —”
    He slowed his fingers, nibbled at her neck and the edges of her ear, sighed again.
    “Faster— oh —Gideon, faster —”
    “Shh,” he said again.
    She tried to part her legs farther, but there was no way to do that, in such a confined space, and Gideon seemed to find the dilemma amusing, because another hoarse chuckle escaped him. Finally, he left off stroking her toward madness to run his hand along the quivering flesh of her thigh to her knee. He grasped it, though gently, and lifted and, again by instinct alone, Lydia caught her foot behind Gideon’s calf.
    When he went back to plying her with his fingers, she couldn’t keep quiet anymore. She turned her face into the pillow, to muffle the ragged, involuntary cries of ecstatic desperation.
    Gideon continued to pleasure her with his hand, groaned again as he brushed his lips across her nape.
    Lydia was feverish by then, mad with need—and with curiosity. “What is—oh, dear God—what is happening to me—?”
    “You’re about to find out,” Gideon drawled, increasing the pace.
    Lydia’s hips wanted to fly now, but Gideon had somehow pinned her against him, making it impossible to move. When a low, steady moan poured from her, one even the pillow couldn’t stifle, he shifted her to lie flat beside him and covered her mouth with his.
    When his tongue passed her lips, all of Creation splintered into