“And right now,” Val observed with dry humor, “not much of anything hurts, does it? And a nap sounds just the thing?”

“Hmm.” Ellen curled down again so he couldn’t see her face. “Is that why men like swiving so much? It puts one in charity with the universe?”

“Or one’s little corner of it. But there’s much to like about it.”

“Really?” Ellen stacked her hands and rested her chin on the back of them to survey him like the feline he’d compared her to. “Like what?”

“To see you overcome with pleasure. I have never beheld anything as lovely.”

He saw the wind drop abruptly from her sails.

“It felt lovely,” she admitted, closing her eyes. “You made me feel lovely.”

“No,” Val said firmly. “You are lovely, and you allowed yourself to see it and feel it and know it for a few moments.” He believed that with every fiber of his being.

“I want to be under you again,” she announced. “Please.”

She wanted sheltering and comforting, and Val could not have denied her one thing at that moment. If she’d asked for his right hand, he would have passed it along to her without a word.

“Are you going to cry?” Val asked quietly as he rolled them and obligingly crouched over her. She scooted down until her cheek was against his heart and she could wrap both arms and legs around him.

“I might. I don’t understand it.”

He held her tighter without being asked, and she clung to him more closely. “I am your friend, Ellen,” Val murmured, stroking her hair.

“And my lover,” Ellen reminded him, stretching up to kiss his throat. She reached around to stroke his nape, and beneath him, Val felt their sheer bodily intimacy calming her. She shifted and caressed him with her sex, and he didn’t for an instant mistake the invitation.

“You’re sure? I can see to myself, if you’re not.”

“I want you inside me. Please.”

“I want to be inside you, but you have to trust me on this, Ellen.”

“Trust you?” She licked his chest as if it were smeared with the brandy glaze from a hot apple tart.

“No dragging me back to your cave by my hair, hungry tigress,” Val teased, but his tone was serious. “I could hurt you if I’m not careful, and I will not be responsible for that.”

“I’ll try to behave, but you won’t hurt me.”

“Depend upon it,” he growled, shifting down to meet her eyes. “But recall you are to pinch me if you think I’m even getting close to the near occasion, right?”

“And on your… arse”—she managed the word—“doesn’t count, because in certain moods, you like that.”

“You were paying attention.”

She smoothed her hands up his chest. “And I expect in certain other moods you like to be pinched here.” She tested his nipples gently and was rewarded with a groan and closed eyes.

“Love it.” Which was a small revelation to him. “Adore it, but you said you’d behave.”

“I am behaving.” Ellen blinked up at him and pushed his hair back from his forehead. “You are stalling, though, Valentine. Make love to me, please.”

“Yes, love.” He lowered his forehead to hers, and the enormity of the moment threatened to overwhelm him. He wanted her desperately, and she was willing and even eager.

“Valentine…” Ellen singsonged his name as she lifted her hips, just grazing the tip of his cock with her sex. He didn’t flinch away but pressed minutely forward.

“Kiss me, Ellen,” he instructed sternly. “Now.”

Oh, ye bloody blue blazes… He teased and nibbled and flirted with her mouth as his hips teased and flirted his cock against her sex. She twined her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and let him manage as she rubbed her tongue over his and her breasts against his chest.

“Valentine, please…”

“Patience.” But to his own ears, his voice had a hoarse, distracted note to it, as if he were concentrating just as hard as she was.

And then, like an answer to a craving, the broad head of his erection was more than just teasing her, it was gently, so gently, pushing against her wet heat. Ellen shifted restlessly, maybe trying to impale herself on him, but Val went still and lifted his face from hers.

“You gave your word,” he reminded her, stroking her hair back from her cheek. “This is important, my love, and you promised.”

She nodded, meeting his gaze and drawing in a steadying breath. “For the love of God, please hurry.”

He had to smile, for she was flat out begging. “We will make haste slowly,” he assured her, dipping his head to kiss her cheek. “Hold on to me.”

She wrapped him closely and closed her eyes. He didn’t kiss her now, didn’t distract her with any other caresses or words or sensations, but let her concentrate on the lovely sense of being filled, joined, and physically loved by a man who treasured the privilege.

Treasured her.

He wasn’t quite thrusting, but rather pushing carefully then holding his position, retreating only minutely, and then pushing even more carefully. There was progress, but it was maddeningly slow.

“I want to move,” Ellen whispered.

“Not yet,” Val muttered, his teeth clenched with the effort of his restraint.

“You won’t hurt me,” she assured him, but on the next tentative shift of his hips, she fell silent.

“Close yourself around me. Inside, as if you’d draw me into you a little or hold me still.”

She made an effort to comply.

“God, yes.” Val drew in a slow breath. “Now let me go.”

Her body eased, and he pushed one small increment farther into her heat.

“Again,” Val ordered. She slowly caught his rhythm and slowly, push and squeeze by push and squeeze, he was filling her, joining with her, and sharing with her the most incredible depth of pleasure. Her second orgasm welled up without warning, barreling out of the quiet around them just as she was constricting her muscles around him.

“Valentine…”

“Yes.” His voice was a satisfied growl as he moved more strongly inside her, intensifying the orgasm even as he manacled his own lust in self-discipline. He was excruciatingly careful with his timing, and already he’d shown her how not to struggle against the pleasure, to go with it, to embrace the drowning glory of it, and even seek its greater depths.

As he let her catch her breath, Valentine waited above her, his hips moving in a slow, relaxed undulation. Her body could accommodate him now, easily and eagerly, because he’d been patient and careful. His fingers brushed her hair back from her forehead in a slow, tender caress, and then, sensing her emotions welling, he cradled her head against his shoulder as he kissed her temple.

“All right, then?”

“Undone. Hold me.”

“Bossy.” Val tucked her closer and hiked one of her legs higher on his hip. “I’ll distract you, good sort that I am.”

He rocked and petted and teased her from one orgasm to the next, balancing his caresses to both soothe and arouse. Then he shifted rhythm and angle and hooked one of her knees in the crook of his elbow, startling her into another orgasm. After another pause for Ellen to catch her breath, he went still, just studying her face for long moments as he traced her features with his fingers while his cock was hilted in her depths.

He gathered her close and twined his fingers with hers on the pillow. Knowing he’d already asked much of her, Val shifted to firm, measured thrusts. Beneath him, Ellen began to pant as her hips rose and fell in counterpoint to his.

“You too,” she got out, not yet having the sophistication to hold her pleasure at bay. She turned her face into his shoulder, and Val felt her teeth, not biting but pressed to his flesh in a hungry, silent scream.

“Ah, God… Ellen…” Val hilted himself against her and pushed hard repeatedly, spending in the depths of her body as his ears roared, his body shook, and his soul sang. The relief of it was tremendous, to not merely dally but to join. He thrust on and on, swamped by a transcending pleasure of not just the body but the heart, as well. And God bless the woman, she held him tightly through it all, even as his movements ceased and his world gradually righted itself.

“You won’t be able to breathe unless you let me go, love.” He kissed her temple. “I won’t go far, but you need a little room.”

Her hands unclenched, her legs slid down his flanks, and her body eased from his. He shifted up, maybe an inch, and immediately felt her cling more tightly.

“Not yet,” she said, pressing her face to his sternum.

Val went still and realized the unjoining was going to take as much forbearance and finesse as the joining had, particularly as he wanted nothing so much as to flop to his side, drag Ellen over him, and stay in that bed until Judgment Day.

Joinings, he corrected himself. Where he’d found the stamina to go on as he had was a mystery, as he’d never in all his years of dallying and swiving and carrying on been quite that virtuosic before. After weeks of abstinence, he should have been on a murderously short fuse, but with Ellen, the sheer pleasure of being inside her had been tremendous, and the pleasure of bringing her to fulfillment even greater.

Val’s own orgasm had come along as a rousing cadenza, a flourish at the end to dazzle and delight, but completely beside the point of the larger composition.

Ellen had been the point, and she still was.

“I’ll be back,” Val assured her, “but we’re going to leave a mess if I don’t bestir myself for a moment now.”

She went pliant in some indefinable way, letting him ease himself from her then from the bed. As he crossed her bedroom to a basin and pitcher on her hearth, his body felt looser, his skin more comfortable to be in than it had in weeks. He dipped a flannel, wrung it out, tended to himself, and dipped it again.