She shook her head.
“Touch me. Where it pleases you.”
Her hands hesitated inches above his body, then settled against his skin, and he could breathe again. She smoothed palms down his back and over his arse, she caressed love into his arms and shoulders.
“Now tell me where you like me to touch you best.”
She inhaled. She exhaled. She said, “B-behind my ear.”
He nuzzled her there, licked and kissed until she laughed and relaxed and shivered.
“My breasts.”
“Me, too.” He set his face between them and kissed the little valley there, nibbled along the lovely bottom curve of one until he found her nipple, then he loved that, too, his other hand caressing her other breast, rolling the other nipple to a perfect peak. He held control tightly. Damn but he needed to move. Control a physical pain, a necessary urge. Yet he would not. Not until she wanted it. But every breath taken under restraint produced a crack in it.
Another inhale, another exhale, and she moved first, rolling her hips against his. The relief immediate, profound, rushing through him like flood waters through a small stream. She urged him on again, her nails digging into the muscle of his arse.
Slowly, slowly, he dragged out of her, thrust back in, watching her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, for any sign of pain.
Saw none. Only… curiosity, only the gentle parting of pleasure on her lips.
So, he went back to kissing her because that’s all he wanted to do. Kiss her and rock in and out of her, pulling all the way out before slipping back in again and again.
Until the last stroke put a final crack in his control, and the flood drowned him. The small kisses became one hard one, all teeth and tongue as he thrust into her harder and faster, and shelifted her hips, clumsily at first, then with clearer rhythm until, finally, she whispered his name against his lips.
And he shattered.
No, nothing so damn destructive. Who the hell had words for what happened. But his body knewrightwhen it felt it. His heart knew right when hers beat against his own.
He collapsed against her. Damn. Too heavy. He rolled to the side, taking her with him as he’d done in the carriage, too tired to drag them both beneath the blankets, too tired even to kiss. Just damn… glad she was in his arms. Damn ecstatic she was his.
How long had he waited for this woman without knowing her? That’s what he’d been doing. He knew that now. Waiting. All those years, worth it now he knew her, now he had her.
And all the years they would risk discovery and scandal and pain? His sisters and hers? That worth it, too?
He hugged her more tightly and faded into sleep.
Tried to.
She popped up and rested her weight on her forearm, drew a line down his forehead and nose and tapped his lips. “Wake up.”
He opened his eyes. “Why?”
“I thought I was sleepy at first, but I’m not. Oh.” The rising pink of her cheeks even visible in the flame-lit shadows of the night. “I’m not dressed.”
“No, Emma, you are not.”
She wriggled out of his arms and crawled beneath the blankets.
He followed her, tried to tug the covers back. No use hiding now he’d seen her.
She held on tight, though.
“Vixen,” he laughed.
“Cold,” she countered.
“Very well, then.” He leapt off the bed. “If you’re not tired. We should do something.”
