He kissed her again, more deeply this time, his tongue coming into her mouth, his hands on either side of her waist and then spreading over her buttocks to bring her fully against him—naked body to fully clothed body.
Desire sizzled through her.
“You are so beautiful, Susanna,” he said against her lips. “So very beautiful.”
Her fingers fumbled at his neckcloth until she discovered the way to remove it. She pushed his coat off his shoulders and down his arms until it fell to the floor. She undid the buttons of his waistcoat and sent it to follow his coat. She pulled his shirt free of his breeches, and he raised his arms so that she could lift it off over his head.
While he watched her through narrowed eyes, she set her palms flat against his chest and moved them up over the light dusting of hair to his shoulders, down his arms, back to his shoulders, and down to the waistband of his breeches. He was neither large nor brawny—he was slender and beautiful. But his chest and shoulders and upper arms were firmly muscled. She spread her hands over his chest again and set her face between them, kissing him.
He was warmer than either her hands or her lips. He smelled wonderfully of his usual cologne.
She felt the throbbing of sexual desire low in her womb and down between her thighs. She felt her breasts tauten, her nipples harden. She shivered.
He chuckled softly as he kissed the top of her head.
“I’ll do the rest,” he said. “Besides, you are freezing to death.”
He turned and drew back the bedcovers and watched as she lay down, his eyes moving over her.
Ah, how could she possibly feel embarrassed beneath such a hot gaze? But shehadbeen too embarrassed to remove his breeches. How silly! She smiled at him, and he covered her to the chin with the heavy covers before pulling off his boots and his stockings and then his other lower garments. He did not turn away as he did so. He watched her watching him, saw her realize that he was ready for her.
“Is it warm under there?” he asked with a grin.
“It will be,” she said.
“It certainly will,” he agreed as she slid over on the bed and he lay down beside her. “And very soon too.”
She wondered suddenly what it would be like to be married to him, to share a bed thus every night, to share bodies with frequent regularity, to…
Ah, never mind. She had today.
He lifted himself onto one elbow and looked down at her, his face inches from her own, his eyes smiling into hers.
“I would like to be the Hercules of long endurance,” he said, “and keep us both panting in anticipation for the next hour or so. But I doubt it is possible. Will you mind?”
“No.” She smiled back. “I want to feel you inside me.” Her cheeks grew hot at the boldness of her words.
And yet it was a shock—a wonderful shock—when he rolled on top of her, slipped his hands beneath her as his legs spread hers wide, and came deep inside her with one smooth, firm thrust. Smooth, she realized, because she had been very ready for him too. And painless this time.
She drew a deep breath and released it slowly as she slid her feet up the bed so that she could tilt herself to allow him deeper access. Ah, yes, she was as ready for him as he was for her, but please, please, let it not all be over too soon.
She tightened inner muscles about him and found the resulting sensation wondrously pleasurable. He was long and hard.
He drew his hands free and lifted some of his weight onto his forearms and looked down into her face.
“There is nowhere in the world I would rather be,” he said before kissing her. “Let’s love each other.”
And that was what they did after he had turned his head away to rest on the pillow beside her and lowered some of his weight back onto her. He withdrew and entered again and withdrew and entered and set up a slow, firm rhythm of love. And this time, because she knew what happened and knew too that she could make love as well as submit to being made love to, she moved to the same rhythm, rotating her hips, pulsing with her inner muscles.
It lasted a long, wonderful time as their breath became labored and their bodies slick with sweat, as her passage became wetter and a rhythmic sucking sound accompanied their movements.
It might just be possible to swoon with pleasure, Susanna thought—until pleasure began to be overlaid with something else. At first it was a needling ache where he worked in her, and then something that bordered almost on pain as it spread downward to her legs, upward through her womb to her breasts and into her throat and behind her eyes.
And then itwaspain—a strange, unbearable pain that did not quite hurt but…
But there were no words.
She heard herself moan.
