He made a noise in the back of his throat, and finally he moved, returning the kiss in kind. Tongues, lips, even teeth.
Heat coiled in her lower belly. His mouth set fire to something deep within her. No longer was she mere flesh and blood—now she was heat and light and longing. He made her burn, and for the first time in her sheltered life, she understood how perhaps pleasure could be a drug on which a person could overdose.
“Charles,” she whispered against his lips. “Am I . . . am I doing it right?”
He leant back, looking at her with hooded eyes. “Very much so.” His hand came to caress her jaw, and she pressed her face into the light touch. There was so much about touching she had not known, either. How addictive it could be. “But you do not need to be so hesitant with me, Pidge. For the purpose of today, I am yours. Do what you will with me. Kiss me however you would like.”
Her gaze travelled over his handsome face, worn by time and dissolution. His eyes, dark and heavy, but warm with affection she knew he held just for her, framed by lush dark lashes. She trailed her fingers along the heavy lines around his mouth, then the subtle ones by his eyes. Crow’s feet, her mother had called them. She touched his nose, proud and aquiline, and scraped her nails along his jaw and the stubble just starting to grow there. So different from when they had been children together, and yet she would not have exchanged this version of him for the world.
“I have a question,” she said, letting her hands fall away.
“Then ask it.”
“When I am kissing you, how do I know that you are . . . also enjoying it?”
He snorted, but when she frowned, he took her hands and pressed them to his mouth, one after the other. “Sweet, innocent Evie. You are a delight.”
“It was an honest question.”
“Let me give you an honest answer, then.” The corner of his mouth curved, though his eyes remained hot on hers, like scorched coals. “Do you know what happens when a man is aroused?”
“His—” She stumbled over her words. “His phallus swells.”
He gave a delighted bark of laughter and brought her face to his for another quick kiss. “Never change, my dear.”
“Charles! Is that incorrect?”
“Not in the slightest, although I am not in the habit of referring to my cock as a phallus.” He tilted his head at the way she recoiled from the word. Once, and only once, Lady Durham had used the coarse expression, and Evelyn had disliked it immensely. If she were to refer to a man’s private parts, she did not wish to do so in that way. “Does that distress you?”
“It seems unnecessarily coarse.”
“Ah, but Evie, Iam.” His thumb stroked across the hinge of her jaw, oddly tender despite his words. “You are sitting on the lap of a hardened rake, and I mean that in every sense of the word.”
His tone, playful and serious all at once, indicated his double meaning, and she frowned. “Do you mean hard as in . . .”
“Say it.”
“I will not say that rude word,” she said firmly.
“Very well.Yes, Evie. I was referring to my erection.” He took her hand. “Promise me you won’t be shocked.”
“At what?”
His lips twitched. “I’m about to show you my phallus.”
“Showme?”
“Well, perhaps not quite that.” Gently, he brought her hand between them, to a sizeable bulge between his legs. “When a man is aroused, he becomes hard, and that is what I am experiencing now. Because of you.”
Shock initially made Evelyn want to flinch away, but after a moment’s contemplation, she kept her hand there, wrapping her fingers around the length. He inhaled sharply, but when she glanced at his face, he shook his head.
“It’s sensitive.” A wry smile touched his mouth. “More so than I would have anticipated.”
“You . . . like this?”
“I do.”
“I had not thought . . .” She dropped her gaze to his trousers and the sight of her hands on his manhood. Pleasure spiked through her, and she explored the length of him, squeezing and massaging as she grew bolder. “You admit things so easily.”
