“Our… first time?” she repeated. Something about the words, the promise in them, made butterflies cavort in her stomach.
He stood, lifting her with him, her legs wrapped tight around his waist, and carried her across the room to the chaise near the window. He lowered her onto the velvet cushions withsurprising gentleness, following her down, and the full weight of him pressing her into the soft upholstery made her feel safe.
His mouth found hers again, kissing her deeply while his hands worked at her chemise, dragging it up her thighs, over her hips. She lifted her arms and let him pull it over her head, and then she was bare beneath him except for her stockings, and his gaze raked over her with such raw, unguarded hunger that she felt it like a brand.
“You are so beautiful…” he muttered hoarsely, “it frightens me I might break you.”
“Don’t be frightened,” she whispered. “Be with me.”
He kissed her again, slower this time, and his mouth began to wander. Down her throat. Across her collarbone. Between the hollow of her pert breasts. He took his time with each one, sucking and licking until she was writhing beneath him, her hips seeking pressure, seeking him. His mouth trailed lower. Across her ribs. The soft curve of her belly. Lower still.
“Aaron…” she breathed, half question, half plea.
He looked up at her from between her thighs, and the wicked gleam in his eyes made her pulse kick hard.
“I’ve wanted to taste you again sobad.”
Then his mouth was on her, and her back arched clean off the chaise with a cry that echoed off the parlor walls.
He licked into her with broad, deliberate strokes, his tongue moving through the slick heat of her arousal with a thoroughness that made her thighs shake. He found the swollen nub at the top and circled it, teasing, before sealing his lips around it and sucking gently. The sensation was so sharp, so devastatingly intense, that Catherine grabbed at his hair with both hands, torn between pulling him closer and pushing him away because it was too much,it was too much, she could not possibly—
Just before her climax could absorb her into its firmaments, he withdrew, and she squirmed in beautiful agony. He rose above her, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist, his eyes blazing.
His shirt rolled off in a smooth maneuver, and heat shot through her. The flex of his shoulders, the hard planes of his stomach.God, she wanted to taste him. Wanted her hands on all that bare skin, wanted to feel the way his breath would hitch under her touch.
Then his hands went to the buttons of his breeches, and Catherine watched through heavy-lidded eyes as he freed himself, as the hard, thick length of him sprang free, flushed and straining.
He settled between her thighs, and she felt the broad head of his manhood press against her entrance, and her throat tightened.
“If it hurts,” he murmured, his voice low and serious, “tell me.”
She nodded once, trembling.
He pushed forward slowly, and the stretch of him was enormous. Her fingernails dug into his broad shoulders, gripping hard, and he stilled immediately.
“Breathe…” he murmured, his forehead pressed to hers. “That’s it. Just breathe.”
She did. Long, shuddering pulls of air that seemed to ease the overwhelming fullness, and when she exhaled and shifted her hips experimentally, he slid deeper.
The sensation was strange at first. Almost uncomfortable. But as he pushed in further, inch by careful inch, something shifted. The discomfort gave way to something else. A fullness that felt complete. Sinfully seraphic. When he was finally seated to the hilt inside her, buried as deep as he could possibly go, they both let out broken sounds.
“Are you well?” he asked, his voice strained.
“I am,” she whispered. “More than well… Move. Please.”
He withdrew almost completely, the drag of his arousal against her inner walls making her vision blur, and then he thrust back in, slow and deep. She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders, and he did it again. And again. Each thrust steady anddeliberate, letting her body adjust, letting her learn the rhythm of him.
“Good?” he asked roughly.
“Yes. Ohyes...”
He shifted the angle slightly, and the next thrust hit something inside her that made her cry out, sharp and startled. He stilled immediately.
“Was that—”
“Don’t stop,” she gasped. “Whatever you just did, do it again!”
A slow, wicked smile crossed his face. He thrust again, hitting that same spot, and her back arched fully off the chaise, her mouth falling open on a broken moan.
