“This is only the beginning.” He brushed his lips over hers. “All is well?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “The pain is fading.”
“Good.” Then he moved within her, holding some of his weight on his forearms.
Slowly, at first, treating her to long, gentle strokes. With a few murmurs of instruction, he taught her how to lift her hips to receive him. Once she found his rhythm, she soon matched it, and his pushes became shorter and harder, given over with more intensity.
“Oh, my…” Emmaline’s eyes drifted closed as she clung to him. Sensations assailed her, caught her up in a tide that required an outlet, that demanded she acknowledge everyone. “I don’t understand…” What was she supposed to do now except give herself to the lovely bursts of pleasure that shook her body with each new thrust?
“Shh. Simply feel.” His lips were on hers while one of his hands went between them to worry her swollen button even as he continued to stroke into her body.
The friction to that nubbin added to what he already did. It shoved her closer and closer to the edge where something glorious waited. “I need…” She bit down on his shoulder, so crazed was she from the sensations he invoked inside her. He grunted but increased his work. “More,” she finally gasped out and didn’t care if that made her a wanton.
But they were perfect together. Was that too soon to think?
“You are simply… amazingly you.” The duke quickened his thrusts. Deeper. Faster. Stronger he moved, and during one of the passes of his finger on her nubbin, she shattered.
Emmaline’s world exploded into a million points of light and rainbows as she fell over the edge into a void, where nothing existed except pleasure. “Christian!” She screamed as she found that release and kept screaming for as long as he continued to thrust, for her body sent her into that void again and again until finally, she was spent. Her feminine walls convulsed, but then Christian hit that glorious point too. He uttered her name with a note of surprise, and as he kissed her, drank from her, his shaft pulsed and jerked.
When he finally collapsed against her, she held him as close as she could while sailing in the lingering euphoria of her first coupling.
“I had no idea,” she whispered sometime later as they lay together, her back to his front, his arms around her, and her limbs weighted with a pleasant lethargy. The soft patter of rain at the windows lulled her close to slumber; the storm had passed, in more ways than one, and she was left with this glorious aftermath. “No one ever prepared me for… that.”
His chuckle reverberated in her chest and encouraged her awareness of him to come alive once more. “I assume ‘that’ was quite delicious?” He followed the question with a nuzzle to the crook of her shoulder.
“Yes.” She gasped as renewed pleasure streaked through her breasts to lodge between her thighs. “I am quite curious about it, if you should want to have another bout.”I shall soon grow addicted to him.
“I would be delighted to indulge you.” He pressed his lips to the side of her neck, chuckling again when she lifted her chin to grant him better access. “And perhaps I shall claim your body against the wall, on a chair, over a table…”
Heat flooded her body. “It’s possible to have relations in those ways too?”
“My dear little witch.” He brushed his fingers over a rapidly hardening nipple. “Men and women can engage in wicked things wherever they wish, if they’re creative enough.”
Shivers of sensation swept over her. Finally, she understood what her sisters meant when they’d talked about how wonderful coupling was when one found the right man. “Then, yes please.”
“Mmm, I rather like it when you beg.” He nudged her slightly away, maneuvered her around to peer into her eyes. “Can I assume that since you are now quite hopelessly ruined, you accept my offer of marriage?”
Did she? Could she? Dare she? Everything she’d ever wanted lay at her feet, offered up by this man, the duke she’d often joked about. Tears of happiness welled in her eyes. “Yes, Christian, yes. I will marry you. In haste, as you said, because my father is nearly gone from this world, but also because something about you has given something in my soul peace and permission to live.”
I can’t wait to tell this man that I love him.
“We absolutely will.” He kissed her. “I shall formally ask your parents tomorrow for your hand and then do the necessary regarding a special license.” Again, he kissed her, and with each one, the bond between them grew. “Once the engagement is official, I shall procure a ring. Hell, I’ll shower you with gifts.”
“Having you in my life is enough.” So many emotions knitted around her, she decided to focus on happiness. “Perhaps my accidental love spell did indeed work. That is the only logical way to explain… this.”
Except for the ghost. That was all fate.
The duke chuckled. “Or else there is something to be said for otherworldly interference.” He tweaked her nipple. “As well as the notion that love at first sightisreal.” The rumble of hisvoice, the heat of his body, the strength and protection from his arms around her gave her a contentment she hadn’t had in a long time. “Knowing immediately that we have each found the something missing in the other and can stop searching for it holds merit.”
“Yes, it does.” Then she kissed him because she could, because he was hers, and she suspected that what she’d found tonight in him would only grow stronger as the days went by. “I was never fond of All Hallow’s Eve before, had dreaded it, in fact, but from now on, I will celebrate this night with jubilation, for a ghost very truly put me into your arms.”
The carriage-style clock on her mantel softly chimed the midnight hour.
Christian tugged her over his body so that she awkwardly straddled his waist. “I knew you would be mine and that our lives would intertwine by this time.”
She smiled. How could she not? “You did?”
“Oh, yes. Now let me show you why we will have such fun once we’re wed.”
