Three simple words that seemed to unlock his restraint.
The delicious slide of friction was both pleasure and pain as he eased out of her and drove back in. Dimity wanted more. He did it again and again, and the delicious tension rose inside her. Different from the last one, this climax threw her into a vortex of sensation. His kiss was hard, teeth clashing as he drove into her. His hand cupped her breast, rolling her nipple, and she shattered, scaling the summit of pleasure once more. Gabe collapsed on her seconds later.
He pinned her to the bed, and Dimity wrapped her arms around him, holding him there.
Their breathing was ragged, hearts beating hard in their chests.
She’d always wondered what could be between a man and woman, and yet had never thought to experience it unless she married. Today, Lord Raine had given her that understanding. He’d given her passion too.
“Are you all right?” He rolled to lie beside her. “Why did you not tell me you were a virgin?”
“Why would I not be?” Suddenly she felt unsettled and defensive. Now the passion that had clouded her thoughts was gone, doubt had taken its place. Defensive, Dimity went on the attack. “Just because I am not of noble birth does not mean I’m promiscuous. Or did you believe because I worked in that bar I naturally had slept with the patrons?”
She turned her head, and their eyes collided. He was no longer touching her. There was no fierce look of longing in his eyes.
“Don’t put words in my mouth, Dimity. I believed it because your neighbor alluded to you entertaining men in your rooms the night I found you.”
“And because I was desperate, I did so? How restrained of you not to mention it, or to want to touch me considering how you must feel about me.” She looked away from him, hurting.
“You’re being irrational. That’s not how I feel at all. He said he hoped I paid you well. I took his words to mean you were entertaining men.”
She was being irrational, but then this was new to her. She’d lain with a man, and not just any man: an earl. Her friend’s brother. Dimity was struggling to think straight.
“Is that why you brought me here, because you thought I’d…” She couldn’t say the words.
“Don’t be insulting.”
“Me, insulting? You just told me you thought I’d turned to prostitution to survive!” He winced as she shrieked.
“I told you why I believed that. Now calm down. You can move your things here tomorrow.” He got off the bed, and she watched him pour water in a bowl. He came back with a cloth that he handed her.
“Pardon?”
“There will be blood,” he said calmly. “Use the cloth for that.”
He lay back on the bed, sated, body relaxed like a bloody Roman emperor, while inside she was all over the place like Chibbers’s eyebrows.
“You must move in here now.”
“Why?” All that lovely softness she’d felt after the lovemaking was gone. In its place was tension. Lots of tension. And pain; her heart had begun to ache.
“Dimity, I just took your innocence,” he said, as if that answered everything.
She climbed off the bed and walked to the water. Once there, she quickly washed herself before grabbing her chemise.
“I am not a nobleman’s daughter, Lord Raine. The rules your delicate ladies adhere to do not apply to me. I can lie with a man and carry on with my life without falling about the place in a fit of vapors.”
His jaw gritted as he eased up on his elbows. “I took your innocence, therefore I will look after you. You will move in here and—”
“If the next words to come out of your mouth have ‘mistress’ in them, then be warned, I am quite handy with my fists.” She pulled on her dress, then attempted to do the buttons up that ran down her back. As she could reach only a few, she left the rest undone.
He rolled off the bed and reached for his breeches. “I would support you, Dimity. I would give you everything you have ever wanted.” When he was done, he grabbed her shoulders, turned her, and finished with her buttons.
She allowed it simply because she could not walk about the streets half dressed.
“You would not have to work for the duchess anymore. I will take care of you.”
“No.”
