His head lifted, those burning blue eyes staring straight into hers. “If you don’t want this, tell me now.”
A faint sound of exasperation rolled up her throat. Impatient and annoyed, she squeezed her thighs about his hips. “I have got a knife in my pocket,” she snipped. “If I didn’t, I would have stabbed you. Would you just—”Ahh.Her head thumped back against the wall as his finger slid inside her at last, stretching delicate muscles, filling that aching emptiness. She didn’t know if the shudder that shook her belonged to her or to him; both seemed equally likely. Chill bumps rose along her skin as heatpooled low in her belly.
Henry bit off an oath as he pulled his hand away, fumbling between them for the buttons of his trousers. “Are you a virgin?”
The question fell over her like a bucket of icy water. Grace’s eyes opened, narrowed in rank suspicion. “Does it matter?” she asked tartly. The first flicker of indignation kindled in her chest. Would he now prove himself the sort of man who would consider himself cheated of something were he not the first to plow the field? Her knife was in her pocket still.
“Of course it bloody wellmatters,” he rasped. “Goddamn it all, Grace, I don’t want to hurt you.” The heat of his cock, now freed from the restraint of his trousers, scorched her tender feminine flesh. He swallowed a groan as his private flesh pulsed against hers, and his hips jerked in a primal, instinctive motion, laving himself in the dampness of her arousal. The pressure of his body supported her weight for a few seconds as he hooked his arms beneath her thighs and splayed them wide, opening her further. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeated in a gritty whisper. “But I can’t—I can’t be gentle with you at the moment.”
Oh. Indignation fled; her heart squeezed in her chest, warmed by the implication. It hadn’t been a question born of jealousy or judgment. Only consideration. He didn’t care whether or not she was experienced. Possibly, if the frenetic rise and fall of his chest were anything to judge by, he rather hoped she was. “If…if I am?” she asked tentatively.
A faintly despairing sound. “Then I’ll need a minute,” he said in a rough voice as his head fell against her shoulder. “Several minutes,” he corrected, his lips brushing the side of her throat.
Well, that wouldn’t do. Anything could happen in a matter of minutes. He could reconsider. Pull together the tatters of his splintered composure. Send her away, just as he had that evening in his home.
Sheached. His cock was justthere, hard, heavy, and so, sohot where he was nestled against her intimate flesh. Taunt muscles barely-leashed at the last fraying thread of his restraint, poised to take her here, now, against the wall despite the convenience of the bed only feet away. And that—that was exactly what she wanted.
“I’m not,” she said, curling one hand about the nape of his neck to hold his head there against her throat. She had a tell, he’d said. She didn’t know what it was, but surely he could not see it from this angle.
“Thank God,” he said in a gritty rumble, and plunged inside her.
Chapter Eighteen
You little liar,” Henry groaned against her shoulder.
It had been impossible to restrain himself even a moment longer, but even as his hips had punched up, as he’d let her sink down on him, he’d known he’d hurt her. She’d flinched as he’d driven home, and though she’d tried to suck back the small sound of pain, the shreds of it had hissed through her teeth anyway.
He could have spared her that. Probably. Maybe.
“It’s not so bad.” Her hands stroked through his hair as if he required soothing more than she did, and she wriggled to relieve the ache he knew must be lingering still. “Really. It’s just…a bit uncomfortable.”
Because she was tight as a damned fist around his cock, and he’d plunged into her with a vigor and a ferocity that had surprised even him. His chest heaved like a bellows, and his thighs tensed with the effort not to come this very moment.
He should have known she’d lied. Hewouldhave known, if he had thought to watch her face. And now she was hurting, only because he’d let her tear shreds in his self-control in the same manner her cat had torn shreds in his damned curtains.
“I just need a moment,” she said, and her velvety innermuscles caressed him as she shifted minutely in an attempt to ease the discomfort. Henry’s heart thudded against his ribs. His teeth ground together as he held himself still, let her writhe and squirm and inflict the purest of torture upon him, convinced he’d died and gone to hell. That he was paying for sins he’d not yet committed; that some capricious god had cursed him to this torment.
At last, a subtle relaxing of those tight muscles which had staunchly resisted his invasion. A sigh of relief slipped through her lips as her head fell back once more.
“All right?” He would never know how he’d managed to get the words out from between the grit of his teeth.
“Yes,” she said, those soft little fingers raking through his hair. “Yes.”
Good. He withdrew slowly, and his heart pounded at the silken slide of those delicate inner tissues that rippled around him, tried to hold him within her. A shiver raced down her spine, and those soft lips parted on a ragged little breath.
Slow. Careful. Gentle, he told himself, as he eased forward once more, fighting the instinctual urge to drive into her. And she—she glanced down. Watchedhim take her with something like amazement etched across her face. Watched herself takehim, her gaze riveted to his cock as he fed himself back into her, an inch at a time.
Watched him hold himself back inches short of completion, her fingers kneading his shoulders. “Don’t stop,” she breathed.
“You flinched.”
“Henry.” One hand slid down his shoulder, fingernails scratching the wool of his coat before coming to rest above his heart. “I want all of you.”
Christ. The tatters of restraint he’d managed to cling to shredded. He surged inside her, his mouth blanketing hers as he swallowed the gasp of surprise she gave. Self-control gone as if ithad never existed to begin with, he plunged. Again, and again. Hard and deep. He was helpless to resist the tight clutch of her around him, welcoming him back within her with each hard drive.
Her lips broke from his on a low moan. Not in pain, thank God—her eyes had gone heavy-lidded, those brilliant green cat’s eyes hazy and unfocused. A flush glowed in her cheeks, spreading down the long line of her throat and across the mounds of her ample breasts, which bounced with each jarring thrust.
It wasn’t the way a gentleman was meant to treat a lady, and most especially not one who had been a virgin until moments ago. But she had wanted this, exactly this—she had asked for it, lied to get it. She could get beneath his skin like nothing and no one else. Already she was there, swimming in his blood. In every vein, in every muscle, in every beat of his damned heart.
