Womanhood had changed all that. Her marriage had taught her something about pleasure, and her heated dreams had turned to Ewan’s hands on her. His mouth on her. Their bodies tangled in sweaty, pounding passion.
But never, not in all the years she had wanted him and loved him, had she ever dared to hope for as much tenderness and pleasure as she had just experienced. Ewan might have been a virgin before that night, but his natural talent made up for any lack of experience.
And now she lay in his arms, her naked legs tangled in his, her body still trembling from two powerful orgasms, and she dared to hope that she could have flowers and castles, kisses and held hands and all the passion that boiled between them.
That is, until he moved. Slowly he detangled himself from her and sat up, putting his back to her as he sat on the edge of the bed. His shoulders were rolled, his back slightly hunched. It was a posture of pain. Of defeat, and her heart hurt as she stared at him this way.
She sat up and reached for him. Her hand touched his shoulder and he flinched before he turned to look at her. His dark eyes were empty as he signed, “I’m sorry, Charlotte.”
She shook her head as she joined him on the edge of the bed, swinging her bare legs so they hung just next to his. “Why?” she whispered, leaning in to kiss him.
He let her for a moment, his lips softening, his body edging toward the surrender she wanted so badly. But then he stiffened and pulled back. She looked at him in the fading firelight and saw the same expression on his face that he’d had the night she confessed her heart to him. The night he’d turned her away.
If she didn’t want a repeat of that horrible experience, she had to back off. Go slower. Take what he would give and ease him into more, rather than throwing herself at his feet and begging for it here and now.
She drew a deep, long breath. “Don’t back away from me, Ewan.”
His hands stirred to reply and she caught them so he couldn’t.
“Please,” she whispered. “This doesn’t have to be anything more than pleasure, does it? We want each other, don’t we?” She released his hands and let her fingers trace the harsh line of his jaw, smiling when his whiskers tickled her skin. “I feel it when I touch you. I see it when you look at me. Or would you deny that’s true?”
He sighed deeply and shook his head. “I wouldn’t sport with your intelligence, Charlotte, and try to deny what you know.”
Her smile broadened at his admission. Tonight she’d gone so much further with him than she’d ever hoped to dream. That gave her hope she could have even more.Ifshe were careful.
“I’m not trying to force anything more out of you,” she lied. “When the holidays are over, I will go back to London. Back on the marriage mart.”
His eyes widened and there was desperation that slashed across his face as he signed, “Why?”
She shrugged gently. “Money, Ewan. And it will be expected of me. So I know where my future lies—I know you won’t give me that. But right now I’m here with you. And I want you, just as I always have. There is only a little bit of time where we’ll be alone like this. Can’t we dothis? Just this? Won’t you grant me that when you deny me everything else?”
He jerked his face toward her, and in that charged moment she saw that he wanted more than she asked for. He wanted all the same things she did. But then the expression changed—he pushed those wants away, buried them deep under a layer of self-recrimination and staunch belief that he had earned no happiness or future thanks to the silence he couldn’t control.
But she’d seen the truth, the one he’d always denied, and hope flared harder and hotter in her than it ever had before.
She leaned closer, brushing her lips against his shoulder, dragging them up his neck to dart her tongue against his ear. He tasted warm, he tasted perfect, and she felt him shiver at her touch. He turned into her, gathering her into his arms, dragging her across his lap.
She had her answer, and it was lost as she was swept back onto the pillows once more. His mouth ground down against her, heated and heady and sweet. She lifted into him, opening herself to everything he wanted, anything he desired. She would give him all that and more if it meant even a sliver of a chance to conquer the heart he guarded so jealously.
He pushed her legs open with his knees and she gasped as he speared her still-wet pussy with one long, heavy thrust. He was so big inside of her, stretching her to her limit, until she squirmed with the pleasure of the fullness. She lifted into him, tensing against him, releasing him, watching as his mouth twitched and his gaze darkened with undeniable desire.
He slid back and then all the way to the hilt again and she arched beneath him. He hit spots inside of her that she had never known existed. Places that made her body sing a new song of pleasure, one very different from any she’d learned in her marriage or at her own hand.
He buried his mouth into her neck as he thrust hard and fast, swirling his hips so that he hit that magical place deep within her and also stimulated her tingling clitoris with his hips. She began to shake as she dug her nails into his shoulders, as she whispered his name over and over because she could remember no other word than that.
He never faltered, he never altered, he just drove and drove and drove, lifting her higher and higher before she toppled into a spiral of pleasure. She screamed against his lips as he kissed her through the crisis. Her mind was empty except for sensation—nothing mattered more than their joined bodies and everything that she felt from her head to her flexing toes.
She was shaking as she came down from the high unlike any she’d ever experienced. He was still driving into her, his neck flexed, his eyes shut, and then his lips opened and he let out all his breath. She stared, captivated by the beauty of this man who was always in control finally letting go. He withdrew but remained above her, and she felt the warmth of him pump between them as she clung to him, holding him closer, never wanting to let him go.
Now she just had to find a way to make him see that here was where he had always wanted to be.
Ewan opened his eyes slowly and was greeted by the most wonderful and unexpected sight. Charlotte lay beside him, her body tucked against his, her hair splayed across his arms and chest. Inhisbed. They had moved there during the night. He’d meant to go alone, to avoid the inevitability of someone coming to look for him in the wee hours of the morning and finding them in her room.
But she had resisted and she had seduced and followed. Now they were here together and he had never loved his bed more. The light in the chamber was dim, but just enough that he could examine her while she slept.
She was beautiful, of course. Charlotte had always been beautiful. Even when she was a little girl, her bright hair and green eyes and quick laugh had turned the heads of many a boy in their acquaintance. As she grew up, her beauty had only increased. She’d never had an awkward phase like so many little girls. She’d just flowered, and Ewan had hung on every moment of her transformation from girl to woman.
And there was no denying she was a woman now. A confident woman, one who would pursue what she wanted with dogged and singular focus. Denying her had always been almost impossible. Now was no different.
