She had no idea, but Hugh seemed to be in no mood to stop touching her. His hand drifted along the neckline, then lower over the lacy fabric that just barely covered her breasts. His thumb skimmed one of her hard nipples, and any pleasure that had come before seemed like nothing in comparison. She cried out without meaning to and blushed at how foolish it was.
He glanced up and smiled. “You needn’t blush, Amelia. When you feel pleasure, I want to know. When I learn your body, I can much easier give you more…” He leaned down and kissed her shoulder next to the strap of her nightgown. “…and more…” he whispered, tugging the strap down and exposing one breast. “…and more…”
His voice was muffled as he dropped his lips to her naked breast. He traced the shape and his mouth closed around the nipple that felt so sensitive she might burst. He sucked and her hips lifted hard against him. She shouted out again, but this time she was far too lost in sensation to feel embarrassed by the noise. He was made of magic and she was lost to it all.
He sucked hard, harder, swirling his tongue around her, and she found her sex pulsing in time, slick with wanting and hot with need. And just when she felt she might actually die from waiting, he switched his attention to the opposite breast and repeated his licks and sucks and tugs there.
“Please,” she murmured, uncertain what she was begging for, but praying he knew.
He glanced up, all the teasing gone from his expression. All the sternness and coolness gone too. This was a new man, one driven by desire that glittered in his stare, driven by a need to pleasure her and take her and claim her. She let out a little gasp of displeasure as he pushed from the bed and got to his feet.
“I’m not leaving,” he panted, his voice unsteady. “I just want to be rid of these.”
He tugged his shirt over his head. She sat up with a gasp and stared at the half-naked man before her. He was…beautiful. There was no other way to describe him. His chest was thick with muscle, peppered with curly chest hair that made a trail into the waist of his trousers. The trousers he was currently unfastening. She swallowed hard as he stripped the pants away too.
Diana had described what he would look like, but Amelia had been unable to picture it. The thrust of his sex looked hard as steel and curled against his lower stomach like a divining rod or a sword ready for battle. She could surely not take that thing inside of her. Not take it and feel pleasure, no matter how much she was promised that her body would stretch to accommodate him.
“You’ll be ready,” he whispered, as if he read her mind.
She shook away her thoughts and stared at him. “How?”
He smiled and dropped back on the bed beside her. He caught her hand, lifting it to his lips where he brushed a kiss against her flesh. Then he pressed her hand to the breast he had just been lavishing with attention.
“When I touch you here,” he whispered as he stroked her fingers over her own body. He glided her hand lower, down her stomach. “When I give you that pleasure that makes you lift against me and want something you may not even understand, that readies you.”
She stared at his face as he pressed her hand between her legs. She was wet, hot, she felt the slickness against her fingertips.
“What you feel is your body’s invitation to be taken,” he said, leaning in to nuzzle her neck as he flexed her fingers against her sex.
She shivered at the sensations that jolted from the point of contact. She had never touched herself. She’d wanted to sometimes, but a lady wasn’t meant to do such things…was she? It was hard to remember when she was grinding her body against her own fingers and feeling a building pressure unlike any she’d ever known.
His gaze locked with hers and she could not look away. She was his captive, and escape felt impossible, undesirable. He pushed her fingers harder and she lifted against them. Harder, faster, until her breath left her lungs and sudden sensation flooded her body. Waves of pleasure rolled through her as she bucked against her hand, his hand.
“Oh,” she sighed as the pleasure slowly faded, leaving a warm satisfaction in its wake. “Oh.”
He smiled down at her. “Thatis what will happen when we do this. That pleasure that is just for you, it belongs to no one else. You can take it whenever you like.”
She swallowed. Here she had been distancing herself from him, bound to believe that he would take and take and take. But he kept giving now that they were alone.
It was very confusing.
He leaned in and swept her thoughts away with another deep kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck, relaxing into the pillows as he kissed her slowly, languidly, like they had all night. And she supposed they did. They were bound now, after all. Which meant they could do this any time they liked without censure or shock.
She shivered at the thought and at the way he slowly pushed her legs apart with his knees. He lowered at her night-rail, smoothing it past her stomach, her hips, and finally lifted up just enough to remove it. Now she was naked. Naked, pinned beneath him, her legs splayed and the hardness of his cock—Diana had called it a cock—positioned just at the entry to her body.
She should have been afraid, and therewasa small fissure of fear that shot through her. But there was more than that. There was anticipation. Readiness. Need and want and desire. All those things came together, pulsed between her legs as he brushed the head of him against her.
She lifted at the touch, digging her fingers into his bare shoulders at the shock. He pulled his head back. “Slow,” he promised. Or perhaps it was a reminder to himself. Either way, the one word calmed her a fraction and she stopped bracing so hard against him, relaxing as he gently pressed into her body.
She shut her eyes, focusing her attention between her legs. As he moved slowly inside of her, there was pain, yes. A twinge of sensation as he breached her. But it wasn’t unbearable, perhaps because it was joined by another sensation: pleasure. Oh yes, there was that. A delicious and wicked pleasure that came from the slick heat of their bodies coming together. That came from the realization that he was taking her, claiming her, marking her in a way that she could never undo.
And she didn’t want to. Not when he filled her completely and then leaned in to rest his forehead against hers with a ragged sigh.
“How do you feel?” he asked, voice strained.
“Full,” she moaned. “How does it feel to you?”
He leaned away, and he seemed surprised by the question. He swallowed hard before he answered, “Tight,” he whispered. “Like a glove meant to fit me perfectly. Warm and wet and very, very, tight. It makes me want to…”
