He wedged himself between her legs, his narrow hips forcing her wider so that her sex opened. Heat filled her cheeks, but she didn’t pull away. What he was doing felt too damned good to ever stop it.
He reached between them, his fingers finding the slick heat of her, stroking her gently, parting her folds, teasing her until her body hummed with anticipation.
“God, I want you, Sophie,” he growled against her ear as his tongue traced the shell there. “Now. To make you mine.”
She nodded as she buried her face into his shoulder. Her heart was throbbing with want and fear and surrender all at once. He rubbed the head of his member against her, and she jolted at the thickness of him against what felt like an impossibly small entrance.
“Relax,” he whispered, his deep tone hypnotic, gentle. She found herself following that order even as he continued to stroke her. Stroke her. Then he pushed forward and her body somehow let him in.
There was pain. It was not something she could deny. A burning sensation of flesh that should not be stretched. His mouth found hers again and he kissed her deeply, sweetly. With every inch he took, his mouth distracted her, and suddenly he was fully seated and the pain was gone, replaced by a wonderful fullness and completion. She wiggled beneath him, flexing her internal muscles around his girth.
He moaned her name and then moved his hips, withdrawing and pushing forward once more. The pleasure she felt from his mouth rushed back, different this time. More intense. More wonderful. More united because he was inside of her and they were one body with two throbbing hearts.
He met her stare with the next thrust, rotating his hips to grind against her. A flare of powerful pleasure was the result, and she dug her nails into his still-clothed shoulders as her eyes went wide.
“Rowan,” she whispered.
“Let it come,” he said, his gaze still holding hers with focused intensity. “It’s yours.”
He stroked into her again and again, and she was lost in it, this magic that she’d never known existed all around her. This thing that was so right and so foreign and yet so much like coming home.
The pleasure hit her then, with wild beating wings that tore her from the earth as she writhed and cried out beneath his still-thrusting body. She watched his face, which was now tense as he focused on her spiraling pleasure. Then his eyes fluttered shut and he made a deep, guttural grunt before she felt the heat of his seed flood and fill her.
He collapsed over her, panting as he kissed her temples, her neck, her shoulders. She smoothed her hands over his broad back, whispering meaningless endearments that fell from her mouth like water.
“You are magnificent,” he said, tucking a hair behind her ear when both of them could speak coherently again.
She smiled. “I’ve never thought…I never knew. Will it always be like that?”
He nodded slowly. “It will. In fact, it will be better, for we won’t be rushed. And I’ll learn your body, as you’ll learn mine. What you want and like will become second nature to me.”
She leaned up and brushed her lips over his. “It seems it already is.”
He grinned and then pushed off of her, parting their bodies as they each groaned in disappointment. “We should go back. Face the scandal.”
The wordscandalshould have made her breath catch and her heart throb, but instead Sophie found herself laughing as she got up and fixed herself as best she could. “The best unions start with a scandal, so I’ve heard.”
He touched her cheek with the back of his hand and smiled softly. “I hope that is very true. Now come.”
She took his arm and let him lead her from the studio, back to the terrace where everyone else was still gathered. And in her heart, she felt something she’d never understood before. A hope that she’d always feared to name. Never thought she had.
But here it was, in the form of a man she had always avoided, somewhat feared…and now was going to be hers for the rest of her life.
Chapter Nine
The scandal did come. Both of them had known that it would, but to Sophie’s surprise, it had not been in any way damaging. The week since her engagement had been filled not with censure, but with knowing glances and playful jabs about the lengths one went to in order to land a rake. No one seemed very surprised at the match, and Society at large seemed to celebrate the end of Lady No and the beginning of Mrs. Sinclair.
“You look happy,” Louisa said as she took her place next to Sophie and touched her hand.
Sophie shot her a playful look. “You may gloat if you’d like, you know.”
Louisa had the kindness to at least look shocked at the suggestion. “Me? Gloat? Why?”
“Oh, don’t be coy now!” Sophie laughed. “You came to me weeks ago with this bit about living a life of regret and letting in the possibility of more. I did so, against my will, and here I am, engaged and, as you say, happy. You must have atinydesire to gloat at that.”
Louisa leaned back in her chair, and her smug smile said it all. “I’m pleased to hear you say that I am always right,” she said.
Sophie’s lips parted. “I said no such thing!” she teased. “But…I suppose you are.”
