“I really thought it would help,” he said. “But I’m very much afraid I’m past that.”
His knee was suddenly pressing against her, his leg insinuating between hers. Her nightgown was twisted, leaving her legs bare, and she could feel every inch of his skin. Somehow, in the last minute or two, he’d embraced her as well, and now they were a tangle of arms and legs and very, very close.
He seemed to be warmer. So much warmer, as a matter of fact, that she really should pull away. But she didn’t move. At this moment, it was impossible to force herself to the other side of the bed.
Douglas bent his head and kissed her cheek, his lips soft and chilled, but all too soon turning warmer. She didn’t turn away. Instead, it felt almost necessary to press closer, to turn her head just so, and lift her chin.
Finally, he was kissing her.
“I want you naked,” he said, some moments later.
She shivered, and with some rational part of her mind, she wondered if he’d transferred his chill to her. That thought abruptly disappeared when he deepened the kiss.
A sound escaped her lips, and was then swallowed by his mouth, coaxing hers open. She held on to his shoulders, as if needing a reference in a world suddenly strange and more than a little exciting.
With each kiss, her breath grew tighter, and when his hand slid to the hem of her nightgown, she gasped.
She really should protest. She really should pull away. No proper woman would have unbuttoned the placket of her garment so that he could ease the garment over her head. But it didn’t seem important to beproper at this moment, while it was vital that she feel him.
“Unbraid your hair,” he said, his voice sounding ragged. He sat up and helped her off with the nightgown, pulling it over her head.
She didn’t fight him, didn’t even think of protesting. The time for that had come and gone weeks ago. This moment was what they’d both been wanting, why he’d touched her in exploration and tenderness, why he’d teased and tormented her.
She was about to be made a wife, and she didn’t know if she should be terrified or as excited as she felt.
Please, God, let it be all right for her to feel what she was feeling, whatever it was called. Rapaciousness, wantonness, passion, or even desire—she’d never considered that she might be in the throes of it. No, what she had not considered was that she might enjoy it so thoroughly.
Her hands shook as she fumbled with the end of her braid, then his fingers were there to help her, threading through her hair and spreading it loose.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured, and because he said it, because his voice shook when he did, she felt beautiful.
His hand cupped her breast as he laid her down on the mattress, his thumb playing over her nipple. A streak of lightning ran from her breast to deep inside. She made a restless movement of her legs, turning to him, and placing her hand on his face.
“Douglas,” she said, speaking his name because she had to say something.
He pulled away from her touch, bent over her, and placed his mouth on her breast.
She jerked, startled, amazed as a sensation traveled from the deepest core of her to center at her nipple. Her fingers trailed across the nape of his neck, over his ear, then threaded through his hair. At another time, perhaps, she might have noted how soft it was, how thick, but now she was concentrating on other feelings: her breath, captured around an exclamation of wonder; her stomach tightening involuntarily from surprise; the fact that her body rose in an arch as if to offer herself to him more fully.
Shockingly, she wished she’d left the lamp burning. She heard herself moan and clamped one hand across her mouth. Proper women did not enjoy their subjugation, surely?
Why, then, did it feel less like she was being overpowered than being led to another place, one she’d never before dreamed existed. One whose halls she’d never walked, whose windows she’d never seen. Yet she was not wholly alone in this place. Douglas was here, a smiling Douglas, who held out his hand and beckoned her closer.
His hand stroked across her stomach as if to ease the sudden tension there, traveled down one leg, fingers splayed. He measured her knee, softly touched the back of it, almost inciting a smile from her, before her attention was engaged by the touch of his mouth. His tongue flicked her nipple before his lips soothed it, then he drew it between his lips, the action increasing the jolt of sensation in the core of her.
She did not whimper. Such a sound did not come from her.
He turned his attention to her other breast, and her hand, still softly stroking his hair, trailed to his back. His beautiful naked back with its definition of muscles, withits bronzed skin that so tempted her to touch it. Once again, she wished she’d not extinguished the lamp.
Sarah allowed her hand to travel downward, as if she had no will to direct it elsewhere. Her fingers strayed to the end of his spine, halted at the base, then traveled to the top of one buttock. She would like to cup it in her hand, wasn’t that shocking?
He rose over her, looking down at her. Did he smile? Was that a flash of his teeth in the darkness? She really should ask, but he was kissing her again. His tongue urged her to open her mouth, and she did so without hesitation. His tongue mated with hers, and all she did was grip his shoulders and hold on to him in a world suddenly turned heated and strange.
Abruptly, he was on his back and she was rolling atop him, so surprised to be in that position that she braced her hands on either side of his waist and sat up. In front of her was something very stiff and very hot. Immediately, she knew it was his masculine appendage.
“Douglas?”
He didn’t answer her, only slowly raised his knees so that she slid slightly forward.
