"Charlie," she repeated, louder this time, delighting in the way his eyes flashed at the sound of his name on her lips.
His hands slid down her sides, gathering the fabric of her nightrail, inching it higher and higher until it bunched around her waist. The cool night air kissed her thighs, making her shiver—or perhaps it was the hunger in his gaze as he looked down at her.
"I've dreamt of this," he confessed, his fingers tracing patterns on the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. "Of touching you. Tasting you."
Felicia trembled beneath him, desire coiling tight in her belly. "We still might be dreaming," she sighed, her voice surprisingly steady despite the riot of sensations threatening to overwhelm her.
A wolfish smile curved his lips before he lowered his head, pressing open-mouthed kisses to her stomach, her hip, the tender skin of her thigh. Felicia's breath hitched as his mouth moved higher, closer to the ache at her center.
The first touch of his tongue against her most intimate place tore a cry from her throat. She clapped a hand over her mouth, mortified by the sound, but Charles reached up and gently pulled it away.
"Let me hear you," he murmured against her skin. "I want to know what pleases you."
He returned with a hunger that bordered on ferocity, his hands splaying her thighs as if he meant to devour every trembling inch. His tongue worked in relentless, clever circles, never settling into predictability, always finding some new edge of sensation to ignite. Every clever flick and soft suck shattered her into raw, staggering sensation.
Her hips bucked helplessly; she clutched at the hay, then at his dark hair, desperate for something to anchor her as the world telescoped to the wet heat of his mouth and the primal, exquisite pressure gathering inside her. She’d been touched before—clumsy, tentative, forgettable encounters arranged by well-meaning chaperones and concluded with polite mortification. This was something altogether different, carnal and reverent all at once. He worshipped her with tongue and lips and hands, as if she were something holy and forbidden that he alone had the right to taste.
Felicia felt herself dissolving, each gasp and whimper clawing free as her pleasure built, spiking beyond the borders of anything she’d ever known. Her legs trembled around his shoulders, the hay pricking her bare skin, the air impossibly cold, and yet her blood impossibly hot. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them wide, needing to see the truth of himbetween her thighs, the sight almost as intoxicating as the sensation.
Charles met her gaze, blue eyes blazing with a feral tenderness, a smile curling the edge of his mouth even as he drove her higher and higher. The tension wound sharp and tight, a violin string ready to snap, and she feared it, craved it, ached for the inevitable shattering.
He slid a finger inside her, slow and gentle at first, curling expertly to coax her into new realms of sensation. She sobbed his name, the syllables torn from her with every thrust. When his mouth and hand worked in tandem, she nearly convulsed, a ripple of sensation tearing up her spine and bursting behind her eyes in a shower of white.
The world disintegrated, collapsing to a single, blinding moment of release—no, not a moment, but a wave, battering her against the brittle wall of her own restraint and carrying her under. She spasmed against his hand and lips, cried out, and then collapsed, boneless and shaking, the taste of his name still raw in her throat.
He gentled her descent, caressing her with slow affection, his touch turning almost unbearably sweet in the aftermath. He pressed a kiss to the trembling inside of her knee, another to the soft mound of her hip, a third to the hollow above her heart, each one a benediction. Charles propped himself up on his elbows, gazing down at her with an awe so open and unguarded that it threatened to undo her a second time. Felicia blinked away tears—of release, of relief, of something like joy. She’d spent her whole life hiding her desires, her cleverness, her hunger for more; now she felt naked in every possible sense, and for the first time, it was not shame she felt but something closer to pride.
He slid up beside her, gathering her half-naked body against his chest. His skin was warm and slightly damp with exertion,his breath still quick. Charles cradled her head in his palm and looked into her eyes, searching for something—approval, perhaps, or forgiveness. When she smiled at him, shaky and wide and real, he let out a long, shuddering sigh and kissed her, slow and deep, as if savoring her taste.
For a long while, they simply lay there, tangled in the hay, her head tucked beneath his chin and one of his arms wrapped around her waist. The storm outside had faded, leaving behind an aching, fragile quiet. Felicia floated in a strange, blissful suspension, her body still humming with aftershocks.
"That was..." she began, unable to find the words.
"Magnificent," he finished for her, his eyes roaming over her body with open appreciation. "You are magnificent."
Felicia felt her cheeks warm at his praise. Unlike the whispers she'd overheard at balls about being "too much"—too tall, too curvy, too opinionated—Charlie looked at her as if she were perfectly made.
His hands skimmed reverently over the generous swell of her hips, thumbs tracing the soft curve of her belly. Where she had always tried to cinch herself smaller in corsets, he seemed to delight in her fullness.
"I've always admired this about you," he murmured, cupping the lush weight of her breast in his palm. "How gloriously abundant you are."
Felicia started to cross her arms over herself, a lifetime of self-consciousness difficult to overcome, but Charlie caught her wrists gently.
"Don't hide from me," he said, pressing a kiss to the valley between her breasts. "Every inch of you is exquisite."
His mouth moved lower, tracing the soft roundness of her stomach with such tenderness that tears pricked at her eyes. No man had ever worshipped her body this way, as if her curves were treasures rather than flaws.
"Charlie," she whispered, her fingers threading through his hair.
He looked up at her, his eyes dark with desire. "I want to feel all of you against me."
She helped him remove the rest of his clothing, her hands trembling slightly as each new expanse of his skin was revealed. When he finally lay naked beside her, the contrast between his hard, muscled form and her softer curves made her breath catch.
Charlie rolled her beneath him again, his weight deliciously heavy as he settled between her thighs. The first press of him against her center drew a gasp from her lips.
"I've dreamed of this," he confessed, his voice husky as he rocked against her. "Of being surrounded by you."
When he finally pushed inside her, the stretch and fullness made her cry out. Charlie stilled, concern flashing across his features.
