“You can say no, and I’ll stop,” he said, wearing a very pained expression.
“I’d like to keep going,” she said.
“Thank God,” he said, and he continued to rub himself against her. “I’m going to push in now.”
And he did, and she felt a lovely expanding in her lower belly. It was a completely foreign and shocking feeling. He pulled out, and she could feel it, a dragging sensation, before he entered her again.
Soon, a rhythm emerged, and she couldn’t help but mirror it. When she did so, Julian’s eyes glazed over and he pulled on her shoulders, making her hit against him harder. Even though each thrust came with more and more power, it didn’t hurt. And soon, that gaslamp key turning sensation took over. She threw her head back, concentrating on that feeling because it was so good.
“Come, Ophelia,” he panted.
She understood what he meant, and while she couldn’t manage it, suddenly his fingers were there, blindly moving as opposed to their deft execution earlier. It didn’t matter, the sensation came, and light appeared behind her eyes as she crested, moaning as he pumped harder and harder into her. Then he moaned, pulling out, spilling seed all over her thighs.
Blinking, comprehending that a threshold had been crossed, she looked down at him. He was on his knees, sitting back on his ankles, holding his deflating member.
“Towel,” he said breathlessly, and got to his feet. He wound unsteadily until he reached the towels folded in the top drawer and pulled one out. She expected him to hand it to her, but instead, he slid it under her bottom, and then lovingly wiped her and her thighs. He then cleaned himself, discarding it in the corner. He pulled down the top blanket and ushered her underneath.
Before he came to bed, he turned down all of the lights and then slipped in next to her. Sliding over, he fitted his front to her back, wrapping her in a tight embrace. Ophelia was still forming questions and thoughts from the experience, ordering how she might even say them aloud, when light snores drifted up from behind her. He was already asleep. So she must be expected to stay the night.
She wondered if she had acquitted herself well. Considering Julian was already asleep should be an indication that the event had gone well. And being held so tightly in bed was a revelation. She loved it. So warm and protected—it was not a familiar sensation for her. Should she talk about this experience with Justine? Or should she keep it to herself, so as not to let the secret escape? What she was doing was against the moral code of women of her rank. Marriage first. But she knew of so many girls who hadn’t married as virgins, and she was almost thirty.
And really, the truth bubbled to the top: she didn’t want to marry Lord Fairport. Not one little bit. And once she admitted such a truth to herself, that she had only been allowing the courtship to please her mother, she felt lighter, and clearer. So she snuggled down in Julian’s capable embrace and fell asleep faster than she’d ever done before.
