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“Look up at me,” he ordered.

“I don’t enjoy being told—”

“Have you done this before?” His hands ran from her stomach upward, toward her breasts.

“Well . . .” she teased.

The flash of fire in his eyes attested that he didn’t appreciate the jest.

When a strand of wavy brown hair fell on his forehead, she reached up to put it back in place. But before she could pull her hand away, he captured her finger in his mouth. She kept it there, moaning as he wrapped his lips around it. His tongue flicked against her finger before letting it go.

“You can question me, scold me,” he said, resuming his ministrations, making her nipples peak once again, “advise me and tease me.”

Garrick reached down between them.

“But here, in our bed, tonight, I am the tutor and you, my love . . .”

He guided himself toward her. She could feel the tip of him teasing her down there.

“Are the pupil.”

For a moment, she thought he’d enter her. She braced herself for it.

“Emma?”

She looked up, away from the muscles of his stomach, and concentrated on his face.

“What do you think will happen?”

Though she knew, from Sara, it would be painful, she still wanted it and pushed against him to encourage it. “’Twill hurt, at first.”

“Nay, it will not.” He nudged her legs open with his knee.

“But I’ve been told—”

He entered her then, just slightly. “Does this hurt?”

She shook her head. “Nay.”

When he pressed inside further, Emma didn’t feel pain. Instead, she wanted more.

“And this?” he asked.

Still no pain. Just the opposite, in fact. As Garrick filled her, she wanted only to become his. Completely.

“Not at all,” she said.

He stilled.

Emma felt no pain, only a need to press against him, which she did.

The muscles in his neck bulged, which was when she realized Garrick restrained himself.

“You wish to go further,” she said. He swallowed, and Emma placed her hands on both of his arms.

“This is the part you were told about,” he said. “The one that will hurt.”

Garrick had reached the barrier that she’d been told would only be broken by her husband. Well, he would be her husband soon enough. For now, he was simply the man she loved. And it was enough. She urged him on by pressing her hips upward.