Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
She had read, in the course of her considerable and wide-ranging literary education, a great many things that her mother would not have approved of.
She had read, specifically, one novel—borrowed from Celeste, who had borrowed it from someone who had borrowed it from someone who absolutely should not have had it—that had addressed, in terms that were simultaneously florid and technically vague, the activity that Tristan was currently proposing.
It was simultaneously amusing and comforting that he approached this activity with the same straightforward efficiency he appeared to bring to all things.
Imogen had read it. She had formed opinions about it. She had concluded, in the abstract, that it sounded entirely implausible and probably French.
She revised this conclusion now.
The first touch of his mouth drew a sound from her that she did not recognize as her own voice.
Some noise that had never previously occurred to her vocal cords as an available register.
Her hands flew to the coverlet and gripped it with both fists because there was nothing else within reach and she needed, urgently, to hold onto something.
“Oh,” she said. And then, rather less articulately, “Ohhh…”
She felt him smile against her.
His tongue swiped through her core. Her back arched entirely without her permission.
He was thorough. Of course, he was thorough.
He was thorough about everything. About ledgers and breakfast seating and the precise timing of carriages.
And it turned out that this thoroughness, applied here, was the single most devastating thing she had ever experienced in her three-and-twenty years of being a person in the world.
He learned her the same way he had learned everything else about her today: with focused, unhurried, implacable attention. As though she were a subject of genuine interest. As though she warranted the full application of his considerable—
“Tristan... “
His name came out wrecked. She didn’t care.
His hands had found her hips at some point and were holding them with a firm, sure pressure that she suspected was partly steadying and partly practical, because she had apparently been attempting to move in a way that his patience did not permit.
She let go of the coverlet with one hand and found his hair instead.
He made a sound against her at that—low, approving, the vibration of it traveling through her and removing the last of her capacity for self-possession.
Then he did something with his tongue that made her vision go briefly white at the edges.
She heard herself say his name again, and then the world reduced itself to the fire and his mouth and the long, dark, glorious fall of it, and she was entirely lost.
When she came back to herself she was looking at the ceiling.
She was not certain how long she had been looking at the ceiling.
Her hands were still in his hair. His chin was resting on the swell of her stomach.
He pressed one last, deliberate kiss to the soft skin of her inner thigh, and then he rose.
She looked at him, standing next to the bed, no shirt, and an alarming-sized bulge at the front of his trousers.
He looked every part of a man intent on debauchery.
Now she understood perfectly how some ladies ended up in compromising positions.
Carnal need was intoxicating.
His hair was disheveled, standing at odd angles from the way her fingers had thread through his strands.
His blue eyes had gone very dark. The expression on his face was not something she had seen before, but instinctively she knew from the intensity of his gaze locked on her, that it was hunger. He wanted her.
That was a heady feeling. She’d spent so much time in her life feeling as if her body was a mistake or a sin. She’d allowed shame and her mother’s voice to convince her that she was not desirable. That her body and, well, the whole of her, was not something men wanted.
But this man, her husband, wanted her. That much was evident.
“You,” she said, when she had enough breath for words, “are extremely good at that.”
He gave her a cheeky grin. “I am extremely good at most things. Are you alright?”
“I am—” She considered. “I am substantially better than alright.” She paused. “Though I may need a moment before I can confirm my own name or do basic arithmetic.”
His smile grew. “Take the moment,” he said. “I intend to take mine.”
She watched him remove the remainder of his clothing with the same unhurried efficiency he’d thus far applied to all things.
She had known, in the same vague abstract way she had known everything else about tonight, that there would be—more of him.
That he was a large man and therefore the logistics would be—proportionate.
His thighs were sculpted perfection. Which she supposed matched the muscular physique of his torso. And then there was the rest of him. The abstract, she was learning, was a very inadequate preparation for the particular.
“You are staring,” he said.
“I am,” she agreed, without any intention of stopping. “You are like a statue come to life. Though statues aren’t normally so…” She waved her hand in the general area of his groin.
That made him laugh. “I suspect if sculptors gave statues erections, people would make a game of breaking them off. Much like the great Sphinx and his missing nose.”
She laughed with him and found she could not stop smiling.
“I find I quite enjoy sharing humor in the bedroom,” he said. “It is a first for me.”
“You are getting all of my firsts so I am grateful to have one of yours.”
He came back to her and she felt the weight of him settle beside her, against her, and then he was looking at her again with that expression she had no name for, and his hand came up to brush a strand of hair from her face.
“You are so beautiful,” he said.
She swallowed hard. “I am glad you think so.”
He leaned forward and kissed her.
Then he moved his body atop hers, and she spread her legs to accommodate his size.
“This part,” he said quietly, “will be uncomfortable. I’ll go slowly. Tell me if you need me to stop.”
“I won’t need you to stop,” she said.
“Imogen.”
“I won’t,” she said firmly. “I am not fragile, Tristan. Remember, sixth of eight daughters, seventh of all nine of us. I can survive this.”
Something moved through his expression. “Yes,” he said. “I rather think you can survive most things.”
She rather loved the feel of his weight on her, all the hardness of his frame poised above.
He was as good as his word—slow, and careful, and he watched her face throughout with absolute attention. She winced when he seated himself fully inside her, and then he stilled.
It was—strange, having him inside her body. Fuller than she had imagined, and more present, and devastatingly intimate. In that moment, she realized how thoroughly she had committed herself to this man today. Then he moved.
And the sensations were spectacular. She raised her legs, wrapping them around his waist and he groaned his approval.
“Please tell me you’re alright because you feel unbelievable and I want to move more.”
“Don’t hold back, Tristan. I am yours.”
She had thought, given everything that had preceded it, that she would be spent. That the well would have been thoroughly emptied and there would be nothing left to surprise her. She was incorrect about this.
It turned out there were, as he had implied at the dressing table, several more steps to the process. She found herself gripping his back with an urgency she suspected was leaving marks.
“Imogen.” Her name in his voice, lower than she had ever heard it. He sounded completely undone, and in that moment, she knew she would love him. As readily as she had given him her body, she would give him her heart.
He said something against her hair that she didn’t catch, and the world came apart again, and this time he came with her.
Afterward, when he had cleaned them both up, she had expected him to retreat to his bedchamber. Instead, he’d crawled between the sheets and pulled her naked body to his.
With her head nestled on his chest and his arm wrapped around her, they lay together, husband and wife.
She had not planned for him.
She had planned for a husband. An abstract husband, useful and distant, the solution to her father’s red envelope.
She had not planned for Tristan—for the cold-weather eyes that turned out to be capable of warmth.
For his controlled composure that cracked in the bedroom with her.
For the man who had brushed her hair, patient and gentle.
She had not planned to find him interesting.
But most of all, she had not planned on finding in his arms a comfort that felt almost like coming home.