CHAPTER 12 #2
He found enough control to avoid ravishing her at once. Carefully. Slowly. A few threads of sanity chanted his better intentions, but erotic images entered his head, goading him.
He rolled her off, onto the bed, on her stomach. He rose up on an arm so he could look at her while he caressed her back and bottom. He imagined her rising to her knees—
Her head lifted, as if she saw his mind. He kissed her in reassurance and smoothed his hand over her curves. “Allow yourself to accept the pleasure, Eva. Think of nothing else.”
She returned to hugging the mattress. Slow kisses down her spine had her breath quickening again.
A small moan of delight sounded when his caress traced the cleft of her bottom, then lower and deeper between her legs.
He stroked her still swollen, soft folds and she moaned again and again, descending once more into abandon.
His own pleasure sharpened, taking power from how he controlled her now. He touched very specifically and she cried out. Her hand instantly covered her mouth. He touched again, deliberately, and that hand barely muffled her next cry.
“No one can hear you except me, Eva. Do not try to deny what you are experiencing.”
Eyes closed and face softened from passion’s command of her, she half shook her head. “It is so wonderful it is frightening. Shocking. Outrageous that you watch me while once more I—while I—”
He stroked deeply and her bottom rose up to allow him better reach. “While you give yourself over to pleasure, and to me?”
She nodded.
“Do you want me to stop?”
She bit her lower lip and shook her head.
“Then move your hand from your mouth and give yourself totally. I want you to accept just how shockingly wonderful it can be.”
Her hand fell away. He caressed her slowly, watching how passion made her more beautiful and radiant.
Her breathing turned staccato when he stroked her vulva.
He inserted one finger, then two, into her tight velvet passage.
Her lips parted for two sharp intakes of air.
He stroked deeper. She grasped the sheet she hugged and moaned.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, yes.”
She was wet and open and more than ready. He was far gone himself, pushed to the limits of his restraint. His head and body urged completion.
He rolled her over. They shared one long, deep, unbearably erotic kiss while he sought to fight back the storm.
Only the kiss did the opposite, and his mind darkened to everything except thrusting into her.
He licked and sucked her breasts until her soft cries grew louder, more insistent.
She grasped at his shoulders frantically, helplessly.
When he added caresses to her vulva again, her cries became a long series of exclamations of both affirmation and frustration.
It was time. Now. Except—
He did not ask. He did not think. He moved his kisses lower, down her body, not caring if he shocked her, not considering anything except the primal drive directing him. Lower yet, until he kissed her mound. Lower yet, while he pushed her legs apart.
She screamed. Not happily. He looked up her body to where she watched him, eyes wide.
He kept his hand on her, letting pleasure make his argument for him.
“I’ve never— I did not know that—” She could hardly speak in her frenzy. “That seems truly wicked, not in an average way.”
He settled down between her thighs. “I will wait until you ask me. I will only caress you until you ask for more.”
“I do not think I will— I would never— Oh.” The plaintive oh came when he carefully pressed her clitoris.
He knew how to keep a woman on the brink. He left her on the edge until she writhed in glorious agony. He experienced more than the usual torture himself, and only kept control because he focused on her reactions.
“I— I— Please— I—” Her words emerged as short, gasping breaths.
“Do you want more, Eva?”
She looked down through heavily lidded eyes. A special madness showed in them. Her nod was tentative, but that was enough.
He kissed her thigh while he leashed his mind to what was left of his sanity and physical restraint. Then he turned his head and gave her the most intimate of kisses.
* * *
Oh.
The sensations were unbearable. Shocking. Incredible.
She tensed, as her body recoiled from such intimacy. Pleasure quickly defeated the retreat. She dwelled in a place not of this world, and her whole body and mind begged for more, for relief, for an eternity of such unworldly arousal.
She glanced down at him, at what he was doing, at what he must be seeing.
Shocking. Scandalous. Within the intense need on which her entire being focused, odd, disparate thoughts drifted.
What her mother would have said if she knew.
How Charles had never wanted her like this.
How surprised the people of Langdon’s End would be.
Shouting them down, dominating any other voice, was the one that had brought her to this bed. Know it all. Take it all. It may have to last you a lifetime.
Something changed. Subtly, but undeniably, Gareth became more demanding, as if he heard those voices and sought to silence them. The pleasure became demanding, too, as it had the last time, only many times worse. It pushed all thoughts out of her head, and obliterated all control.
She no longer owned herself. He did, with what he did to her.
He pushed her deeper and deeper into an insanity of need until nothing else existed.
Deeper still he sent her. Groans and cries sounded in her head.
Then it all constricted and her consciousness screamed and begged and reached for another wonderful end.
It did not come. Instead Gareth came up over her, into her arms, his body lining hers, dominating it. He pressed into her slowly. She clutched at him as a new awe and a new shock took hold. She could not resist him even if she had wanted to. She did not control her body enough to do so yet.
He pressed deeper. She felt him distinctly against flesh still sensitive and swollen from his kisses, and inside her as her body stretched to accommodate him.
She sneaked a look at him. His fiery eyes and tense expression stunned her.
She realized, just knew, that this was not how it normally would be for him, and that he was forcing a restraint for her sake.
She closed her eyes and gave no voice to the discomfort he now caused. She let herself feel it fully, as she had the rest.
He stopped finally, filling her. He did not move. She looked again. His eyes were closed and he appeared less harsh. She wrapped her arms around his neck and brought him down so she could kiss his shoulder, then his lips.
“You have survived it?” he asked quietly.
She nodded, and opened her eyes. She looked right into his.
A mistake, perhaps. In that instant she understood the real dangers of what she did.
The wickedness might not haunt her life, but the intimacy would.
Letting him strip her of reserve left her vulnerable and exposed in other ways. She knew the power of that now.
He moved, carefully. A renewed tension spread through him.
She understood despite her ignorance. After a while she moved too, encouraging him to find his own pleasure without so much care.
He responded with harder thrusts. Masculine need engulfed her.
Even so, to the very end when she saw and felt his own shattering, she could tell that he held something back so he would not hurt her too much.
She felt him withdraw an instant before the tension broke apart.
He came down on her then, covering her, his face pressed to hers and his hair feathering her face.
She did not mind his weight. She held him to her body, taking in his warmth.
Her fingertips skimmed his skin while she branded her mind with the sensation of touching his body.
She savored the intimacy that she had discovered tonight—invasive, even frightening, but wonderful too.
* * *
Her fingers caressed his back. Tentative. Careful, as if she feared disturbing him. He let her, and enjoyed the soft touch, while their tight embrace caused the bliss to stretch longer than normal.
His mind slowly found itself, and saw the new colors in his contentment.
Surprise, and relief. The latter that he had avoided brutalizing her.
Surprise that he had come so close to doing so.
Few women in the past had inspired that possessive hunger, and none of them had been the least bit like Eva Russell.
He rose up so his weight rested on his forearms, not her, and he did not continue crushing her. He looked down into eyes that glistened with—what? Tears?
Hell, he had hurt her more than he thought. She was a virgin, after all. A virgin. What had he been thinking? He should be horsewhipped.
The truth was, try as he might, he could not summon any shame or regret. The only concern was whether she would. She had said she would not, but what did she know?
He caressed her face and kissed her. Her expression lightened, then turned rueful. “Afterward, like now, what does one do?” she asked.
“Normally I like to run through the garden naked and play satyr chasing nymph.”
For an instant she believed him, then she laughed. “More naughty games, you mean.”
“Yes, but not in gardens. However, I do not think you would want more tonight, no matter how mildly wicked.” He rolled off her and onto his back. “Not only due to being ravished for the first time. You traveled all day. Sleep is in order.”
He reached for the sheet. In doing so he saw the one on which they lay. No blood from the looks of things, even though he had felt the hymen give way.
He pulled her into an embrace, covered them with the sheet, and got comfortable with her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest.
“This will be very boring if you normally play wicked games all night,” she said.
“Are you saying you are disappointed that I am not going to impose on you again?”
“No. You are quite right about that. I am somewhat tired and . . . sore. I think that you must find me very dull compared to the women you have known. That is all I meant.”
He looked down on her crown, tucked under his chin.
Reassurances were in order, but the last ones he had expected her to need.
What are you talking about? Hell, fucking you was incredible.
No, that would never do. He formed a response carefully.
It took some time to pick through the potential ramifications of each word.
“I am not your tenth lover, but your first, Eva. It is a privilege to be so honored, especially by a woman who could have a choice from among many men.”
No reaction from her. Nothing at all. He realized that she had stilled totally. She had fallen asleep. So much for his well-considered declaration.
He drifted too. When on the brink of sleep, he felt her move. He opened his eyes to find her looking up at him with a soulful expression that contemplated what she saw. Then she planted a kiss on his chest, and nestled closer for the night.