Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tempted as he was, and he very much was, to do exactly as his wife had commanded without delay, Hugh instead slid a hand into her hair and kissed her.
He wanted to erase the artificial tension in her limbs, and to reassure the nervousness he had glimpsed in her eyes.
She had been so gentle with him, her expression open and curious—hungry, even—as she had seen his body for the first time.
He wanted her to have the same experience.
His cock twitched between them, pressing against her stomach, but he did his best to ignore its demands. Soon. Or at least, perhaps not soon, but eventually. She had asked about it fitting, which meant she had every intention of letting him ravish her properly.
This would be as new an experience for him as it would be for her.
He’d had his share of lovers before, but while he’d had affection for many of them and had thought himself in love several times as a youth, he had never felt more than infatuation. And they had all been experienced—some more so than he.
This—lying with a virgin, inexperienced and untested—was new.
Lying with her, knowing that she had a hold on his heart he could hardly explain, was morbidly terrifying.
And yet… wonderful.
By degrees, she softened in his arms, bringing her hands to his shoulders and clinging to him. The tension fled from her limbs, and when he finally raised his head, lust-drunk eyes stared at him from behind her glasses.
He adjusted them, pushing them further up her nose. Kissing her with her glasses on was perhaps not the easiest thing in the world, but he wanted her to see all of him. Clearly, so she might make an informed choice.
As she watched him, pliant and relaxed, he busied himself with the ribbons down her side. Once loosened, he stroked a finger across her pearled nipple, and she caught her breath.
“I have been thinking about these—and you—for longer than I dare admit,” he murmured, letting her drink in his words as he continued to touch her over her nightgown.
“Your mother may have conditioned you into thinking you are not beautiful, Chris, but you are beautiful to me. I have no desire for conniving ladies with their practiced wares—what you have to offer is far more precious because you do so willingly and without artifice.” Finally, he unlaced the final ribbon, and the nightgown quivered on the brink of falling entirely.
He felt as though he quivered on the brink with it.
“I would love how you look whether you had three arms or six eyes or if you were green all over.” He kissed her again, sliding a hand down her stomach.
“You have tormented me with desire almost as soon as you entered this house, and I assure you there is nothing here that will make me want you less.”
Her smile was sweet and lovely. “You speak as though you were a poet.”
“Blame my muse.”
She laughed then and took hold of her nightgown, sending it fluttering to the ground. Hugh looked at her.
And looked.
Pink nipples, tiny breasts, angled hips, and a dark thatch of hair between her legs. There was very little softness to her body, but he drank her greedily in. Her skin looked delectably soft, and when he palmed her breast, she let out a sigh that went straight to his groin.
She was tall for a woman, flat-chested and near boyish, yet he had never desired someone so much in his life. Every second he wasn’t inside her was torture.
“Chris,” he rasped. “May I touch you?”
She stepped closer, plastering her front against him, not seeming to notice or care that her hand rested against the wrinkled, reddened scars of his chest. “Please,” she said. “Oh, please.”
That was encouragement enough. He ducked, wrapping one arm under her backside and his other around her waist as he strode out from behind the screen to his bed.
Ordinarily, when a husband and wife had separate beds, the husband visited his wife, but he had no intention of sending her away and only visiting her when his needs demanded it.
If she was amenable, he would keep her here, in his bed. Where she belonged.
He laid her down gently on her back and bent, pressing his lips to her breast. She gasped, this time in surprise, and arched her back.
Taking advantage of her position, he slid a hand underneath her, bracing her against him as he licked her nipples, drawing the sensitive buds into his mouth.
Her eyelids fluttered, and she pinned her mouth together as though afraid of the sounds she would make if given the chance.
He wanted, very much, to hear them.
But he put his impatience to one side, choosing instead to kiss every inch of skin.
Her neck, the lines of her collarbones, breasts, stomach.
He reached her thighs, drawing them gently apart, and she allowed him, her knees falling open as he licked her inner thigh.
From his vantage point, he could see her arousal, slick between her curls.
No matter how curious from a purely scientific basis she might have been, there was no denying that she wanted this. Her body responded to his as well as he could ever have hoped—more than he could ever have hoped—and the last of his doubts fell away.
They were there together.
With one finger, choosing his good hand, he slid a finger through her wetness, biting back his groan at the feel of her against his skin.
Her hips bucked, and he slid up her body to lie by her side, pressing another kiss to her lips.
No matter how desperately he wanted to taste her, he would ease her into this gently.
“Have you ever touched yourself there?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not like—not like this.”
“How?”
“Experimentation.” Her breath gushed from her as he teased her entrance, and she half-closed her eyes. “It didn’t feel at all like…”
“You weren’t aroused then.” He kissed the bony curve of her shoulder and pushed the tip of a single finger inside. By God, she was tight.
“Does this happen to everyone?”
“If they are eager, then yes.” He pushed a little deeper, and her hips bucked, legs widening to accommodate him. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Those pretty eyelashes of hers fluttered again, but when she spoke, it was with remarkable presence of mind. “If this is the body’s natural process in preparation for penetration, then why would I be ashamed?”
He chuckled. “You are like no other lady I’ve ever met.”
“My mother thought that was the problem.” She reached across her body, gripping his good arm, her fingers digging into the muscle of his bicep. “I want…” Her brow furrowed with what might have been irritation. “Do you know what it is I want?”
“I know.” Tenderness whispering in his heart, breaking past the last of the barriers he had erected around it to keep it safe, he kissed her forehead. “Tell me if you like the things I do, love. Trust me.”
A small, beautiful smile crossed her face. “I do. I do trust you, Hugh.”
If there had ever been any doubt about whether he loved her, she eradicated it with those simple words, and he was utterly lost.
Christiana had never been struck by lightning, but she imagined it felt somewhat like this.
Her every nerve was buzzing with energy, and with Hugh’s hands on her, she had never felt so aware, so alive in her own body.
As though he had taken her and made her anew.
She had been reborn under the weight of his gaze and in the cradle of his arms; now he molded her into an entirely new creation.
So this was intimacy.
His finger pushed inside her, so much deeper than she could ever have imagined, a slick slide that made her stomach clench and heat rush through her.
He lay beside her, kissing every part of her he could reach as his leg held hers open and his hand delved between her legs with practiced movements.
She didn’t know if she wanted to watch it—the movement of his hand in and out, the gleam of moisture on his index finger when it caught the candlelight, the erotic play of his darker skin against her paler aspect.
His gloves had ensured his skin did not catch much sun, but he was naturally of a more sallow complexion. The contrast made her head spin.
Pleasure wound its way around her, and she clung to him. In this new world, he was her anchor. He would lead her into heaven and back out. After coming back from hell, he was the perfect person to do so.
“Hugh,” she gasped as he hit the perfect place inside her. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fought to keep hold of her thought. “Teach me how I might pleasure you.”
“Me?”
“Please. I want to—” Truth be told, she didn’t know what she wanted, save to do to him what he did to her.
And to learn. This was a different kind of learning than the kind she had encountered in books, but it didn’t make the information gained from it any less valuable.
If anything, it would be far better applied in her everyday life.
If she knew how to please him, she could put that into practice as often as he would let her.
He grunted, then took her hand and brought it to his shaft.
Out of instinct, she wrapped her fingers around it, and he encased her fingers with his, guiding them up and down.
“You may grip a little more,” he instructed her in a tight voice, his hand pausing a little between her legs.
“There. Just like that. Just—” His words cut off entirely.
She followed his instructions the best she could, marveling at the feel of him under her palm.
The way the skin moved so easily, and how much such a simple, small movement made his jaw clench and his eyes half close.
His breath came faster, and she experimented, moving faster and slower, reading the way he grunted or exhaled.
More moisture appeared, and she smeared it across the bulbous head.
Objectively, she supposed there was nothing so very aesthetically pleasing about a phallus, yet the sight of it made her feel even hotter inside.