Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
Hugh shifted so he was kneeling by her side, giving her better access.
Just as she was about to readjust her grip, he inserted another finger, and the spike of pleasure was so intense, it made her breath catch.
The coiling feeling in her lower stomach tightened, drawing heat from all over.
Her breath came faster, and her body urged her forward.
More, more.
He kissed her, lips urgent, and she had the impression he was attempting to say things with his mouth he couldn’t yet say with his words.
There were more things she wished she could say, too.
Things like You are important to me and I will never forget this moment.
It would be seared into her memory as surely as every great event of her life.
More so than her marriage; that had been an event, in a long list of them, that she had done for the sake of survival.
This was a joy. Something she chose because she wanted it.
There had been so few moments like those in her life.
Hugh was hers. Her choice. His hand between her legs, his mouth on hers, his phallus in her hands.
With a groan, he pulled back, free of her grasp. “No more,” he said, his face tight with concentration. “Or I risk spilling on you.”
She frowned, dizzy with pleasure, again with the sensation that her body was not her own—it was something better, brighter. “And you don’t want that?”
“Not yet.” When he next kissed her, his mouth was urgent, demanding. “I want all of you, Chris. I told you. Everything.”
Ah, yes. That was what she had forgotten in this flurry of new sensation. There was still more. This was merely preparing her body.
“Then we should proceed to—” A moan ripped from her, and she pressed her lips together, immediately embarrassed.
His free hand cupped her face. “Don’t look like that, love,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her brow.
“I want to hear all of you.” She felt his smile, and it was contagious.
“Think of it as male pride. Assure me I’m doing my job well, and I will attempt to do the same to you.
Now.” He pinched her nipple, and the shock of pain went straight to her core.
“I want you to come for me. Let go. Trust me. I’m right here. ”
If ever she could have held back whatever came next, that was not the moment.
He pressed deep inside her; she saw stars, her vision turned white, and she fell apart.
Pleasure surged, rather like she imagined a great river would after its dam broke.
A torrent of sensation, of heat, of light and wonder and awe, everything that was perfect and good in this world rushing through her, and all she could do was shudder in his arms. Even her breath stopped.
Her body jerked beyond her control, but he was there, whispering praise into her damp skin, telling her that she was wonderful, beautiful, that he loved seeing her like this, and that he would never tire of doing this to her.
And Christiana believed him. The pleasure had drugged her, making her believe the impossible—and if it had not, then Hugh’s gaze had. He looked at her as though she were the eighth wonder of the world, as though she were the rising and setting sun.
As though perhaps he loved her.
She attempted to shut the thought away, but as soon as it had arrived, it lodged itself in her heart like a splinter.
Love.
Panic threatened to rise in her, defying her heavy-limbed languidness, but Hugh gave her no time to sink too deeply in her feelings.
Withdrawing his hand from her, he moved so his hips notched against hers, her thighs making way for his body to nestle there.
Somehow, it felt as though they had been made for one another; they fit, perfectly.
“I won’t last long,” he warned, the blunt head of his member pressing against her entrance. “You were very eager before, and I—” He closed his eyes as though in pain. “It has been a long time.”
“For me, too,” she said, laughing at the way his incredulous gaze turned to hers. A teasing light lit his eyes, and he tweaked her nipple in punishment.
“Prepare yourself,” he said, and he pushed. One hard thrust that sent him all the way inside her. Tight, burning stretch, and brief flare of discomfort. She gritted her teeth, fighting the urge to make a sound.
He knew, anyway, though. He kissed her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, propping himself on his arms and waiting until the sting had faded and she moved against him.
“Are you all right?”
“Perfectly.” She clutched his shoulders, careful not to grip his burned shoulder too tightly. “Don’t stop.”
A smile flickered across his face as he withdrew, then thrust in her again.
Full, she was so full. He brought his hand between them, pressing a new nub of nerves with his thumb, and it was all she could do to hold on.
Every second, she thought it might be too much, but then she wanted more.
Her body warred with itself, fighting the stretch even as it demanded more from him.
He began slow, but she encouraged him as much as she knew how, locking her legs around his hips and telling him, with what words she had left, that she loved how he felt inside her.
“Please,” she begged, though she hardly knew what for. “Please.”
And Hugh, her husband, did as he was bid, increasing his pace until she was crying out under him. There was nothing inside her but him and this pleasure, and nothing above her but his face, the concentration on it making her chest ache with fondness.
She had never known the connection that could come from intimacy. Even when they came apart again, she would never be fully free of him.
She thought she never wanted to be.
The hand between her legs did its work, and she split apart again, her senses overwhelmed.
Only this time, Hugh didn’t stop, continuing his reckless, desperate descent into release.
When finally he did, he gave a low groan that set fire to her very veins, and she thought she felt him pulse inside her.
For a long moment, they both lay panting together.
Then he shifted so he could better see her face, that hand coming to cup her cheek again.
He searched her eyes, though she didn’t know what he was looking for.
She felt wrung out, in the best kind of way.
There was nothing inside her left for him to find—she had just given it all to him.
“Hugh,” she murmured, and he smiled, breathtakingly, and kissed her cheek.
“You may be sore now,” he said, rolling away and sliding free from her.
A gush of liquid accompanied the movement.
He padded across the room, found a cloth he had used to bathe with, and cleaned her up.
Now that her thoughts had cleared, she noted the gentleness of the gesture.
He touched her, even now, in her delicate place as though she were precious.
Propping herself on her elbows, she watched the dark crown of his head as he worked, oblivious to her attention. His hand—his entire right side of his body—might have been damaged in the fire, but that didn’t stop him from using his limbs for good.
His ruined hand was just as gentle on her as his whole one. He had gathered her to sit on his lap, on both legs, without signs of pain.
He had carried her with both arms.
And in the place where burns met clear skin, his heart pounded underneath. The same muscles, she had felt, worked underneath both.
He glanced up, folding the washcloth with the care he gave everything. Had he learned to be so deliberate after the fire, or had that always been a part of his character?
How far had the fire shaped him? She could never wish that such a thing had happened—how cruel—but would she have liked him half as well as she did if it had never happened?
Would she even have met him? The only reason he had searched for a wife the way he had was as a direct result of the burns.
Otherwise, he would have been like any other duke, finding a bride amongst London’s finest drawing rooms while she’d remained trapped at her father’s estate.
Her heart fluttered in panic, in rejection of the idea that they might never have met.
Yet how could she wish for him to have suffered merely so that she might now have had a chance of meeting him? There was a newfound illogicality to her thoughts that she couldn’t banish, no matter how hard she tried.
This, she reasoned, was love.
“I see you,” she said, not having the words to express any of the other feelings rampaging in her body. She wanted to sleep for two days and climb a mountain.
He smiled once again and kissed her ankle. “I see you.”
As always, he knew precisely the right thing to say.
It never once occurred to her to question staying as he came to wrap her in his arms. Exhausted, sated, utterly contented, she fell asleep to the cadence of his breath.