Chapter Sixteen #2
‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’ His expression was anxious, something inexplicable as far as she was concerned.
Hurt her? Such pleasure, she had never imagined it could be found. Hurt her?
‘We can stop here,’ came Henry’s soft yet clearly eager voice. ‘We don’t have to— I mean, if you don’t want to.’
Ditty knew precisely what she wanted, and she was going to have it, Society and its rules be damned. ‘I want it all,’ she said quietly, looking up at the man she loved. ‘I want you, Henry. I want you now.’
* * *
It was hard to believe this was happening, and yet even in his wildest dreams Henry could not have imagined this.
Ditty, asking him to make love to her.
Ditty, naked in his arms, in his bed.
Ditty, coming apart thanks to his ministrations, tasting the pleasure in her as it captured her.
Ditty, telling him that she wanted him.
It healed a part of him he had never known was broken. It swept through him, taking over his senses, taking over his sense. What need had he for logic when the woman he adored was asking for what he so wanted to give her?
‘I’ve wanted this for so long,’ he murmured, grabbing a preservative from his bedside table and pulling it on with fumbling fingers before moving between Ditty’s legs and trying not to think how wet she was, how he had just brought her to climax. ‘I’ve wanted you for so long.’
‘Really?’
There was such incredulity in her voice, it almost broke his heart. Could this woman not see how desirable she was? How entirely wonderful she was? How he was honoured to even touch her, let alone taste her?
The only answer Henry could think to give was to lean forward and kiss her, a reverential slow kiss that relaxed Ditty beneath him.
That was when he entered her.
The way she gasped into his mouth told him that she had not expected it, but the way she immediately angled her hips told him she wanted this just as much as he wanted her, and for that Henry could have wept.
To be so eagerly welcomed, to plunge himself into her warmth, her wetness, to feel her stretch and accommodate him—
There was nothing else like it.
‘Oh, Henry,’ she moaned, throwing back her head as her eyelashes fluttered shut.
Gritting his teeth and hoping to God he didn’t come in an instant, he slowly lifted his hips until he was almost completely out of her, then slid forward a little faster this time.
It was in the catch of her breath that he knew he was hitting the spot. Ditty’s eyes opened. ‘Again.’
He hardly needed the encouragement. Between kisses mingled with sweet nothings, Henry built a rhythm, trying for her sake to remain slow, knowing that this first time with her—for surely it could not be the last—would be rushed.
It was not possible to hold himself back.
Soon she was writhing underneath him, her whimpering moans of pleasure filling the room and Henry could have roared with possessive desire as his hips started to thrust, to pick up the pace, to pound into the woman that was surely so close to her peak—
‘Oh, Henry, yes, yes, yes!’
Christ but he felt it, he felt her pleasure as it rippled through her, and the way her body contracted and tightened around him made it impossible to hold off what Henry was frankly astonished he had managed to avoid so far.
Roaring her name and crushing her lips with his own, Henry abandoned himself to the pleasure of their coupling as his body poured out his seed. The climax was sudden and swift, but it remained longer than he could have imagined, his hips jerking into her until there was nothing more to give.
Slowly, slowly, Henry withdrew from her. Ditty’s eyes were closed as though she could not take in another sense, and he carefully rolled onto his back beside her.
Well. That was…that was…
And the trouble was, he was completely in love with her. That was not usually an issue, he thought wryly, but now that he had made Ditty his own, possessed her entirely, he had to do the impossible and find a way of telling her.
‘Ditty?’
‘Mmm?’
He smiled as he stared up at the canopy of his bed. It was so familiar, and somehow so different. Something had changed. Perhaps it was him.
‘Ditty, I… I did not know how to tell you this before. Perhaps I should have done, but I did not.’
She said nothing, but that was to be expected. He had just brought her to pleasure twice. She was undoubtedly weary, and perhaps a little shy. Perhaps it was best this way.
Henry cleared his throat. ‘I…well, I never thought I would again. I never thought I could, after— And yet meeting you, knowing you, seeing the way you see the world…’
Damn it, he wasn’t making any sense. Pull yourself together, man!
‘I love you,’ he said simply. There. That was better.
‘I love you, and it’s a love I’ve never known before.
I—I love everything about you! Not just your beauty, though you are beautiful.
Not just your kindness, though you are kind.
I love the way you wrinkle your nose when you’re about to disagree with someone.
’ Henry thought for a moment. ‘Usually me. I love the way you see any problem as a puzzle. I love the way you love daisies, and the way you plan because you want the world to be better than it is. I love the way you care for your family and you know that they care for you in a different way. And I thought you should know. You should know how loved you are, Ditty. I love you.’
It was perhaps not the most impressive of speeches, but to be fair, Henry thought muzzily, he had not had much time to prepare. And so he waited.
And waited.
‘Ditty?’ he said, turning his head.
Ditty had fallen asleep.
A slow smile crept across his face. Well, so she had not heard his declaration. That did not matter. There would be plenty of time to make his confession.