Epilogue #3
Several interesting paintings graced the walls, and two armchairs stood angled before the window.
But it was the huge tester bed with its plump ivory pillows, silk sheets, and forest-green-and-gold coverlet that dominated the room, at least in Sylvia’s eyes.
She halted beside it and turned as she heard the door click shut.
Kit stood with his hand still on the knob and his eyes locked on her. His gaze was weighty, intense, and seemed to grow more acute with every passing second.
Then he released the doorknob and prowled toward her.
Her breathing suspended as he halted before her. The look in his melted caramel eyes was hot enough to scorch.
Slowly, he raised both hands and cupped them about her face, gently tipping it up to his.
Instinctively, she raised her hands and wrapped her fingers about his wrists, lightly gripping as she studied his eyes. The potent mix of hunger, desire, and raw passion she saw—that he let her see—swirling in the depths left her utterly breathless.
Very nearly witless.
She—her mind—couldn’t think beyond this moment; she had no experience upon which to draw. Here, tonight, she had to place herself wholly in his hands and trust him—put her trust in him—in this most intimate arena.
Luckily, she had complete and unshakeable faith in him—in his honor and in his need to protect and care for her. On that, she would stake her life.
And while he wanted her, she wanted him…
She sensed his hesitation, but to her mind, they’d waited long enough.
She pushed up on her toes and kissed him. They’d shared many kisses in recent weeks, and caresses, too, but into this kiss—their first private kiss as a married couple—she poured everything she’d held bottled up inside her.
She opened her heart, found the fire within, and set it free.
It was past time for caution, past time for restraint.
With her lips and tongue, she painted a picture of her need, her wanting—and made it as vibrant, as compelling, as she could.
His hands slid from her face, and she raised hers to clasp his head and hold him—hold them steady to the kiss as her hunger stoked his, as her passion swirled, flamed, and ignited his.
A low growl sounded in his throat, then his arms came up and locked about her.
Kit felt giddy, spun around by passion in a way he’d never felt before. Desire was a thunder in his blood, but it was her fire, her passion, that had swept him from his moorings.
All he could think about was having her beneath him. His only driving need was to claim her.
Her mouth was open to him, surrendered, a gift beyond price. He’d instinctively reacted and staked his claim, and her response only ratcheted the tension that drove him higher.
Only made him harder, the thud in his blood more insistent.
He angled his head and plunged deeper. Found her tongue with his, stroked, then plundered.
And she followed his lead, enticing, inciting, every single step of the way.
He’d needed her—to have her and hold her—for weeks, and tonight, his dreams would transform into reality, and the gnawing hunger in his soul would finally be sated.
With that aim in mind, he backed her toward the bed.
Sylvia felt her legs hit the side of the bed, but before she could rejoice that they were finally moving on, she sensed Kit hesitating. Almost dithering.
She was already too heated, with a slowly building urgency coursing through her veins, to countenance any unnecessary delay.
Closing her fists in his lapels, she stretched up on her toes and kissed him with all the passionate hunger in her soul—and tipped backward.
She landed on the silk coverlet and, to her delight, succeeded in toppling him with her.
But he broke the kiss and twisted to land on his shoulder by her side, rather than atop her as she’d hoped.
No matter. Using her grip on his lapels, she used his weight as an anchor, swung to her side, and pressed her body flush against his.
For just one second, he froze. She seized the moment, clasped his face, and pressed a fevered kiss to his lips.
Then she sent her hands wandering—a desire of hers that, until now, he’d severely curtailed.
Tonight, the bonds of marriage had set her free, and she was determined to make the most of it.
To experience and savor her first foray into conjugal bliss to the hilt.
She felt sure it would be bliss. With a husband like him, it simply wouldn’t be anything else—he would never allow it.
But she wanted—needed—to get to the blissful point sooner rather than later.
Dispensing with his cravat took several minutes—minutes during which she strove to keep him engaged through the increasingly ravenous kiss so that he didn’t focus on her busy hands.
The instant she’d unraveled the silk folds, she left the cravat lying about his neck and fell upon the buttons of his waistcoat, then his shirt.
Over the past weeks, in preparation for tonight, she’d assiduously practiced kissing him. She’d learned the art of give and take, of aggressor and appeaser, of conqueror and conquered. It took all of her accumulated skill to keep him engrossed in the kiss…
Until finally, the last button slipped free, and she slid her greedy palms across the hot skin stretched over the heavy muscles banding his chest.
So firm and hard; on a soft gasp, she broke from the kiss and opened her eyes.
Taut skin sheathing hard muscle met her wondering gaze.
Delight swelled inside her, and she swept her hands wide, pushing him onto his back and parting the shirt so she could savor the width, the solidity, the sheer overwhelming masculinity of the lightly tanned expanse laced with crinkly brown hair that curled about her slender fingers.
His muscles tensed and shifted beneath her questing hands. Delighted anew, she stroked, then sank her fingertips into the resilient, steely strength.
Hers. All hers.
She sent her fingers tripping down, over the ridges of his abdomen, feeling the muscles twitch under the light caress. A trail of crisp brown hair bisected his torso, circling his navel before extending farther down…
As her eyes and her trailing fingers followed the line, he sucked in a short breath.
Then he caught her hands, one in each of his, and hauled her hands above his shoulders so that she fell full length atop him.
Releasing her hands, he locked one arm about her—pressing her aching breasts flush against that glorious chest—while his other hand cupped her head, and he hauled her into a ravaging kiss.
One that temporarily distracted her.
But as the heat from his body sank through her skin, she was suddenly certain she had on far too many clothes.
Luckily, her hands and arms were free. Too caught by the fire in the kiss to draw back, she wriggled and squirmed while she released the tiny buttons and the hooks and eyes that ran down her side.
Then she planted her palms on his chest and, reluctantly pulling her lips from his, panting, flushed, and very ready to get on, she pushed back and sat up, straddling his hips, and tugged and pulled and hauled her gown and petticoats off over her head.
She flung the yards of fabric away, hearing them fall with a sibilant swoosh to the floor.
But her gaze had fixed on Kit’s face. On all she could see washing behind his wide eyes, coloring his faintly stunned expression. Hunger, need, and yearning. She could see those and more in his caramel eyes.
Holding his gaze, she set her quick fingers to the front closure of her light corset.
Within seconds, his gaze had fallen to her digits.
With precise movements, she slid the hooks free.
The corset gaped, then released; she caught it and flung it after her gown as every muscle in the large body beneath her locked tight.
She was still sheathed in her fine silk chemise, the translucent fabric a subtle screen against which her breasts proudly jutted, nipples peaked and rosy.
His hot, hungry gaze raced over her, yet his jaw clenched tightly, and from the corner of her eye, she saw his hands, which had fallen to his sides, fist.
Playing to the molten passion she could sense rising in him, barely held back by his will, reaching for the passionate tide she wanted nothing more than to call forth and bathe in, she raised the fingers of one hand to the ribbon closing the neckline of her chemise.
His eyes locked on her fingers; she played with the ends of the ribbon for an instant, then gripped and tugged—and the bow unraveled.
He swallowed, his throat working.
She smiled, grasped the chemise’s gathered neck in both hands, with a swift jerk, widened the neckline, then drew the whisper-soft garment off over her head.
He uttered another growly sound as she sent the chemise to join her corset.
Abruptly, he sat up, simultaneously gripping her hips between his large hands and shifting her back so she ended straddling his hard thighs.
Then his head swooped, and his lips crushed hers, and his hands were on her.
Hard, hot palms stroking and caressing.
Long artful fingers tracing, then possessing.
She lost her breath to him, to the kiss, to the fire he laced over her skin.
Her world spun, and she tipped her head back on a gasp as, with his clever fingers and his even cleverer lips and tongue, he paid homage to her breasts—until they ached almost painfully and molten heat pooled low in her belly.
Suddenly, she needed to feel him against her; nothing else would assuage the maddening ache that seemed to rise from her bones.
She caught his coat and tugged. When he didn’t immediately respond, she found his lips with hers again, then nipped the lower. When he pulled back, blinking, their eyes mere inches apart, she panted, “Coat, waistcoat, shirt—get them off!”
He blinked again, but she was already wrestling with his coat. As if dazed, he complied, shrugging the garment off and tossing it to the floor. By then, she’d dispensed with his cravat and was pushing his waistcoat and bundled-up shirt off his shoulders.