Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
Julien pulled away from her and crossed back to the door. Not to exit. Instead, he turned the key in the lock, effectively shutting out everything but the two of them. Then he turned back to her. “It would take a stronger man than I am to refuse you.”
Caroline reached for the tie of her wrapper and slipped it free, this time shrugging out of the garment entirely and letting it fall to the floor.
The gown she wore was a finely embroidered lawn, pale and nearly sheer.
It concealed far less than it revealed, providing only a gauzy veil between his gaze and her flesh—flesh that responded instantly to his roaming, heated study of her.
When he closed the distance between them, Caroline slid her hands over the silk brocade of his waistcoat, beneath the fabric of his well-tailored coat and then pushed it from his shoulders, until she could remove it from him entirely.
Then she returned her attention to the engraved buttons of his waistcoat, freeing them one by one.
Feeling the firmness of his flesh, the heat of him through the linen of his shirt was a revelation to her.
As was her response to those sensations.
So much was still unknown to her, but not desire.
He’d introduced her to that the night before and she understood that her current breathlessness had little to do with nervousness and everything to do with anticipation.
Rising up on her toes, pressing the length of her body against his, Caroline kissed him. Instantly his arms closed around her, supporting her weight, holding her closer. Wrapped in strength and heat, she felt thoroughly encompassed by him and it was glorious.
Allowing her hands to travel over him, feeling the corded muscles that bunched and flexed beneath his skin, Caroline savored every second of it.
But she wanted more. She wanted to touch him as he had touched her.
So Caroline pulled away and closed her hands over one of his.
With a single tug, she guided him deeper into her chamber, toward her bed.
But once there, inexperience left her at a loss. “I do not know what to do now.”
“Just lie down,” he told her. “Lie down and I will teach you. I will show you how we can both find our pleasure together.”
Caroline turned to face him, then seated herself on the edge of the bed.
Pressing her hands against the mattress, she pushed herself back until she was reclining against the pillows.
He stood there for a moment, his gaze roaming over her in a way that suggested he was committing every detail to memory.
Then, he shrugged out of his now undone waistcoat.
Seated himself just long enough to remove his boots and to pull his shirt free from his breeches and over his head.
He tossed it onto the floor with his other discarded clothing, then he was climbing into the bed beside her, over her, on her.
Surrounding her. Holding her down and setting her free all at once, because everywhere he touched her felt divine.
She could feel the crisp hair that lightly covered his chest as it brushed her skin.
And it prompted questions in her mind about what he would look like when fully unclothed.
But there was no time to think too deeply upon that, because he was kissing her neck.
His teeth scraping over the skin in a way that made her shiver and moan.
Each pass of his lips, each nip of his teeth on her skin, built the now familiar tension inside her.
Every touch pushed her closer to that knife’s edge of desire. His movements became hungrier, his mouth more insistent, his hands greedier as they roamed her body.
Suddenly, he grasped her hand and tugged it down. Pressing it against the front of his trousers, she could feel a hard ridge concealed behind the dark fabric. Thick, impossibly hot, firm—instinctively her hand curled around it and he groaned in response.
“This is what you do to me,” he whispered hotly. “I cannot tell you the nights I have woken from dreams of you just like this—my body aching with need of you.”
It was both humbling and thrilling. “Then take what it is that you need. I would not deny you anything.”
He slid a hand between her thighs, parting them fully.
But he didn’t touch her intimately. Instead, he moved between them, that hard length she’d just caressed now passing against the mound of her sex in a way that left her breathless.
But it was not a passive thing. He moved, thrusting against her in a rhythm that was both foreign and familiar.
It was some instinctive thing that had her meeting those thrusts, lifting her hips in time with his, their bodies coming back together in a way that seemed to ignite a fire inside her.
Julien struggled to slow his pace, to not rush to a completion he so desperately needed. He wanted her to be with him—he wanted them to find that moment of perfection together.
Without breaking the rhythm, he dipped his head and claimed one rosy nipple, drawing it into his mouth. She cried out, the sound piercing the haze of his own need and prompting a surge of satisfaction that was purely masculine in nature.
He slid one hand along the back of her thigh, hooking it behind her knee and hitching her leg higher on his hip. It increased the contact between them, spiking the sensation to an intensity that robbed him of breath. His jaw clenched with the effort to sustain the present rhythm.
And he did. Against the odds and his own inclinations, he maintained that steady pace, watching her responses closely to determine what he would do next.
When at last she tensed beneath him, her entire body going taut, back arched, lips parted on a silent and breathless cry.
His pace did quicken then, one thrust, then another and another—successively faster and harder until the familiar tightness settled in.
Once more he surged forward, grinding his hard flesh against the yielding softness of hers.
And then it broke, the release washing through him as he shuddered with the force of it, spilling himself like an eager youth.
And in truth, he felt a bit like one… nothing had ever been so perfect, so intense, so deeply and profoundly altering that he knew nothing would ever be the same for them.
“I love you,” he said. “I will always love you.”
“Oh, Julien,” she whispered, her arms closing about him, drawing him down to rest his head against her breasts.
She stroked his hair, her fingers combing through the sweat dampened strands.
“I love you. I think a part of me always has, and I was just too blind to see it. Thank you… thank you for being patient enough to wait for me, to wait for us to find our way together.”
He didn’t tell her the truth of it, not because he didn’t feel she needed to know it or because he felt she might be frightened by it.
Long ago, he’d made the decision that she would be his wife.
Only her. He would not have damned another to a life of always being second to her.
So he lay there in silence, letting her touch soothe him, letting the peace of the moment seep into the very fibers of his being.
They were finally, both of them, precisely where they belonged.