intending to sit up.
“No,” he said, catching her by the arms. His thumbs massaged her flesh as his grip tightened a fraction. He pulled her back, his touch insistent but still more gentle than not. “Stay here. Stay…close.”
Resistance, such as there was, dissolved. She allowed herself to be pulled back into his embrace. It was where she wanted to be, she told herself. Still, she said, “Permit me to light a candle.”
He chuckled softly. “Do you think I don’t know where to put my hands? That I cannot find my way around your body? I have not been gone so long as that, and my sense of direction has always been good.”
She sucked in a breath sharply as he palmed her bottom and brought her in full intimate contact with him once again. “Yes,” she said on a thread of sound. “Oh, yes.”
His mouth was on hers, this time engaging her tongue. She felt a fullness in her breasts, another in her heart. How careful he was with her, even when his own need was great. The kiss took on a languid, leisurely quality, and she was reminded of a kiss shared out of doors when they were but newly married. The manor was some distance behind them, the lake close enough to hear the rhythmic lap of water. On that occasion there had been sunshine and ducks preening on an outcropping of rocks. She could hear the snap of the rug as he laid it down on the uneven tufts of grass. A pleasant aroma rose from the picnic basket: warm bread and cheese and a skin of red wine.
Perhaps she should have been shocked that he would want her in the full light of the afternoon, but she was not missish or shy and wanted exactly the same thing. She lay on the rug in just the same fashion as she lay on the bed, one arm flung over her head, the other resting on his shoulder. Her gown was bunched around her hips and he was settled between her raised knees. She felt him reach between their bodies and cup her mons. His fingers wandered with purpose.
She was wet. He teased her with his fingertips, dipping, stroking. Her hips jerked. Her body sought him out. There was no shame in wanting this man…her husband.
He shifted position, resting his weight on his forearms. His lips nudged hers. The kiss was no longer so sweet or soft. Hunger made it urgent, hard. This was all right as well. He could have bloodied her mouth in service of this kiss and she would have welcomed so much fierceness. He did not always have to be careful with her; she would not break under his touch. It was the lack of it that made her snappish and fragile, separation that made her less resilient. She was a woman with a woman’s needs, and there was no shame in that.
Her tongue touched the ridge of his teeth. It swept the interior of his mouth. She sipped on his lower lip, then the upper one. Through it all her eyes stayed open. Had there been candlelight, she thought, she would be darkly reflected in his eyes now, the wide pupils like black mirrors. She would see her own desire and not turn away from it.
“Shh,” he said. “Shh.”
At first she did not understand, then she heard her own whimpers. The sound was at the back of her throat, a soft mewling cry of need and satisfaction. She could not help it. Did he think she could? It was not possible to remain so quiet when his mouth was moving across the curve of her neck, then sipping the skin at the base of her throat. She would be marked there. In the morning there would be a purplish stain where his lips had been, proof that he had come to her, proof that he had been in her bed.
She whimpered again, this time because his mouth was stamping the high curve of her breast. He did not chastise her this time. Instead he made a damp spot in the batiste covering her aureole. He drew the flimsy fabric and the rosy tip of her nipple between his lips. He flicked it with his tongue, rolled it between his teeth.
Beneath him her body rose in a perfect arch. Even with his weight on her, the small of her back lifted from the bed. Her heels pressed hard into the mattress. She thought the bed shuddered slightly, but perhaps it was only that she did.
He pressed his entry. The fullness of his erection was so welcome to her that she almost sobbed with relief. Her thighs clutched his hips and in all ways she was open to him. She thrummed with pleasure as he seated himself inside her. His own quiet was unnerving. Did he not feel it, or was it only that he refused to give voice to it?
She was on the point of asking him what was wrong when she heard his soft groan. It was all right, then. They were all right. Fear of not being able to pleasure him was immediately forgotten.
“You are my heart.”
Had she said it aloud or only thought it? Neither, she realized. The words had come from him. So right. So perfect. She had not known how much she needed to hear those words until they were said. How had he known? How did he always know?
“Please,” she said softly.
“What is it?”
But she had no words to explain what she meant, only this one word and the hope that he would understand everything. “Please,” she said again.
“Just so.” He began to move in her, slowly, with long, sure strokes that she could match with the rise and fall of her hips. “Am I hurting you?”
She realized that he had wrested a cry from her. “No,” she said quickly. Immediately she knew he was not convinced. His next thrust was not as forceful as his last. “No, truly you are not. It is good. All of it.”
He stopped moving. Waited.
She was not proof against his patience. She was impulsive, occasionally reckless. He was the essence of fortitude. In a test of wills that involved forbearance, he would always be the victor.
“It is only that it has been so long,” she said. “I have been waiting for you ever so long.”
“You fit me as closely as a glove.”
Unintentionally she contracted around him. “Yes.”
“I’m afraid I will hurt—”
She did not let him finish. Even in the dark it was not difficult to find his mouth with hers. Against his lips, she whispered, “You cannot hurt me, not like this. It is only when you are gone from my bed, from my life, that I am hurt. Do not make me wait again.”
“It’s as if you’re a virgin.”
This made her laugh softly. “I’m not.”
He sucked on her lower lip. There was a corresponding tightness within her. She squeezed him and he moaned, closing his eyes and releasing her. “God, but you will be my undoing.”
She locked her hands around his neck. “If you mean to flatter me, then I will count that as a good thing.” Her sigh was audible as he began to move again. Her bottom lifted, fell. She knew his rhythm and his strength. They had done it just this way many times, and familiarity heightened her arousal rather than diminished it. She knew what to expect and when. Her responses were as measured as his. Her breast filled the warm cup of his hand, and her nipple scraped the center of his palm. Her breathing sharpened.
And just when she thought he could not—or would not—surprise her, he withdrew suddenly and turned her on her stomach. He lifted her hips and positioned himself behind her. She rested her cheek against the pillow sham and reached for the bedhead, bracing herself. He came into her with a short thrust, then a deeper one. His hands kept her tightly joined to him while hers sought purchase.
“Yes?” he asked, his voice
