Page 69 of The Language of Love

Chapter 11

Good Lord, her eyes were the loveliest things that Henry had ever seen, more beautiful than an endless blue Bengali sky or a priceless sapphire. Cerulean and limpid and bottomless.

And right now, mortified and pained.

Christ, but he was a bastard to have taken advantage of her!

Henry knew he should feel ashamed, but he couldn’t—watching her come apart, not once, but twice, had been too damned delicious. Besides, on the scale of reprehensible behavior, he’d not done too badly, only fingering her when what he’d really wanted to do involved his mouth and cock.

Annis must have seen the desire in his eyes because she made an endearing squeaking noise and scooted away from him.

“Please don’t feel embarrassed,” he said, masking his lust with a—hopefully—reassuring smile.

She looked at him as if he were crazy. “How can I not be ashamed after the way I behaved?” She frantically brushed at the skirts he’d already lowered, as if to erase all evidence of the beautiful events of the last few minutes.

“You weren’t alone in your behavior,” he reminded her.

“You weren’t the one writhing and grinding and—ugh!I behaved like a—like a beast.” She covered her face with both hands and moaned, the sound heavy with self-loathing. “I don’t know what got into me.”

Henry had to bite back a smile. He suspected that her linguistic appreciation of double entendres wouldn’t extend to this particular situation. “Give me your hand.”

She peeked over her fingers; her forehead wrinkled. “Why? Just let me be. What else could—”

Henry took her wrist and set her palm against the front of his pantaloons, hissing at her touch. “Do you know what that is?” he asked through clenched teeth.

She scowled. “I’m inexperienced, not an idiot, Henry. It is your breeding organ.” She paused, her expression becoming thoughtful. “And it is ready to breed.”

He gave a breathless laugh. “Yes, it is. So, if you think you were the only one behaving like a beast, then you are wrong.”

She looked down to where her hand rested on him. “I did not know they could be so prodigious.”

And then she squeezed him.

Henry yelped and yanked her hand away.

“Does it hurt to squeeze it?” she asked, still staring at the front of his obscenely distended pantaloons.

“No, it does not hurt to squeeze it.” He could not believe he was having this conversation. “My point in showing it to you was not for squeezing, but to explain that I was every bit as aroused as you were. I want you. Badly. While I’d love nothing more than to lift your skirts and mount you right here on this blanket—”

She gasped and turned a delightful shade of pink.

“—that sort of behavior can have… repercussions,” he finished, laying his hand on her shoulder, relieved when she didn’t jerk away from his touch. “But what we did together is not wrong or evil, Annis. It is normal and healthy. And it doesn’t make either of us bad people.” He was desperate that she not hate herself for her wonderfully sensual nature. “I know you don’t believe it, but the sort of, er, affectionate behavior”—his face heated at the ridiculous euphemism— “that we just engaged in does not mean that you’re no longer a virgin.”

“I know that,” she hissed, her throat and chest still mottled with the aftereffects of her orgasm. And she had climaxed—at least twice.

It had been the most erotic event of his life, and he was still fully clothed. Never had he needed to impose such rigid control over his body. He was still shaking with need.

She might be small and slender, but she was wiry and strong and she had ridden his hand like some fierce nymph out of mythology, using him for her own pleasure.

It was an image he’d never forget.

But right now, she needed a moment to pull herself together, so Henry busied himself with their forgotten picnic.

“Are you angry with me?” he asked a few minutes later when she began to help him.

She shook her head but wouldn’t look at him.

“Annis?” Henry waited until she looked up. “Do you want me to take you home?” He didn’t want to, but he owed her that much, at least.