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“I don’t want to get out of anything,” she protested as she landed on her knees.
In a flash, he knelt before her to tear loose her chemise ties. He still seemed angry.
“I-I didn’t know…” she whispered, “and you did say I could take charge—”
“Yes, I’m a blasted idiot, I am. Remind me never to put you in charge of my pistol again.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t mean to ruin everything.”
His hands gentled. “Ah, sweeting, forgive my temper. You didn’t ruin anything.” Sweeping the long fall of her hair aside, he dropped a kiss on her collarbone. “It’ll take me a while longer to reload, that’s all.” He hastily dispensed with her chemise. “But that gives me plenty of time to make you lose control, my willful Aphrodite.”
Her pulse did a little jig to think of how he might make her lose control. Would he touch her in that secret way of his again, as he’d done in the conservatory? She’d liked that. She’d liked it very much.
Suddenly he was tipping her head up for an endless, searching kiss. As she met it with a surge of excitement, he tumbled her back onto the bed. The kiss went on and on, and when she came up for air, she found him rising to his knees next to her so he could remove her half boots.
In moments, her drawers followed her half boots to the floor, and he was kneeling between her stocking-clad calves, smoothing his hands over her knees as his gaze swept with greedy delight over every inch of her. Wherever it touched, her body reacted. Her nipples tightened into hard knots, her belly quivered, and between her legs a rush of some mysterious fluid dampened the curls that hid her most secret place. Even that did not escape his frank look.
“By thunder, I knew if I ever had you naked, I’d find you perfect in every way.” His voice was half worshipful, half wicked. “I knew it the moment I met you.”
“In Stratford?” she whispered.
His gaze lifted to hers, searching, hesitant. Then he echoed, “In Stratford.”
Her heart leaped at this evidence of trust, and with a blazing smile of sheer joy, she reached for him. “I thought you were supposed to be making me lose control.”
Gladness filled his eyes, too, and he lowered himself to her with a growl of satisfaction. His lips roamed her breasts, caressing and teasing, and his fingers sought out her hips and the tender cleft between her legs. From there the two of them fell into a fever of touching and exploring and fondling.
She’d never dreamed it could be like this with a man, although once or twice she had wondered how it would be with Morgan. Sebastian. Her Sebastian. Now she could think of him that way, because she believed in her heart he could never do anything really criminal. Not the man she’d come to know and respect, the man who would give up control over his own body if she asked it of him.
She wished she could memorize every smooth touch, every startling flick of his gifted tongue, every luscious, sinful kiss he pressed to her belly and arms and breasts. Soon his fingers delved inside her in that scandalous caress she craved, marvelous strokes that made her squirm and beg beneath him.
“Losing control, are you?” he growled as his hand worked its amazing magic.
“Not…in the…least,” she gasped, then made a liar of herself by adding, “Please, Sebastian…like that…yes…”
“Whatever madam wants.” He thumbed the secret spot that sent her out of her mind. “I love how you give yourself to me so freely, how you shake and tremble. I love how you arch your neck and thrust your pretty breasts up for me…”
With wicked comments like that and even more wicked caresses, he soon had her writhing beneath him, feeling the pleasure grow to a fever heat inside her until it splintered her into a million blissful pieces, and she cried out her enjoyment like a shameless wanton.
But she’d scarcely floated down into consciousness before something bigger pressed inside her, stretched her. She looked down to find his stiff John Thomas half buried between her thighs. Obviously, he hadn’t needed much time to reload after all.
He hovered over her with his hands braced on either side of her shoulders, his eyes gleaming in a face sheened in sweat. “You know there will be pain,” he warned in a guttural voice, as if it cost him a great deal just to speak.
Still awash in her previous satisfaction, she flashed him a contented smile and brought her arms up about his neck. “I’ll risk a little pain to get what I want.”
Fire leaped in his face. He bent to brush a kiss over her lips, then murmured, “I’ll make it as little pain as I can manage, sweeting.”
And he did. The twinge that accompanied his initial tentative thrust hardly made her wince. But the sensation of being opened impossibly wide wasn’t quite so easy to ignore. Slowly, he inched his way in, planting himself inside her as thoroughly as a rooted oak, and the mad thought entered her mind that she might never uproot him again.
Especially when he looked so very happy to be there. “You can’t imagine how good it feels to be inside you,” he said hoarsely. “My darling angel, you have no idea.”
“I certainly don’t,” she muttered, a little peeved. It hardly seemed fair that it should feel so good for him when all she felt was this invasive pressure. Why in creation did Helena and Rosalind praise lovemaking so much? Only because of what went before? To be sure, that was wonderful, but this…
As if he guessed her annoyance, he smiled. “Hold on, it gets better. Give me a chance.”
To do what—split her in two?
Then he began to move. At first, she felt only an uncomfortable friction. But that soon became a comfortable friction, then an agreeable friction, then an absolutely glorious friction. Like a brush fire, pleasure leaped from her thighs to her belly, smoldering wherever it landed, sparking more delights, more amazing sensations.
