Plainly and simply stated, he needed her. And it did not occur to her for a single moment to resist his need.
When his mouth found hers, it was hard and urgent, grinding her lips against her teeth, bruising them, pressing them apart. His tongue plunged deep into her mouth. One of his hands, spread over her lower back, jerked her hard against him, leaving her in no doubt of the sexual turn his need had taken.
She felt curiously detached. The part of her that was the Lauren Edgeworth, perfect lady, stood some distance away, coolly analyzing, admonishing her with the reminder that this was the inevitable consequence of all the impropriety that had characterized her dealings with him from the very start—from the very moment she had looked back over her shoulder at him in Hyde Park. This was the consequence of being repeatedly alone with him, having deceived her family and his into allowing it on the assumption that they were betrothed. This was the sort of unbridled, dangerous passion one must expect to be unleashed by the unseemly talk of violence she had allowed when they were alone together behind locked doors.
This had to be stopped right now.
The other, less familiar, formerly unsuspected part of herself that had been born at Vauxhall—or perhaps much earlier than that, in the park—stayed present in his arms and recognized that she was a woman, that he had need of her, that she had warmth and femininity and humanity to offer him in his need. And the freedom to give all if she chose. Choices again. Until recently—ah, until now—choices had never been difficult. She had always known, by the rigid code of gentility, what was right. She had never known the code of the heart. Honor or love? They were opposed, as they had been for him. But this time it was love that could—and should—triumph.
She chose love, though she did not perhaps use that word to herself since her thoughts were not verbal ones.
This, she thought quite clearly— this was what she had meant at Vauxhall. She knew it with a sudden blinding intuition. This was what she had meant. This coming alive to the woman who had been locked away all her life inside the lady who was Lauren Edgeworth.
His mouth was against her throat, on her shoulders, at her breasts. His hands were moving urgently against the flimsy fabric of her evening gown, pushing it off her shoulders and down her arms, exposing her breasts. She did not flinch even though there were both firelight and candlelight to make her feel doubly exposed. She was a woman and he needed her. She would give, then. She needed too—she needed to be a woman. She shivered with mingled fright and excitement as his mouth closed warmly over one breast and suckled her, his tongue flicking over her nipple and suffusing her from head to toe in raw desire. She cupped a hand with infinite gentleness over the back of his head and set a cheek against his soft fair hair.
He moved his head to set his forehead against her shoulder.
“Stop me,” he said, his voice both rough and husky. “For God’s sake, Lauren, stop me.”
“No.” She lifted his head with both hands and looked into his face, her fingers gently stroking through his hair. “This is what I choose, Kit. What I freely choose. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.” She could not bear it now if he did. “This is not just for you. It is for me too.” She feathered light kisses over his face as she spoke, kissing his cheeks, his eyes, his mouth.
He was holding her again then, just as close, and kissing her just as deeply as before except that the frenzied urgency had gone, to be replaced by hot passion mingled with what felt very like tenderness. As if she had become for him not just a woman, but Lauren too. Her naked breasts pressed against his coat.
She was giver and gift. He was gift and giver.
It was upon one of the velvet benches that he laid her down after another minute or two. It was quite wide enough to make a narrow bed, she realized. She reached up her arms for him, but he was raising her gown to her waist, removing her silk slippers, her stockings and her undergarments, unbuttoning the front flap of his breeches. His eyes, heavy-lidded with desire, roamed over her. His hair was disheveled, his cheeks flushed. He looked beautiful beyond belief.
Lauren Edgeworth, that disciplined lady, stood apart again for a moment and informed her other self that she was simply not thinking, that she would forever regret what would happen unless she put a stop to it now. But the point was that she was thinking. This was not mindless passion. It was not even passion, in fact. It was something more primal, more deeply emotional than that. It was something she knew with absolute certainty she would never regret.
He knelt beside the bench, kissing her face with light, feathering kisses. With his hands he fondled her, doing exquisite things with her breasts, holding them, stroking them, rolling the hardened, tender nipples between thumbs and forefingers. And then with one hand he fondled her there, his fingers nimbly probing her naked flesh, parting folds, stroking, lightly scratching, pulsing, finding the most intimate part of her and sliding inward.
She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly.
She knew what happened between a man and a woman. Aunt Clara had explained it to her before her planned wedding to Neville. She had sometimes tried to imagine it, though more often she had tried not to. It must be embarrassing, utterly distasteful, she had always thought. She had imagined it as a purely carnal thing, totally stripped of emotion or even of any tactile sensation apart from the humiliating penetration of her body that must occur.
She had never suspected that there would be this ache, this yearning, this eagerness to be penetrated, to be joined. This need—emotional as well as physical—to give and to be gifted. Was this passion? If so, it was not mindless at all.
“Lauren.” His mouth was warm over hers. “It is not too late to stop me.”
“Don’t stop.” She did not open her eyes. “Kit . . .”
He had removed his coat and waistcoat. His shirt felt warm and silky against her naked breasts. So did his breeches against her inner thighs as he pushed between them and spread them wide. His weight bore her down into the velvet cushions of the bench. It made her feel more defenseless, on the verge of alarm. Open and vulnerable. And pulsing with a heightened need that was almost unbearable.
She felt him then, pressed against the place where his finger had been just moments before. But much thicker, harder . . . She breathed in slowly as he came inside her, slowly, stretching her, filling her with a terrifying sort of exultation. There was no going back now, no stopping him. It was too late, and she was glad it was too late. She gripped his shoulders and concentrated upon not showing either fear or pain. There was pain. There was no more room. He was going to hurt her—but she had been told it would hurt. Then something tore inside her, something that for a moment threatened unbearable pain and then was gone, just as the barrier of her virginity was gone. He pushed deep.
“Lauren,” he murmured against her ear. “Sweet. So very sweet. Have I hurt you?”
“No.” Her voice sounded shockingly normal.
She should lie still and relaxed, Aunt Clara had advised, until her husband had finished. Her husband.
Finished? Had he finished now?
He drew out of her and she felt a pang of regret. This was all? Once in a lifetime and it was over already, to be relived only in dreams for the rest of her life? Over so soon? But at the moment she expected him to withdraw altogether he pushed back inward. There was soreness. There was also an exquisite silken feeling and the knowledge that there were to be a few moments longer. She wanted to beg him to do it again, but even at such a moment she knew a lady’s reluctance to appear gauche or to make foolish demands.