She pulled out of his arms, relief and desire tumbling through her. “To the bed!”
He dragged off his boots as he went, then grabbed the bedpost as though to steady himself. She didn’t know whether to sit or lie down, ending up somehow in between the two, and he was staring.
“What are you waiting for?” Her voice quavered.
“For reality to waken me.” He said this quite seriously.
A little sob of elation escaped her after all. “This is reality.”
He unfastened his trousers and removed them, and then it was her turn to stare. Indeed she could not prevent herself, frightened and shocked and so achy between her legs she had little doubt what came next; her body was telling her.
He came to her and beneath his hungry gaze she did, for the moment, feel truly beautiful.
“You are damnably kissable,” he murmured. “Every inch of you.” He stroked her nipple with his thumb, passing over it once then again, gently, deliciously. He bent and took it into his mouth.
“Oh, yes,” she sighed. “I have been wanting you to do this again since Knighton.”
“I mistreated you that night.” His tongue flicked over her breast’s tender peak. Then again. “I touched you when you did not invite it—”
“I did invite it.” She arched beneath the stroking of his hand down her waist, lifting her hips, inviting him there. “Why didn’t you have me?”
“I could not.” His caresses stilled. “The drink had made me incapable.”
She blinked.
“Do you understand?” he whispered somewhat unsteadily against her cheek.
“I think so.” She glanced downward. “It—It isn’t always like this, is it?”
A crease formed at the corner of his mouth. “It is when you are near.” Then his smile faded. “Except that night.” His grasp tightened on her waist. “Will you withdraw your forgiveness for that offense now—now that you know it was not by my honor but by my failure that I left you a maiden that night?”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Diantha—”
“I don’t believe you would have. Not if I had refused you.” She stroked her fingertips along his chest and closed her eyes. “More to the point,” she whispered, and slipped her hand down his waist. “You haven’t been drinking tonight.”
His breaths came hard. She curved her fingers around his man part. It was as solid as it looked, and smooth and as hot as the need that throbbed inside her. “If I refused you now, at this moment, would you truly let me go?”
“You will not refuse me.” There was a rawness to his voice, the craving he had spoken of now at the surface.
“No.” Her voice shook like her body. But she ached and she needed the ache answered by him. She parted her knees and he moved between them, his body hot, his skin caressing hers so that she could not catch her breath.
“I will not hurt you,” he said quietly.
“I know.” It was barely a whisper. “You won’t?”
He kissed her brow, beside her mouth, her throat, then her lips so beautifully. “Never again.”
“But—”
He touched her with his fingers, deftly, intimately. She froze. Then he stroked again, his caress certain, and skillful. Her body seemed to remember him inside her, wanted it, and opened with a shudder. Upon that shudder he entered her.
He went still, his breaths heavy and fast. “My God.” His voice sounded strange, at once rough and tight. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. I think so.” Oddly stretched, not entirely comfortable, but boggled that her body could do this with his. She let her hand slip across his shoulder, taut male strength beneath her fingertips. He was all around her, his arms holding her even as her body held him. She had never imagined this sort of thorough intimacy. For all she had dreamed of his embraces, she had never imagined this. “There is no pain. Not really. Shouldn’t there be pain the first time?”
He threaded his fingers through her hair. “We may have taken care of that in Knighton.”
“I thought you didn’t remember Knighton,” she whispered.
He kissed her mouth softly. “I could not forget that.”
“There is more to this.” She tilted her head back, accepting his kisses on her throat, sliding her toes along the counterpane, feeling him so solid inside her, so attached. “Isn’t there?”
“Considerably more.” His eyes glimmered like diamonds. “Let me show you.”
“Yes.”
He showed her. Rather—gentleman that he was—in response to her many questions, he taught her.
He was very patient. But he was a very good teacher. She learned quickly. And as he touched her and made her body hunger then fed her hunger with his, she learned most of all that her flesh could be teased, it could be tormented to the point of desperation. But it could not, after all, be divorced from her heart. Because amidst the caresses and kisses, when he whispered her name, that was when she lost all control.
Then the pleasure that she did not expect came, tightly wound, seizing her, tumbling through her so that she groaned quite uncontrollably, then whimpered, then actually shouted.
“Oh, no.” She dug her fingertips into his waist, pulling him tighter, harder, and wanting it to go on and on. “Kiss me so that I will cease making these noises.”
He kissed her. With a strong hand he pulled her knee up beside his hip, and she loved this intimacy amidst intimacy, the brush of skin against skin, her thighs cradling him, the heat of their bodies as he moved in her. His thrusts came faster, his muscles like rock beneath her hands. He delved to the very center of her it seemed and everything inside her opened again.
“Ohh!”
Eyes closed, abruptly he gripped her hard and did not move except within her. “My God,” he growled, then upon a hard breath, “Diantha.”
She gulped in air, her lips and brow damp and his skin beneath her hands. He lowered himself to his elbows, his chest brushing the tips of her breasts, and kissed her anew. They were kisses of satisfaction and tasted different, salt clinging to her lips and the flavor of him. He passed his thumb across her lower lip, then stroked down her throat and shoulder, her entire body skimming upon the surface of unbearable sensitivity.
He drew away from her, his hand trailing across her waist. Falling onto the mattress at her side, he closed his eyes and released a long breath that sounded no steadier than her erratic heartbeats.
She turned to look at him, at the angle of his cheek and jaw, the strength in his shoulders and arms that had held her. Her lungs felt astoundingly tight. She had tried and succeeded at many remarkable endeavors of late. It was strange how in this most natural endeavor—simple breathing—she now failed.
Chapter 20
Wyn listened to the soft, stuttered breathing of the maiden who had given him her body with generous passion, and a purely foreign sensation paralyzed him. For a minute he remained still, then another, and another, allowing the chill of the chamber to stave off sleep so that he could think, reason, understand. He opened his eyes, stared at the canopy above, seeing the details in the wood with the aid of moonlight.
He could see the imperfections in the wood grain, the knothole in the third board, a dark whorl of a blemish that brought character to the plain adornment. He could focus on those details. He thought of focusing on them. His mind was clear. Perfectly clear. And yet he was content.
Considerably more than content. His body was satisfied as it had not been in memory. No thirst lingered close to the surface, no craving simmered in his veins, no anger that the craving could not be assuaged. He craved nothing. It had been so long since he’d felt anything stronger than the sensation of desperate need, peace was foreign to him.