“Are you nervous, sweetheart?” he whispered, gently tugging the knot of sheet out of her fist and drawing it away from her body.
Sarah glanced up at his face, trying to come up with a witty remark, but her brain refused to cooperate. It had been a long time for her and she had only ever been with one man, a man who had only ever been with one woman. She was suddenly filled with such an overwhelming sense of inadequacy, she was afraid she might actually start to cry. She wanted so badly to please Matt, but she wasn't at all sure she knew how to go about it. He was bound to have sophisticated tastes and know all the subtle secrets of making love, while she knew only that she loved him.
“I'm nervous too,” Matt admitted quietly. The bed dipped beneath his weight as he stretched out beside her. He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her face in the thin silver light filtering through the window. “I want so much to please you, Sarah,” he murmured, echoing her thoughts. Then he set himself to the task.
He captured her left breast in his free hand and rubbed his thumb gendy over her nipple, drawing a soft gasp from her. Murmuring words of approval, he bent his head and caught the tender bead in his mouth, sucking, caressing it with his tongue. Sarah'5 back arched off the bed. She tangled her hands in his short dark hair and moved restlessly beneath him. Electric sensations swirled beneath his mouth and shot all through her, congregating in the pit of her belly.
Knowing exactly what she was feeling, Matt slowly slid his hand down, over the soft slight swell of her tummy and lower, pressing gently with the heel of his hand, groaning in satisfaction as she lifted her hips into the pressure. He cupped her feminine mound, his fingers massaging her soft, warm flesh, parting the delicate petals to stroke the heart of her desire.
Sarah stiffened and moaned, swamped by sensation and yet wanting more. She ran her hands over Matt's strong shoulders, learning every muscle that lay beneath the smooth warmth of his skin. As he slid up her body she let her fingers explore farther still, down the solid columns of flesh that flanked his spine, down to the rounded firmness of his buttocks.
As he bent to kiss her again he caught her by one wrist and pulled her hand over his hip to wrap it firmly around his erection, showing her exactly the way he liked to be stroked. His whole body shuddered at the pleasure of having her touch him, claim him. Her small fingers explored the length of him, wrung gasps from him as she feathered touches across his velvety tip, stroked downward to cup him. Matt returned the pleasure, sliding his fingers once more through the tight nest of curls at the juncture of her thighs to tease and to test her readiness.
“I want so much to please you,” he whispered again as he shifted his weight and knelt between her legs. “Sarah. My sweet, sweet Sarah.”
As he painted kisses across her face he pulled a pillow down from the head of the bed and eased it beneath her hips. Then, with tender care and touching hesitancy, he eased himself inside her. Slowly, savoring every inch she allowed him, sucking in his breath at how tight and hot she was. He paused to stroke her and groaned aloud when she tilted her hips up and took the whole length of him. There was mind-numbing sexual pleasure, but there was pleasure of another kind as well. A bright, wonderful sense of joy filled his chest as he sank down into Sarah's arms. This was the woman he loved.
He brushed two crystal teardrops from the web of her lashes with his thumbs. “Sarah?” he whispered, his heart hammering in his chest. “Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”
The smile that stretched across her face doused his fear. Beneath him she rolled her hips in a way that made the air tighten like fists in his lungs. He let his body answer hers with a deep reaching stroke.
Sarah sighed his name in her mind, in her heart. She may have even spoken it aloud, but she was beyond knowing or caring. All she could think of was the perfect sense of lightness and of completion she felt joining with him. This was the man she had been waiting for all her life, the missing piece of her soul. This was the man she loved.
She wrapped her arms around him and moved with him, letting her spirit fly higher and higher, embracing the feeling of freedom that had suddenly been let loose inside her. She arched against him, taking him deep and urging him deeper still. He moved within her strongly, rhythmically. He kissed her mouth, her neck, his breathing echoing hers in gasps and pants that came faster and faster. He traced his tongue over the shell of her ear, whispered a word she didn't understand, a plea, a command. She raked her fingers down his back and pulled him hard against her as she arched upward into his thrust, and the night seemed to explode around them and in side them in starbursts of color and waves of love.
The faint sound of the wind rattling the dried leaves of the tree outside the bedroom window was the first sound that penetrated Sarahs numbed consciousness. She blinked and listened, lying very still. Amazing. The world still existed. It seemed unchanged. How could that be? She had just changed radically. She felt as if every cell in her body had been rearranged and then infused with a powerful elixir that made her feel at once euphoric and energized and languid.
She waited for some sense of guilt or shame, but neither assaulted her. Matt was not her husband. She had known him only a matter of days. Yet she had lain with him, shared her body with him. She had been raised to believe such behavior was sinful, but she didn't believe it now as she lay in the warm circle of Matt's arms. She loved Matt Thorne. In the world they were poles apart, but in her heart they were soul mates. No matter what came of it, no matter what happened she would not regret that she had given herself to him in the name of that love.
Matt shifted beside her, taking more of his weight off her and lifting himself up on one elbow. He grimaced as she stretched to switch on the bedside lamp, then settled once again beside her.
“Well,” he said. “You keep telling me I ought to be in bed. Are you happy?”
Happy? Happy didn't begin to cover it. But she was unaccustomed to talking with a man after making love—Samuel had found sex a duty and talk afterward unnecessary—and she wasn't sure what kind of response was appropriate at any rate. It struck her as unseemly to give him a critique of his performance, and she wasn't sure she wanted to hear one. She ducked her head and dodged his eyes, fumbling for the edge of the sheet.
Matt was touched by her shyness. He knew without asking, Sarah didn't just jump into bed with every halfway decent guy who came down the pike. She radiated innocence and inexperience, both of which excited him, and he wondered vaguely if that made him some kind of pervert. He'd just made love to an angel and, instead of feeling guilt about it, he felt powerful and male, vulnerable and in love. The strange mix of feelings swam inside him as he stared down at her.
“I'm happy,” he whispered. He traced the back of a finger along her far cheek, turning her face gently and leaning down to kiss her. Lifting his lips just a heartbeat from hers, he looked into her eyes and said, “I can't remember the last time I was this happy.”
It was the truth. For a long time now he had felt nothing but weariness and cynicism. He had maintained a frantic pace to his life more to distract himself from falling into despair than anything else. He had set out to achieve a goal that was unobtainable, and the disappointment had taken much of the joy out of his life. But that life was a long way away just now. Here, in the country, he felt cleansed and at peace. Here, lying next to Sarah, he felt happy and whole.
“Me too,” she murmured, sharing his sense of completion.
“I know it seems like this is all happening too fast,' Matt said, giving voice to the obvious argument. “I know it's only been a few days. But I know what's in my heart, Sarah. I'm falling in love with you.”