At first her fingers were stiff, then they began to gently coil around him. “You’re so . . . so big. I don’t think—”
He held an index finger to her mouth. “Don’t think, love. Trust me on this.” His hand went back to cupping her between her thighs, applying pressure that made her rhythm accelerate. “What you’ve got down here will accommodate my size,” he said. His other hand went beneath her skirts and inched up to her smooth thighs as he lowered her onto the bed. “One other change occurs to a sexually aroused woman,” he whispered.
“What?” she asked, her voice winded.
His voice was low when he asked, “Do you feel wet?” The hand beneath her skirts nudged up between her thighs and dipped into her slick folds. “Here?”
She looked like a woman drugged when she nodded and raised her hips into the movement of his fingers.
“This is nature’s way of lubricating you for my entry.” God, he wanted to enter her this second! She was so blessedly wet. Not able to wait much longer, he sat up and began to tug her dress all the way to her ankles, then she kicked one leg free.
Like everything else about her, her body was exquisite—tiny and milky white with little fluffs of breasts and a tuft of golden hair between her thighs. Had his life depended upon it, he could not have found a voice with which to spew on ad infinitum of her beauty. But it was a beauty that would forever be emblazoned upon his memory. And on his heart.
He stood and blew out the candle, then threw off his shirt and breeches. The hearth provided enough light for him to see her as he came to lie beside her, this time tenderly settling his lips over hers. “Are you ready, love?” he asked.
“Yes, please,” she said, sifting her fingers in his hair.
“You’ll need to widen your legs,” he whispered as he began to move over her.
She did as he told her, and he came to settle between those luscious lily thighs, his thumb pressing the pearly bud in the center of her, then easing one finger back into her slippery opening. “Oh, Nick,” she said with a sigh.
“I’m coming, love.” He tucked the head of his shaft into her, just until the head disappeared, then he stopped. “Are you all right?” he asked in a gentle voice.
“Yes,” she whispered as her hips raised up to accommodate even more of him.
He gently eased himself in farther. “All right still?”
She raised her head until her lips met his and spoke breathlessly. “Don’t stop.”
He forced himself in still farther, this time he came up against a barrier. The maidenhead. He drew in his breath. “This may hurt. I’ve got to break through your chastity.”
Her head fell back against the pillow, and she nodded.
He was not sure what he should do next. Should he ram himself in so the unpleasantness would be quickly over? Or should he gently ease forward?
The decision was taken out of his hands when Fiona began to pulse against him. No pleasure he had ever known could equal this. She was so wet and warm and tight. And utterly willing. But his powerful emotions encompassed far more than just the physical.
When he tore through her barrier, she winced.
He stilled.
“Don’t stop,” she urged hungrily, moving against him.
He gradually regained the rhythm until the rhythm itself became the master and he its slave. They were both caught in the maelstrom, carried to a place where thoughts were fleeting fragments, where intense physical pleasure leaped at them like a raging fire, consuming them. Then she arched and stilled and began to tremble as her breath became ragged. He held her tightly as the orgasm rolled over her, lapping at her like an angry tide as she clenched him tighter and made throaty exclamations.
She pressed her lips into his, her fingers digging into his back as his seed began to fill her, as the rest of his length plunged into her.
How, she wondered, could such an uncomfortable action bring her such delirious pleasure? Would she always be this sore, or would the discomfort diminish with practice? Nick would know. If she had the brazenness to ask him. And, Good Lord, how could this bedchamber be this hot in the dead of winter? Were she wearing something it would have been completely drenched. Like her. Even her hair was damp and clung to her head.
When she felt Nick’s seed seeping through her, profound emotions swept over her. She really was his wife. She could quite possibly bear his child. Something in her heart rolled over at the thought. A very pleasant thought, to be sure.
From this moment on, there was no turning back. She was irrevocably bound to the enigmatic man whose shaft was buried in her at this very second.
Like she had done, he stilled, then began to tremble. Only he called out her name. “Oh God, Fiona!” At first she thought something was wrong with him, then she realized he was not dissatisfied. Not dissatisfied at all.
A moment later he slipped from her and rolled to her side, his body sleek with sweat. His gentle hand swept the moist hair from her brow, and he bent to press a soft kiss there. “There’s one other thing I neglected to tell you about being sexually aroused,” he said.
“What is that?” she asked in a breathless voice.
“After the deed is done, one feels as if one’s just run uphill.”
That explained the sweating. And the breathlessness. So far all of her reactions had been perfectly normal. Even the pointed nipples. The thought of her breasts being erotic sent pulsebeats of pleasure licking at her.
She lay there in the darkness, Nick tugging her to his chest, and she felt completely blissful. Except for the devilish soreness.
“Oh, love,” he murmured, “we are so good together. I couldn’t ask for a better wife.”
Her smile went deep as she buried her head into the crevice between his shoulder and chest. She could not have been any happier. Nick had called her love. Once tonight he had even said my love, which was infinitely better—considering the intimacy they had just shared. He was pleased with her. She truly believed he did not resent that she’d robbed his treasured bachelorhood.
And she truly hoped they could make love several times a night.
“Are you all right?” he asked a moment later, his voice gentle as he dropped soft kisses into her hair.
“I think so.”
He went suddenly stiff. “What’s the matter?” he asked in a concerned voice.
“I’ve heard that when a woman loses her chastity, there is blood?”
He drew in a deep breath. “There is.”
“Is that why I . . . experienced discomfort? Is it only for the first time?”
He held her tightly. “I’m not an authority on women’s virginity—you’re my first virgin—but I believe you may experience soreness for a week or so—until your . . . anatomy gets used to my invasion.”
“Will you answer me truthfully if I ask you a personal question?”
He did not answer for a moment. “Yes,” he finally said.
“Do the women you bed usually experience pain?”
“Never,” he said with authority. Then he sighed and tenderly stroked her back, her arms, her buttocks. “If you’d like, I won’t . . . enter you again until the soreness goes away.”
That’s not at all what she liked. She stiffened. “Is that what you wish?”
“You want the truth?”
She held her breath. “Yes.”
“