Mildly triumphant, he drew back. "Don't move. Just wait." Then he straightened completely. Reaching around, he felt for her shoes, and removed them. Tracing her long legs upward until he encountered her garters, he stripped them and her stockings off. Her chemise was the merest wisp of fine silk-he decided to ignore it for the moment. Shrugging out of his coat, he heard the crackle of the promissory note and their lists; he tossed the coat toward where he'd seen a chair. His waistcoat and shirt followed in short order, then he toed off his shoes and stripped off his trousers.
The lamps in the sitting room had gone out; the darkness was intense. He couldn't see her-only feel her, hear her, sense her. And she couldn't see him.
"What…?"
He reached for her, sliding his hands along her flanks, up over her sides. "Just trust me." He joined her on the bed, rolling and lifting her as he did, moving them back so their long legs weren't hanging over the edge.
She gasped as he rose over her again, her hands clutching wildly as, palms flat on either side of her, he braced his arms and held himself above her. Wedging his hips between her widespread thighs, he surged and filled her until she was full. Then he lowered his head, searching for her lips. Her fluttering hands found his face, then her lips joined with his. She offered them, and her mouth, willingly, lovingly. He took both as he rocked her, rocked into her, until she was once again easy, accepting the smooth slide of his staff into her sheath with gratifying eagerness.
Pulling back from the kiss, he held himself above her and changed the tenor of their joining. He kept the rhythm slow, but rolled his hips as he entered her, encouraging her to spread her thighs wider, raise her knees higher.
Then her fingertips hesitantly touched his chest, another of her butterfly caresses. He bit his lip and concentrated on keeping to his slow beat. His muscles flickered and twitched as her fingers delicately traced over his chest, his waist, his flanks. Stifling a gasp, he thrust deeper. "Wrap your legs around me like before."
She obeyed instantly, locking her legs about his hips. "Now what?"
She couldn't see his smile. "Now we ride."
They did. Together.
He'd purposely darkened the room to ease her fear of revealing herself, her identity, to him. In doing so, he'd unwittingly created a sensual situation beyond even his ken. Making love in total darkness emphasized the tactile sensations and amplified the soft, intensely sensual sounds. It was a new and very different experience, loving a woman blind.
He was aware of every square inch where they touched, aware of the screening quality of her silk chemise, nowhere near as fine as the skin beneath it. He heard every little hitch in her breathing, every soft sound she made; he was attuned to every moan, every gasped, incoherent entreaty. He knew her perfume, but it was another scent that wreathed his brain, that of her and her alone. In his arms, in the dark, she became the epitome of woman, in truth the houri he'd labelled her. She was the essence of joy and the essence of madness; she was the ultimate challenge.
His senses were full of her, focused most completely on where they joined. The heightened sensations left him reeling.
He'd never before had a woman to equal her. That was borne in on him as they rode on, through their sensual landscape, scaling higher and ever higher peaks. She matched him-not just physically, although that was wonder enough; she clung, gasped, shattered, then rose again to ride on. But she was there, with him, urging him on, daring and challenging, joyously inviting him to dive into the sensual whirlpool her body had become. A whirlpool of giving.
He demanded and she gave-not just generously but with a wild abandon that shattered his control. He couldn't get enough of her; he drank greedily, yet her well was never dry.
She gave him joy and delight and pleasure unimaginable, and in the giving received the same. When the end finally came and their ride ended in soul-shattering glory, he was, for the first time in his life, utterly beyond this world.
One thought drifted past: He'd been the first to have her.
A second later, that deeply buried part of him he rarely let loose growled a correction: The only one to have her.
Holding her close, feeling her soften beneath him, he shut his eyes and drifted into pleasured bliss.
She woke slowly, her senses gradually returning, her scattered wits reassembling in fits and starts. The first thing she was aware of was that there were tears in her eyes. They weren't tears of regret but of joy-a joy too deep, too intense to find expression in word or thought.
So that was what lay between a woman and a man. The thought brought a surge of giddy delight, followed immediately by a rush of gratitude-to him who had demonstrated so well.
Her lips kicked up at the ends. She'd heard for years that he was an expert in that sphere-she could now attest to the fact. He'd been gentle and tender, at least once he'd realized she was a novice, but later… she didn't think he'd held back.
She was glad-glad of the experience, glad it had happened. Especially glad it had happened with him. That last made her frown.
Even though it was dark and had been throughout, so that he'd been no more than a phantom, kissing her, caressing her, she'd always known it was he.
Him. Her senses focused on the heavy body lying upon her, the heaviness within her, filling her, stretching her…
The realization jolted her fully awake.
Her immediate thought was that this wasn't she-or not the same she. She had a naked man in her arms and they were joined; she was changed forever physically. And emotionally; she couldn't forget how she'd writhed beneath him, wanton and wanting. She was incontrovertibly altered-she could never go back to who she'd been.
She waited for the recriminations to start, the dire prophecies, the hysterical outpourings. Nothing came. Instead, she remained at peace, filled with a warm glow she'd never known, never even imagined existed. And she couldn't regret it.
It had been no one's fault; she hadn't imagined it could happen against a wall, not with them both upright. Her feet had been firmly on the floor. Her head, of course, had been wholly in the clouds, her wits swept away on a tide of pure desire.
The thought brought the experience back to her-the burgeoning excitement, the scintillating thrill, the pure, unadulterated joy. This, here, with him, would be the only chance she'd ever have of experiencing it-the true magnificence of being a woman, a woman joined with a man. There was no one she was hurting; no one in her life to care. No one who would ever know. She'd been condemned by circumstance to die an old maid; what harm could there be in this, her one taste of glory? It would have to last her the rest of her life.
Although he'd been inside her before she'd realized his intention, she'd known precisely what she was doing when she'd told him not to stop. She'd had plenty of experience in making decisions; she knew how it felt when she'd decided right. It felt like this.
In the same way she'd never looked back, never regretted turning her back on London and her Season all those years ago, she would not regret this. No matter what complications arose, she'd experienced and enjoyed-and lusted.
A gurgle of inner laughter welled up inside her. Sternly quelling it, she tried to shift, only to find it impossible. The movement once more focused her senses on the hard male body pressing hers into the bed. He was heavy, yet oddly, she rather liked the feeling of his weighted limbs pressing her into the mattress. She wasn't uncomfortable, indeed, quite the opposite, strange though that seemed. Her legs had relaxed from about his waist but were still tangled with his. One of her arms was draped over his shoulder; her other hand lay against his side.