He broke the kiss, tracing kisses across the top of her bosom, exposed by the décolletage of her gown.
He slid his hand from her breast, down her belly to her lap. “And do you feel a wet, burning heat here?” he asked, his voice low and soft.
“Y-yes,” she managed, blushing furiously in the dark.How did he know to describe it so accurately?
“Oh, Sarah!” his voice had an aching cadence to it that sent shivers through her and made the place between her legs throb.
“Let me,” he whispered, “do something about that.” His teeth grazed her neck lightly, making her gasp, and his tongue soothed the spot as his hand pulled up her skirts, until she could feel cool night air against her exposed thighs. She stiffened with embarrassment.
“R-Robert?” half question, half protest.
“You’ll like this, I promise,” he soothed, his hand tracing tingling patterns over her thighs.
She gasped, her breath coming in pants, her skin tingling, the aching heat, the wetness, getting stronger. He adjusted his arm around her shoulders to hold her more securely and slid his other hand higher, toward the apex of her thighs and that aching, wet place.
“Part your legs a little for me, Sarah,” he murmured softly against her ear. The intimacy of it, the strength of his arm around her, made her feel as if she were wrapped up in a cocoon of pleasurable warmth and safety. She did as he said, leaning her head into his shoulder, her hand grasping the lapel of his jacket.
“Good,” he whispered, and finding her mouth again, he kissed her. She lifted her head, pushing into the kiss, parting her lips and giving him access to her mouth as she did to the place between her legs.
The feather-light touch of his fingers gliding between her nether-lips made her gasp, such a searing exquisite pleasure took her breath away and made her whimper. Her flesh jumped and her hips jerked.
He made a noise in his throat that she recognized as a groan. He’d groaned before, kissing her, and she knew it denoted his own arousal, as it had been accompanied by the growing hardness in his breeches. She felt it now, pressing against her hip.
His fingers continued to slip up and down the channel between her lips and her breathing became erratic as an itchy restless pleasure took possession of her body. The achy desire built and built as she clutched at him more tightly, rubbing her face against his chest, squirming in his lap as her hips refused to stay still. Little noises escaped her, whimpers, mewls, moans as his fingers increased their pace, and moving them higher, he stroked a place where the pleasure was so intense she jumped nearly out of her skin when he first touched it.
“Robert!” she gasped.
“It’s all right, I have you,” he soothed. He swirled around that place, avoiding direct contact with it again, and the hot, hard desire built and built in her body once more. The intensity of it was like nothing she had ever felt before. Every fiber of her being strained toward something, she knew not what, as the feeling wound up to unbearably exquisite levels.
And then it burst, shattering her into a thousand pieces, her body going taut at the apex and then descending into a shuddering mass of quivering, throbbing pleasure. A groan tore from her throat and then her body collapsed back against him, in languorous peace, her face nuzzling into him as the throbs and tingles gradually dissipated, leaving her limbs heavy and her body limp.
He removed his fingers, cupped her briefly, and then dropped her skirts back into place, wrapping both arms around her and cradling her in a rocking motion, kissing her hair. “I have you,” he whispered.
A sense of peace pervaded her as she leaned into his embrace, soothed by the calm and the comfort of his arms.
She stirred eventually and lifted her head, and he kissed her lips gently, a chaste closed-mouth kiss. “Recovered?” he asked softly.
She nodded. “I think so.”
He smiled. “Good. There will be a great deal more on our wedding night, but I wanted you to experience something that would, I hope, allay your natural anxiety?”
She bit her lip and stroked his cheek. If she had been teetering on the brink of falling back into love with him, she had lost the battle entirely now.To show me such consideration and care, such exquisite pleasure, and take none for himself?
“Thank you,” she whispered, her whole heart in the words. She flung her arms round his neck and hugged him.
He kissed her neck and stroked her back.
“We had best go back in before a search party is sent out to retrieve us,” he said.
She stood up, and he rose and turned away, to rearrange his breeches she thought. Not surprising. She felt oddly light and buoyant.
*
As they approachedthe house, Robert felt a surge of satisfaction, he had achieved his objective, he thought, of preparing Sarah for their wedding night. She would now, he hoped, look forward to it with as much anticipation as he did. His groin ached, and he hoped there were no damp patches on his breeches. He would take care of himself later in the privacy of his room.
The key thing was that Sarah had achieved release and remarkably easily. He had been prepared for it to take much longer, but she seemed highly primed and even attracted to him.He had worried that she wouldn’t be and what he would do if she weren’t. But her reactions tonight made him hopeful that their wedding night could be one of mutual pleasure. He would certainly do everything he could to ensure hers. This was a step in the right direction, surely. He meant their marriage to begin on a good note. And perhaps he had done something toward atoning for his previous errors.
Chapter Twenty
