“All right?”
She nodded, and reached up to stroke his hair, which had fallen forward over his face. “Yes, just a—a pinch.”
He moved forward until he was fully seated. Her face registered a slight grimace, and he held still, his heart thudding. “I’m sorry,” he said, dropping apologetic kisses on her face. She shifted under him, her arms coming round his shoulders.
“It’s all right,” she said softly.
He found her mouth and, holding still inside her with a supreme effort, he kissed her deeply. “Lift your legs up a bit. It might help.”
He was going to explode in a moment if he couldn’t move. It was an exquisite form of torture. She lifted her knees and the angle changed, pushing him deeper. She gasped and he groaned.
“Better or worse?” he asked anxiously, panting.
“Better,” she said, moving under him in a way that made him moan and move his hips involuntarily.
“Sarah, I need to move, I—” His breathing was erratic, his heart thumping.
“Yes,” she said, slightly breathless. “Yes, please . . .”
With a groan, he moved, withdrawing slowly and plunging back in, his desire rising even as he battled to contain it. Watching her as he did it, straining to hold a slow pace, she smiled, and with relief he kept moving, gradually gaining momentum until he had a steady rhythm.It felt so damned good...
Irresistibly, his speed increased, she moved under him, restless, panting with him. He kissed her, random kisses, hard, soft, deep, her hands stroked over his back, sending tingles down his spine, making his buttocks go taut.
Fuck!He broke the last kiss, his head flung back in a loud groan as he hit the point of no return and came shatteringly hard. His body convulsed with a wave of deep pleasure; his seed loosed in a hard rush of pulsing heat. The wave was exquisite, flooding his whole body and taking him from bowstring tight to limp in a wash of eddying pleasure. He collapsed on her, panting, little grunts of residual aftershocks trembling through his body.
My God . . . devastating. . .
He lay listening to his heavy heartbeat and recovering his breath.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sarah lay beneathhim, stunned by what had just happened. The little she had known about marital congress had in no way prepared her for this. The throbbing pleasure she had experienced left her limp and dazed. The invasion of her body by his, had been at once both painful and fulfilling, a contradiction she could not reconcile. His weight on her ought to feel heavy and suffocating, instead it was comforting.
Her fragile heart swelled with warmth and longing and pride.I have given him pleasure, yes? As a wife should?She put her arms round him and stroked a hand down his sweaty back. His body was perfection. She breathed in his musky, masculine scent and pressed a kiss to his shoulder, the only bit of him her mouth could reach. His head was lying beside hers on the pillow. She could feel his heart thudding slow and heavy like her own. His breathing had returned to normal, a soft exhalation, warm against her ear, but his body was still limp and heavy on hers.
He stirred and lifted his head to gaze down at her, his expression as dazed as she felt. “Sarah,” he breathed her name as if it were a reverence and kissed her mouth with a soft, tender kiss. A contrast to the barrage of passionate, devouring kisses he had lavished on her before.
He cupped her face tenderly. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said with a tender smile. She felt open and vulnerable, all her shields down.
“Did I hurt you?”
She was about to say no when he moved, and a sharp stab of pain made her wince.
“I did!” He moved again, making her gasp as he extracted himself from her body. He rolled onto his side and pulled her against him. “I’m so sorry. I’m a selfish brute.” He kissed her hair and she subsided against him, her face buried in his chest, his tenderness a balm to her body and heart.Can he care for me, truly? Is this how the bond is formed between husband and wife, through the physical connection of their bodies?
“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”
“I do!” he said, stroking a hand down her back. “I had hoped to avoid that.”
“You’re not pleased?” she asked, raising her head to look at him. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. You did nothing wrong.”
“I don’t understand. How was it supposed to be then?”If this was to be avoided, what was supposed to happen?
“I should have held off longer until you reached your crisis again.”
