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His masculine pride was no match for the need tearing through his veins like liquid hellfire.
He stroked her, parted her, and pushed himself into her…and she screamed.
Chapter 13
What sounded like a scream to the more-nervous-than-he’d-admit bridegroom was only a small, startled exclamation.
When therefore, he stopped abruptly, Lydia’s own nervousness mixed with embarrassment.
She opened her eyes. His were dark, his face set in rigid lines.
“What?” she said. “What did I do wrong?”
“Did I hurt you?”
The embarrassment ebbed. Lydia shook her head.
“I was too hasty.” His voice was harsh. “You weren’t ready.”
“I didn’t know what to expect,” she admitted. “I was surprised.” She shifted position, pulling her knees up slightly. He inhaled sharply. She gasped, too, at the strange sensations within.
The part of him inside her was not only large, but seemed to have a throbbing life of its own that radiated waves of heat. “Oh,” she whispered. “I had no idea.”
His expression softened.
Her muscles also began to relax, adapting to his size.
He hadn’t really hurt her. It stung a little at first, and she’d felt an uncomfortable friction and tightness. She was more comfortable now—physically, at any rate.
“I’m such a ninny,” she said. “I thought something was wrong with me, that you wouldn’t fit.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your body.” He moved inside her, and her breath caught again.
No, there wasn’t anything wrong with her body. With him, she didn’t feel like a giantess. But her body was all she was sure of.
She wasn’t a lady, not even half a lady. No Ballister blood ran in her veins. She was no longer sure who she was, what she was.
He lowered his head. “Grenville.”
“I hate not knowing what to do.”
His mouth covered hers.
She reached up, tangled her fingers in his hair.
She wanted him. She wasn’t unsure about that. She drank in the sinful taste of him, inhaled the scent of his skin.
She’d learned how to kiss him, how to stop thinking, and swim in sensation instead.
She’d learned how easy it was for control to slip away and longing to take its place.
She’d learned that longing dug deep, a dagger to the heart.
She ached now, though he was inside her, part of her. She ached because she knew what he was and knew better than to hope he’d change. She knew that what she yearned for was more than he could ever give.
She became aware again of his hands moving over her, caressing, moving down to the place where they were joined. He touched her there as he’d done before to prepare her. This time, though, he was inside her as well, and the stroke of his fingers, combined with the vibrating inner heat, made her squirm. The ache spread, beating through her like a pulse.
She felt him withdrawing, and, “No, wait,” she begged. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, to hold him.
The muscles under her hands knotted, taut as whipcords, and he thrust inward. Pleasure reverberated in vein and muscle.
“Oh, God,” she gasped. “Sweet Jesus.”
Again he stroked, and this time she arched up, instinctively, to meet it. The ache swelled, mingling with pleasure to sweep through her like a hot incoming tide. Another stroke came, and she met it. And again and again, while pleasure pounded against doubt and despair until they shattered.
She surrendered then, body, soul, will—all—to him. She clung to his sweat-slicked skin, rocking with him while the rhythm built, inexorably, faster and wilder, like the storm that had borne down upon them while they raced.
And this time, too, the climax took her unawares. She heard his low cry, an animal sound, felt his fingers grasping her buttocks, lifting her. She felt the last, fierce thrust…and a bolt of joy, searingly bright, tore through her. And then another and another, until she shattered, like a bursting star, and darkness enveloped her.
For a long while afterward she lay stunned.
For a long while, she couldn’t find her tongue. No surprise, when she couldn’t find her brain.
When, finally, she forced her unwilling eyes open, she found herself staring straight into his.
Before she could read their expression, he blinked and looked away. Carefully he withdrew from her. He rolled onto his back and lay silent, staring at the ceiling.
She also kept silent for a while, telling herself it was ridiculous to feel lonely and rejected.
It wasn’t personal, she reminded herself. That was the way he was. Helena had warned her. Once used, we’re worthless.
Only worthless to him, though. She wasn’t a worthless woman, Lydia told herself, and she shouldn’t feel that way simply because he moved away and wouldn’t look at her.
“It’s not my fault,” she burst out. She sat up. “Marrying me was your idea. You could have bedded me. I offered myself to you. It is completely unreasonable to sulk about it now, when I gave you every opportunity to change your mind.”
He rose up from the pillows, firmly cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her, hard.
She melted instantly, her arms wrapping about him. He sank back onto the pillows, taking her with him. His long legs tangled with hers while he drained her doubts and loneliness with a deep, mind-melting kiss.
She understood, then, that whatever was wrong, it hadn’t to do with his desire being sated. He wasn’t finished with her yet. When, finally, he released her mouth, his hands still moved over her, lazily caressing.
“If you had regrets, I suppose you’re too obstinate to admit it,” she said.
“You’re the one who was blithering about your unworthiness,” he said. “You’re the one who was looking for a way out.”
Lydia had no way out now. For better or for worse, she was tied to him. She wouldn’t have minded if she could perceive some good she could do him.
She would not let herself worry about the harm he could do her. She could bear that, whatever it was. Life had taught her that she could bear anything.
She drew back, lifting herself onto one elbow for a better view of his long, leanly muscled body. “I shall simply have to make the best of matters,” she said. “On the physical side, at least, I’ve nothing to complain about.”
She hadn’t realized how tense he was until now, when his expression eased and his mouth slowly curved. She had never seen this smile before. If she had, she would have remembered.
Crooked, disarmingly boyish, it was, as Helena had said, a smile that could make roses bloom in an arctic wasteland.
Lydia felt it spread over her like the warmth of the sun. Her pulse, which had finally returned to normal, began to hurry again, and she could actually feel her brain softening, ready to believe anything.
“Do you know what, Grenville?” he said. “I think you’re besotted with me.”
“There’s a brilliant insight,” she said. “Do you think I would have married you if I were not? If I were fully rational?”
“Are you in love with me, then?”
“In love?” Lydia stared at him. She was a writer, and words were her life. “Besotted” and “in love” were not synonyms. “In love?” she repeated incredulously.
“In the ditch, you said you’d become attached to me.”
“I am attached to my dog,” she said in the crisp tones of a schoolteacher. “I make allowances for Susan’s inferior intelligence and humor her to an extent that seems reasonable. I should be sorry if anything happened to her. Does it follow that I’m in love with her?”
“I see your point, Grenville, but she’s a dog.”
“Apart from my belief—based on experience—that the masculine brain appears to function much in the way of the canine brain—”
“You’re so prejudiced against men,” he chided, still smiling.
“Love involves the heart and mind—the soul, if yo
u will. ‘Besotted’ indicates an altered state of physical being, similar to that induced by overindulgence in drink. Both—”
