Uncommonly pleased, she stood on her toes and pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Then why must we stop?”
Thomas groaned and pressed his forehead to hers. “You are torturing me…fraying my resolve.”
“I wish to marry you someday,” Nora said and then punctuated the statement with another kiss to the front of his bare neck, causing his throat to bob violently. “And I trust your intentions because I know you…and I know you know Beth and I would both murder you if you were anything less than honest with me.” His deep chuckle was cut short when she pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the notch at the base of his neck. “So do not withhold anything from me, because I am prepared to give you everything.” Her eyes found him watching her raptly. “Everything.”
In one swift movement, Thomas bent and slung her in his arms, hiking her high against his chest. Her squeal of surprise and delight was like an arrow straight to his already painful arousal. Carrying her more deeply into the orchard, he searched for a comfortable place for them to sit undisturbed. The caretaker and other keepers had already left, thank God, so their only company were the birds, insects, and bushy-tailed squirrels darting to and fro.
“Where are you taking me?” Nora laughed her intoxicating, airy laugh as she slung her arms around his neck.
“Somewhere more private,” he replied over the hammering of his heart.
Finally satisfied that he’d located a decent spot, Thomas regretted that he had no coat to lay upon the ground and, instead, settled for dropping to the earth and propping his back against the trunk of a tree, still cradling Nora in his lap. If she felt the hard evidence of his arousal beneath her bottom, she made no indication.
She seemed satisfied to gaze down into his face. Her sherry-colored eyes and chestnut hair gleamed in the golden light. The fullness of her bottom lip begged to be nipped. He’d known Nora for five years and couldn’t precisely pinpoint when his fondness for her had transformed into something deeper, more primal. But the fact remained that he would do anything for her. She had the truest heart he’d ever known, a rapier-sharp wit, wildness beyond compare, and incomparable kindness. She’d astonished him from the very first day they’d met, when she’d been no more than a terrified young girl doing her best to protect her friend and hold herself together at the same time. He suspected that fierceness had sowed the very first seed of possibility in the back of his mind.
Each time she’d made him laugh, demonstrated her love for Beth while refusing to pity her, or caused charming mischief, that seed had been watered and nurtured. Now, the garden had overtaken him, mind, body, and soul. He was overgrown with need and desire for the young woman she’d become, and he hadn’t lied when he’d told her there would be no one else for him. It would still be a few years until he reached his majority and was free to marry, but he vowed to himself from their very first kiss that he would take only Nora Allen as his wife, his viscountess, the mother to his children.
He curled his hand behind her head, burrowing it in her soft tresses, and brought her lips down to his once more. Despite his body screaming for more, Thomas tasted her with infinite tenderness. He wanted to convey how much her trust meant to him—how honored he was to have her love. How he cherished it. How he cherished her.
His tongue stroked through Nora deep and slow, savoring her sweetness, sucking her tongue into his mouth. Her cool hands cupped his face and she kissed him back with unabashed eagerness.
She couldn’t know what she gave him permission to do, but he couldn’t deny her anything. He resolved to stop if at any point she seemed unsure or simply doing what she thought he wanted. Until they reached that point, he would enjoy this.
He lifted her skirts and helped shift her hips so her thighs straddled him, revealing pale expanses of bare legs. The intimate knowledge that she’d foregone stockings for her walk was enough to make him groan from deep in his chest. With a mind of their own, his hands wrapped around her thighs to caress the delicate skin and dip beneath the edge of her dress and petticoats.
“Your skin is so soft,” he moaned against her lips while his thumbs ran back and forth across her flesh. His heart and his cock throbbed in frantic desperation.
He wished he was more experienced for Nora. He wished he was confident in all the ways he could bring her pleasure. His knowledge of the female body was limited to boyish boasting filled with inaccuracies and exaggerations, and a single party at University where a hired doxy strode about mostly nude and performed favors for the young men gathered there. More uncomfortable by the display than aroused, Thomas hadn’t stayed long—though he had filed away a few tidbits of knowledge.
When Nora didn’t protest, he slid his hands up to cup the gentle slope of her naked hips and sank his fingers into the flesh to press her down into him as he ground up against her heat. Immediately, she gasped and sat up straight.
Thomas froze.
“Did I hurt you?”
Nora could only shake her head, several locks of her hair falling loose. “That was…I want more…” she breathed.
Needing no further urging, Thomas resumed guiding Nora’s hips to rock her lower body against his lap. It took several tries, but they eventually found a rhythm that suited them both with long, slow drags of her cleft against the underside of his turgid cock through the confinement of his breeches. There was no time for embarrassment or nerves when he held this woman in his arms. She was everything he’d ever wanted.
His eyes were drawn to her bosom heaving over the edge of her fitted bodice. Something primal within him had always been able to tell her breasts were high and firm, but he hadn’t been able to imagine the color of her nipples, and now, their current nearness made him salivate. Unable to resist, Thomas hooked a finger in the edge of her bodice and dipped it in the hot crevasse between the pale orbs. He tugged it down as much as he could until the shell pink edge of an areola was exposed. It took some doing, but he was able to lift her breast from her gown and expose the puckered bud of her nipple. He palmed her with his trembling hand and was spurred on when she arched into the caress as much as her corset allowed. The duced contraption was so bloody inconvenient. He wanted to see and touch all of her, but he had less confidence that he’d be able to properly lace her back into the thing than he was with everything else taking place. It was more important to him that Nora’s dignity remain intact than he receive an unfettered look at her flesh.
Thomas pressed a kiss on the virgin flesh of her ivory breast, then trailed his lips to the erect peak. She shuddered as he laved it, then cried out and clutched his head to her breast when he sucked the bud between his teeth. The delicious sting of her pull on his hair and the bite of her nails on his scalp made him practically wild with need.
His hand on her hip slipped between their bodies and he couldn’t stop his delighted moan when he discovered her thatch of curls protecting her sex fairly dripped with her innocent desire. A mere brush of his knuckles and she jerked against him, subconsciously seeking more. Thomas continued to run his knuckles through her slit, caressing the slick folds as he pressed the heel of his palm to his member. It was everything he could do to not spend right there. His orgasm stalked in his periphery, running razor-sharp claws along his spine, breathing down the back of his neck with hot, moist breath.
Nora whimpered his name while she rocked against his hand.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, his fingers blindly locating the fastening of his breeches. This was the point of no return.
“No!” she snapped, her desire mounting higher as she continued to move.
“Do you know what we are about to do? That this act will change you forever? There is no turning back from this.”
Nora opened her eyes and met his. Her pupils were dilated and her cheeks were as red as if she’d just run across the fields at full tilt. “I have many elder sisters; I know you…insert your manhood into my body. I know there may be some pain the first time, but I also know there can be pleasure.” She brushed a lock of hair from his forehead and kissed him there in an unbearably tender gesture. “I trust you,” she breathed.
Thomas swallowed hard, hoping he could live up to the love in her eyes. “I—I have not done this before either. I understand what is to be done, but I am…concerned that I will not give you the pleasure you deserve.”
“You already please me, my love.”
