Page 42 of Once a Scoundrel

“I can’t tell you how many times I lay awake in bed and dreamed of being with you.” To ease her nervousness when the hem reached the apex of her thighs, he lowered his head to place a distracting kiss against her throat, rewarding him in turn by the delicious beat of her racing pulse against his lips.

“I wish you hadn’t,” she admitted, her voice a soft ache.

He lifted onto his forearm to stare down into her face, puzzled. “Why not?”

Her eyes lowered to his mouth, not so much because she wanted him to kiss her but to shyly avoid making eye contact. “I’ll never live up to your fantasy.”

“No,” he countered softly, outlining her lips with his fingertip. “You’re so much better than I ever imagined.”

Before she could argue, he kissed her, this time drinking in her sweetness and stirring up the desire already flaming inside her. When he lifted the chemise the rest of the way up her body and cast it away to the floor, leaving her naked, there was no nervousness between them, no awkwardness. She didn’t try to cover herself, not even when he gazed down at her in the moonlight.

“So beautiful,” he repeated in an incredulous murmur and drifted his hand over her body, fluttering lightly over her breasts and all the way down to the soft curls guarding her womanhood. “An angel.”

He placed a tender kiss on her nipple, then another and another, until it puckered into a hard point. Unable to resist, he closed his lips around it and took a gentle suck.

“Stephen!” she gasped, her hands going to his head.

A low chuckle rose in his throat at her reaction, and he shamelessly took another suck, this time drawing her deeper into his mouth. She moaned and arched her back beneath him, thrusting her breasts toward him.

“So sweet,” he mumbled against her breast, her fingers running through the hair at his nape in soft encouragement.

As he suckled his fill of her, his hand caressed her other breast and massaged her fullness beneath his palm. He teased her nipple into a hard point to match the first, then slid his mouth over to claim the same delicious taste of it. She was perfect, warm and soft, so incredibly sweet, and everything about her soothed his pained soul. He’d suspected that she’d be able to heal him the way nothing else could, and as he felt the happiness swell in his chest, he knew he’d been correct. Only Faith, only this sweet joining of bodies and souls with her.

Each plundering kiss against her mouth and each caress of his hands across her breasts made it impossible for her to lie still beneath him. She whimpered softly and shifted her hips against the mattress, and he nearly groaned at the arousal blossoming inside her, so unknown to her that she didn’t know how to ask for what her body wanted.

But he knew, and he would happily give her what she craved. He slipped his hand down through the triangle of curls, his fingers sliding into the damp heat of her folds beneath. He stroked against her—

“Stephen,” she moaned against his mouth, then tossed all inhibition aside by spreading her thighs and latching onto his tongue with her lips, suckling as sweetly at him as he had at her breasts. He hardened instantly, and all of him ached with a desperate longing to claim her as his.

HisFaith. Now and always.

As his fingers caressed against her, arousal flamed inside him with each daring suck of her lips and with each plunge of her tongue inside his mouth to share the wonderful intimacy of their kiss. The intoxicating sounds of her soft mewings and whimpers of need swirled through him and made him long to hear her moan with pleasure and cry out with passion.

Breaking the kiss, he shifted away just far enough to gaze down at her and watch the emotions flittering across her face as he slipped two fingers inside her silky warmth.

“Oh!” She tensed for a moment, then relaxed. She let out a long sigh as he continued to caress inside her in smooth, steady strokes. “Oh my...”

He placed a kiss at her temple. “Does that feel good?”

“Oh heavens...yes...very much,” she answered between pants.

“Very much,” he repeated with a smile as he watched her close her eyes against the mounting ache growing inside her, so strongly that he could feel it pulsing against his fingers as he swirled them inside her.

His thumb delved down into her folds to find the tiny nub buried there. He rubbed it lightly, and she responded with a shiver, her sex clenching tight around his fingers and demanding to be brought to release. So tight and warm and slippery...He couldn’t believe how much she trusted him, making herself open and vulnerable to him like this. Just as he couldn’t believe how beautiful she was. Or how very much he loved her.

“Faith,” he whispered and touched her most sensitive spot again, this time pressing down hard enough that a low moan tore from her. Her arms wrapped around his neck to keep him close, and her thighs quivered. “Darling Faith.”

He rubbed her again, and a wave of pleasure swept through her in a shuddering release. Her body clenched around his, then she went limp beneath him on the mattress, her lips parting and panting to recapture the breath he’d stolen.

The expression of pure joy on her face nearly undid him. He whispered chokingly around the knot in his throat, “I love you, my darling.”

Lifting onto his forearms, he settled himself into the cradle of her spread thighs. All of him shook with emotion and need as he positioned the head of his erection against her, notching himself there as he paused to enjoy another lingering kiss at her heated lips. He would only have this moment once, this first joining with her, and he wanted to savor it, to be able to remember it always.

He whispered, “My Faith...my angel...”My life.

With a sigh of longing against her mouth, he lowered his hips and sank inside her.

Faith closed her eyes and held her breath as his warm, hard body so slowly, so lovingly filled hers. She expanded to take him in, her already sensitized womanhood tingling achingly with each patient plunge and retreat. Each caressing stroke of his body went slightly deeper than before, and with each, he placed a reassuring kiss on her lips. Tears gathered at her lashes at the unbelievable tenderness in him. She’d never imagined that being with a man could be like this—