Page 26

But Helene’s eye had been caught by something else. “I’d forgotten that it was quite so large,” she said faintly.

He blinked and looked down.

“Could we get this over as quickly as possible?” she said, feeling rather dizzy. She never liked pain.

Rees carefully lowered himself onto the couch. He didn’t wear any kind of scent, unlike Mayne, who smelled faintly of some male fragrance. Rees was horribly careless about his style of dress, but he did bathe every day, and so there was always a combination of soap and, well, Rees.

He was just as heavy as she remembered. She wriggled a little in protest, and then gasped when she felt his hand between her legs. “What are you doing?”

“I just have to make sure—” his voice sounded very husky now. And his fingers—Helene gasped again. Little lightning strokes went down her legs. But then his fingers were gone and then he presented himself in their place.

He was braced on his hands, looking down at her. A lock of hair had fallen over his forehead. “I’ll make this as fast as I possibly can, Helene. I’m sorry for the pain of it. I always was, you know.”

“I know that,” she whispered, tucking the hair back behind his ear. Rees wasn’t all bad.

He started to push inside and Helene almost stopped him. But she bit her lip instead. Really, the fear was worse than the pain.

In fact…

In fact, the pain didn’t really seem to be there. There was a feeling of stretching that wasn’t entirely pleasant. But it wasn’t really unpleasant either. He managed to push his way right to the back of her, and Helene couldn’t help it; she wriggled again.

There was a scrabbling noise at the door and the door handle turned. Helene went rigid. She could hear a female voice raised in fury. “I’m certain that I left my reticule next to the harpsichord.”

“I’m sorry, Madam,”—that was surely the voice of Lady Hamilton’s butler—“if you will just come this way for a moment, I will look for the spare key.”

“Hurry up,” she hissed at Rees.

“Does it hurt very much?” he asked, not moving.

“Not so very much,” she said, riddled with anxiety. “Rees, do make haste! The butler will return in a moment with another key.”

“No, he won’t,” Rees said, and there was a thread of amusement in his voice now. “He said that to warn us to leave.”

“Well, let’s comply shall we?” Helene snapped. There was something about having Rees there, between her legs, that gave her the oddest feeling. It wasn’t anything she had ever experienced before. She felt edgy, as if she wanted to move against him, though what an odd thing that would be! Everyone knows that gentlemen do all the necessary moving.

“All right,” Rees said, and he seemed to be talking between clenched teeth. “I hope this doesn’t pain you too much, Helene.”

“It’s quite all right,” she said. “Just—just…”

But she lost track of that thought. For he’d withdrawn and then pushed his way slowly back against her, and it did the oddest things to her stomach. It felt quite—well—it wasn’t good exactly. Helene clutched his shoulders and felt a huge bulge of muscle as he braced himself and lunged forward again. It seemed to be going fairly easily now, as well as she could judge it.

The only problem was a slight burning sensation—probably friction, as when two ropes are pulled together. It must be because he was going so quickly. That must be it.

“Almost there, Helene,” Rees said, “sorry,” and the guttural sound of his voice did it again, gave her that odd liquid feeling in her legs, a feeling that made her want to buck up against him.

At that moment Rees positively lunged toward her and Helene couldn’t help it, a little cry flew from her throat. It wasn’t due to pain. Then she braced herself because she remembered quite well that he would flop on top of her like a beached whale and she would lose all the air in her lungs, but he didn’t.

“Oh God, Helene, did it hurt that much?” he said a moment later, putting his lips on her forehead for a moment. “I heard you cry out.”

“No,” she said, feeling queerly as if she were going to weep. “It didn’t.”

“You needn’t pretend. That’s the one thing that makes me a better choice than Mayne, remember?”

But Helene didn’t say anything. It hadn’t hurt. She couldn’t say what it did feel like. He seemed to have shrunk, though, which was good. Rees withdrew and then sat on the edge of the couch to draw his smalls back on. He ran a hand up her slender thigh. “You have beautiful legs, Helene,” he said, almost absentmindedly.

Helene raised an eyebrow. He liked something about her? Probably that was because she had made the right decision to keep her gown on and her bosom covered so that he wasn’t faced with those laughably small breasts of hers.

“Thank you very much for the compliment.” It was all a bit embarrassing. “I think I would like to go home,” she finally said.