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‘It changed when I touched it.’ She brushed her finger over it again, and then the other one. ‘How interesting.’ Startlingly, her own nipples stiffened as well.
‘That is not quite how I would describe it,’ Giles said, his voice on the cusp between laughter and something else altogether. Under her hand his skin was smoother than she expected, the well-defined muscles beneath it harder.
‘How do you get muscles like this?’ She ran the flat of her hand down the arm that was bracing him against the wall as he bent over her. ‘You moved so beautifully when you were fighting those men.’
‘Riding, swordplay, boxing. And in the Peninsula it is often not possible to ride. It is tough terrain to walk in—one gets fit quickly.’
‘Behind enemy lines, you mean?’ She could not see his face clearly, but she felt the tension in his arm. ‘You do not want to talk about it?’ she stated when he did not reply.
‘No. No, I do not.’ He straightened and she saw he was trying to soften the snub with a smile. And then he unfastened his breeches and let them fall, taking his drawers with them, and she stopped wondering about the war.
‘Oh. Oh, yes, I see—’ She broke off, fascinated by the heavy length half-rising from the dark curls at his groin, and reached out her hand. Giles stepped back and that part of him visibly thickened and lifted of its own accord.
‘If we are not to anticipate our wedding night then, I beg you, Laurel—do not touch.’ There was the laughter again and, this time, a husky hint of breathlessness that gave her the most extraordinary sensation of power.
If I reach out and stroke... And that would not be fair, he is trying to keep this within the bounds that we agreed.
She trusted him and it was not right that she should make it difficult for him to keep his word. ‘Very well, I will behave. Shall I take all my clothes off, too? It seems only just.’
‘I really do not think that would be a good idea.’
That was definitely a faint moan. How very intriguing.
‘In fact, I am going to put some of mine back on, if you don’t mind.’ He reached for his breeches without waiting for her reply, fastened them and pulled on his shirt, leaving it untucked.
‘How do we make love with our clothes on?’
Laurel had a horrible suspicion that she was pouting and got her expression under control.
‘Like this.’ For a big man he could move fast, she discovered. One moment she had been sitting up, the next they were both lying on the couch and Giles’s hand was sliding up under her skirts, up over the silk of her stockings, the fine fabric snagging slightly on the callouses on his fingers.
Then the bare skin of his palms was on the bare skin above her garters and heat quite apart from the warmth of his flesh on hers flooded through her, deeply, intimately. Laurel muffled the little sob of surprise against his shoulder and clung on as his hand moved upwards, smoothing over the curve of her thigh, gently, insistently, parting her legs. She felt herself tense, then, as though her body knew far better than she did what she wanted, needed, she relaxed, opening for him, letting the questing fingers stroke upwards, parting her intimately.
‘Laurel?’ Giles breathed in her ear and she nodded, made some sort of inarticulate sound—agreement, trust, assent—she was not sure what it was.
She was aware of one finger sliding deeper, entering her. It felt thick and her body resisted. She was suddenly not at all certain about agreeing to this—and then Giles touched something at the same time and the pleasure took her breath as she arched into his hand and lost the power to analyse just what was happening.
‘Yes, sweet, yes, querida. Perfeito...let go for me.’
How could she let go when whatever it was he was doing was ravelling her so tight, so impossibly tight, that she would surely break?
‘Yes, like that, Laurel, just like that...’
And then she did break and let go and cry out and...
Chapter Fourteen
‘I saw stars.’ Laurel stirred as she lay in his arms, then opened pleasure-drugged dark brown eyes.
‘Is that a good thing?’ Giles managed to ask. He was shaking, he found. Shaking because he was racked with desire to take this to its conclusion, cursing himself for using Portuguese endearments, of all the clumsy mistakes to make. Laurel did not need it rubbing in that he had had lovers before, although she obviously knew.
He made himself relax, enjoying the feel of her as she snuggled closer, trusting him, secure in his arms.
She believes in me, he thought bleakly. Trusts me. How much would that hurt her if she knew why I offered for her? I should never have asked her to marry me. I should have thought of something, some way to make the money, some way to get the land back without this marriage.
And yet—how? His duty was to his father and to his name. The match he had offered Laurel was perfectly acceptable in the eyes of society, especially for a lady virtually on the shelf. Most reasonable people would say it was highly advantageous to her.
You are justifying yourself, his conscience nagged.
