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Exhilaration made him light-headed, laughing, yet still his fingers worked, so that finally—
She cried out and shuddered and gasped. Sensations visibly rippled over her, distorting her face. He was stunned: What ferocious beauty!
Then she lay still and breathed. “Guy,” she sighed.
Finally, a victory. It dimly occurred to him that was not the victory he had originally sought, but the thought dissolved when confusion entered her eyes.
“Please…” She glared at him. “Do it, curse you.”
Lust stole his last resistance. He moved over her, arranged her limbs, and thrust inside her on a wave of pleasure and relief. She released a long sound like the wind on the moors; too late, he remembered it was her first time. He stilled. Her closed eyelids quivered, but if she felt any pain, she betrayed no sign. He waited, trembling, testing his strength, until she took a deep, shuddering breath.
When she opened her eyes, they were dark, wild. Her legs were tempestuous around his waist, her palms were savage on his back, and his name catapulted off her lips like a command. “Guy.”
And he was lost. Every thrust of his hips unleashed her passionate fury all over again. He could not be gentle, for she fought to get closer, to take control of something she didn’t understand. It was like being buffeted by a gale, being enveloped from beneath, and he held on fiercely, taking his pleasure with an intensity he could not fight. Her nails dug into his back; her muscles gripped his cock. Bliss almost blinded him, and he barely managed to pull out and spend his seed onto his abandoned shirt.
He collapsed, aiming for the cushions, mostly hitting them; they thundered with the echoes of his heart, pleasure still swirling through him like a typhoon. The air shivered over the sweat on his skin. He had just enough strength left in his tortured limbs to slide his arms around her and gather her up, to hold her against him, hold her close.
* * *
The airon her skin was cool; Guy’s dozing body was hot. Arabella stared at the ceiling moldings, traced the patterns, counted Guy’s breaths. Anything to silence her screaming mind and distract herself so she would not weep.
She never wept, and she must not weep here, now. She must not relax against him, curl into him, revel in the feeling of his hot, hard body, in the comfort of his heartbeat, in the musky smell of sex.
She could do none of that. She must rise, dress, walk the few streets home.
Carry on.
She eased away from him in inches, hoping to dress and escape while he slept. She rolled off the daybed, dropped onto the floor, hesitated, dizzy, fearing her astonished limbs were drained of strength. Somehow, she climbed to her feet, tiptoed to her gown, found her kerchief, and pressed the linen against her still-pulsing quim. It came away with a tiny dark smear, nothing she would call blood. It had not been particularly painful either; uncomfortable at first, certainly. Not… Well. She had expected something surgical at best, sordid at worst. But instead, it had been…
Oh so help her, never had she imagined that—that—whatever that was. The glory of his touch, of his mouth, of his body joining to hers. The way his touch skimmed over her skin and into her veins, stripping her of everything but sensation and fury. And his body! Its hard muscle and hot skin and heavy weight, its maddening, magnificent immovability, the roughness of his palms, of the hairs on his legs. And oh! the relentless pleasure that his fingers dealt. And that hunger that exploded inside her, that fierce, wild, desperate hunger to possess.
Now she ached, not in her body, but in another of those concealed parts of herself. As though something deep inside of her had crashed open, an iron gate to a secret garden, and she could not close it again. That was where the ache lay, and with it this terrible urge to weep.
She balled the kerchief in her hand, squeezed her eyes shut. Her legs threatened to fail her; she gripped the edge of a table to keep herself upright and tilted her face to the indifferent heavens. She must pull herself together. She must stop feeling this.
What had he done to her? What on earth had hedone?
A sound. Startled like a deer, she turned. Guy was awake, watching her, carelessly, indolently naked. He was frowning, his expression soft.
Soft with worry. With tenderness. Withpity.
“Arabella?” He reared up in a single movement. “Are you all right?”
He had seen. Curse him. He had witnessed her moment of weakness, of despair. Realization lashed her, like a whip at her heart: He saw past her façade to the hidden parts of herself, to that shrouded, panicked part that knew to fear Sculthorpe, that secret, wondrous part that exulted in Guy.
In a few minutes, she would walk home. In a month or so, she would marry Sculthorpe. Her life would go on, with Guy always on the edges; Guy, who had seen her, furious and passionate, raw and weak, helpless and alone.
Her heart wanted to say:When you held me in your arms, I did not feel alone.Her heart wanted to say:Please help me. There is no one else and I am afraid.
She opened her mouth to speak her heart, to the caring in his eyes and the concern on his face.But no, her pride screamed,he will mock you, pity you, and you will never recover from that.
So her blasted pride took control of her mouth and spoke other words instead.
“You must be engaged to me now,” she said coldly. “I was a virgin and now I am not.”
His features hardened and the traces of compassion vanished, like a delicate songbird chased away by the ferocious, snarling bulldog of her pride.
“So that was your scheme, after all,” he growled.
