mattress dipped beside her, and she realized he was removing his breeches with brisk efficiency. She lay down next to him and did the same, wiggling her hips, less proficient than he was. Her elbow bumped his ribs and he grunted, half pain, half amusement.
“Wretch.”
She’d never been completely naked with a man before. In spite of the darkness, she could feel her entire body suffusing with a blush. And then there was no time to think. Harland turned on his side to face her, and his greater weight made her roll toward him. Their bodies touched all the way down. His arousal pressed insistently against her stomach, and her heart leapt in mingled anticipation and fear. She was almost glad she couldn’t see him.
Oh, God. She really was doing this.
His hand found her hip, and he uttered a hiss of satisfaction as he stroked up over her waist, her ribs, her shoulder and neck. And then he threaded his fingers in her hair and pulled her in for a scorching kiss.
“Mine,” he murmured against her throat, and Emmy could only give a wordless moan in answer.
He pushed her onto her back and moved partly over her, stroking up her arms, coaxing them up over her head. He caught her wrists, but no sooner had he taken her prisoner than he released her to trace the sensitive skin of her inner arms down to her breasts and then lower still. His palm flattened over her belly, and Emmy bucked her hips, desperate for him to move lower, to put his hand where she throbbed and ached. There was a restlessness in her that only he could quell.
“Nothing but trouble,” he groaned, and she wasn’t sure if that was a complaint or praise.
His hand slipped between her legs, and the ache turned to sweet fire. The moisture from her body coated his fingers, and Emmy squirmed as he circled and teased. He gave a dark chuckle, as if he knew how much he was torturing her, and took her lips in a deep, openmouthed kiss.
Emmy gasped in delight and arched her back as he pushed his finger inside her, amazed by the intensity of the pleasure. Her body clenched around him as he teased; long, luscious slides that built a coiling, knotted tension in her belly. Soon she teetered on the edge of something momentous, something she needed, but couldn’t quite catch. She lifted her hips, begging him with incoherent sounds to resolve the glorious confusion he’d created.
“Harland!”
He pressed the heel of his hand against her. “Now,” he growled.
His order pushed her over the edge of some invisible abyss. Her entire body tensed, then shattered, as pleasure radiated over her in waves.
She was still shuddering when he rose up and covered her with his body, supporting the weight of his torso on his arms. The lower half of him pressed against her, a delicious, unfamiliar weight, and Emmy opened her legs to allow him to fit more snugly between her thighs. He enveloped her, overwhelmed her in the best possible way, and the musky scent of him, of them, increased her arousal even more.
Here in the dark, they were equals, both as blind as each other. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear his throaty growl; it resonated in his chest and down into her limbs.
“I want to be inside you. Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” she panted.
He caught her hand and drew it down between them. Emmy sucked in a breath as he curled her fingers around his shaft and covered them with his own. He let out an impassioned groan and his fist gave an involuntary squeeze.
“Trouble,” he muttered thickly.
Emmy widened her eyes at the feel of him. Velvet soft and truncheon hard. With him guiding their joined hands, he positioned himself at the entrance of her body, sliding against her slick folds, and she shivered in anticipation.
* * *
Alex was shaking with the need to join his body with Emmy’s, but there was one thing he needed to know.
“Am I your first?” he breathed raggedly. “Are you a virgin?”
He heard her surprised exhale. “Yes, I—”
“I’ll go slowly,” he heard himself promise, then could have bitten off his own tongue. Despite his words, he hadn’t meant to go this far. He’d planned to make her climax with his hand and then let her do the same for him. A satisfactory quenching of this ridiculous, inconvenient desire. But suddenly, being inside Emmy Danvers seemed vital to his continued survival.