tender exploration of earlier was replaced with a feverish need to join. The shirt she’d been wearing was gone. He kicked his breeches off.
“My hair.”
“Sorry.” He moved to release the strands trapped under his hand. “I love it.” He took a moment to bury his face into the mass of curls he’d released and then gathered them in his fist and laved at the most sensitive skin of her nape.
Charley tentatively moved her hand up and down silky-smooth skin, awed that it could feel so soft and hard and…
Big.
His cock. Rolling the word around in her mind, chanting it, picturing it, had her widening her legs for him. He was ready. She was ready.
Hot gasps for air mingled between them, and she could hardly tell which were his and which were hers.
And then he was at her opening. The dancing light of the fire reflected off the beads of sweat glistening on his brow as he hovered over her.
And as he eased inside, the same light flickered in his eyes as he gazed into hers.
Her intimate flesh stretched as he inched forward. A tiny droplet of sweat formed just above his lip. It was no small feat for him to show so much restraint. Even in their passion, he would protect her.
He stopped, winced, slid out but then eased inside again, deeper. Out. And then in. Out. And then deeper. She knew something was supposed to tear. It was supposed to hurt. But as he worked her body slowly with his, all she felt was growing pleasure. A completeness. A little twinge that she barely recognized and then his pace increased.
He’d told her to let go before but he didn’t have to tell her now. He was hers. She was his. She clung to him with both her arms and her legs until all she knew was the sensation of becoming one.
It was almost like falling and even better than whiskey.
“Am I squashing you?” Julian had collapsed on top of her, still inside of her, both of them slowly catching their breath. He went to move but she tightened her arms and legs around him.
“No.”
He chuckled and relaxed. The cot was soft and his weight, although considerable, comfortable and warm. He prevented her from floating up and into the clouds of wonder and an odd state of exhaustion.
“Was it painful?” he murmured into her hair.
“Not at all.” She stroked his back lazily. “I liked it.”
Again, he laughed softly, but it rumbled through him and she felt it with her entire body. They were pressed together, naked, still joined, messy. She glanced down.
“Next time I’ll remove my shoes.” She should have removed them before, but he hadn’t given her a chance.
He pushed up onto his elbows. “However you wish.” He grinned and she recognized the same wonder that she was feeling. “Whenever you wish and as often as you wish.” The look in his eyes could almost be love. She had never known true love, but she was halfway certain that she was not mistaken.
Was that what she felt for him?
“Did you like it then?” She imagined that he had enjoyed it as much as her, but it never hurt to be sure.
“Very much.” He dropped a kiss on her mouth. The kiss was meant to be a quick one, but when she parted her lips and arched into him, it deepened and went on and on. His member had slid out of her but now she knew exactly what was happening when he hardened and grew to press against her again.
He tore his mouth away from hers and groaned. “Do you hear that?”
She paused, temporarily distracted enough to focus on anything but the two of them lying here together and touching and kissing and feeling…
“I don’t hear anything.”
He winced. “Precisely. The rain has stopped.”
“Oh…” They needed to return to the manor. She would have to face Mrs. Crabtree. And Bethany. And possibly his mother.
“I—What—How—?” Did he have anyone to answer to? Would they have to make some sort of an announcement to the other guests? “Will we have to sneak back in?”
She’d promised to marry him. Would that mean all was forgiven? Would that cover their indiscretions?
He pressed his lips to hers again and then pushed himself up. “We will not sneak into my own home.”
She hadn’t had a chance before, but now her mouth went dry as she got her first glimpse of him, wearing nothing and exactly as God must have intended. She’d known he kept himself fit