Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,103

needed to stretch around him, to allow her muscles to relax. She’d never taken a man before, and she was so exquisitely tight.

All the same, he couldn’t wait until they’d had a chance to do this enough so that he didn’t have to hold back.

When he felt her relax slightly beneath him, he pushed forward a bit more, until he reached the undeniable proof of her innocence. “Oh, God,” he groaned. “This is going to hurt. I can’t help it, but I promise you, it’s only this one time, and it won’t hurt much.”

“How do you know?” she asked him.

He closed his eyes in agony. Trust Penelope to question him. “Trust me,” he said, weaseling out of the question.

And then he thrust forward, embedding himself to the hilt, sinking into her warmth until he knew he was home.

“Oh!” she gasped, her face showing her shock.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded. “I think so.”

He moved slightly. “Is this all right?”

She nodded again, but her face looked surprised, maybe a little dazed.

Colin’s hips began to move of their own volition, unable to remain still when he was so obviously near to a climax. She was pure perfection around him, and when he realized that her gasps were of desire and not of pain, he finally let himself go and gave in to the overwhelming desire surging through his blood.

She was quickening beneath him, and he prayed that he could hold out until she climaxed. Her breath was fast and hot, and her fingers were pressing relentlessly into his shoulders, and her hips were squirming under him, whipping his need into a near-frenzy.

And then it came. A sound from her lips, sweeter than anything ever to touch his ears. She cried out his name as her entire body tensed in pleasure, and he thought—Someday I will watch her. I will see her face when she reaches the height of pleasure.

But not today. He was already coming, and his eyes were shut with the fierce ecstasy of it all. Her name was ripped from his lips as he thrust one last time, then slumped atop her, completely bereft of strength.

For a full minute there was silence, nothing but the rise and fall of their chests as they fought for breath, waited for the tremendous rush of their bodies to settle down into that tingly bliss one feels in the arms of one’s beloved.

Or at least that was what Colin thought this must be. He had been with women before, but he had only just realized that he had never made love until he’d laid Penelope onto his bed and begun their intimate dance with a single kiss upon her lips.

This was like nothing he’d ever felt before.

This was love.

And he was going to hold on with both hands.

Chapter 19

It was not very difficult to get the wedding date pushed forward.

It occurred to Colin as he was returning to his home in Bloomsbury (after sneaking an extremely disheveled Penelope into her own house in Mayfair), that there might be a very good reason why they should be married sooner rather than later.

Of course, it was quite unlikely that she would become pregnant after only one encounter. And, he had to admit, even if she did become pregnant, the child would be an eight-month baby, which wasn’t too terribly suspect in a world full of children born a mere six months or so following a wedding. Not to mention that first babies were usually late (Colin was uncle to enough nieces and nephews to know this to be true), which would make the baby an eight-and-a-half-month baby, which wasn’t unusual at all.

So really, there was no urgent need to move up the wedding.

Except that he wanted to.

So he had a little “talk” with the mothers, in which he conveyed a great deal without actually saying anything explicit, and they hastily agreed to his plan to rush the wedding.

Especially since he might have possibly misled them to believe that his and Penelope’s intimacies had occurred several weeks prior.

Ah, well, little white lies really weren’t such a large transgression when they were told to serve the greater good.

And a hasty wedding, Colin reflected as he lay in bed each night, reliving his time with Penelope and fervently wishing she were there beside him, definitely served the greater good.

The mothers, who had become inseparable in recent days as they planned the wedding, initially protested the change, worrying about unsavory gossip (which in this case would have been entirely true), but