Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [354]
“Go on!” she whispered.
One sharp hard thrust, and he possessed her.
He stayed that way, eyes closed, breathing. Balanced on an edge of pleasure sharp enough to cause him pain. Dimly he wondered if the pain he felt was hers.
“Roger?”
“Ah?”
“Are you … really big, do you think?” Her voice was slightly tremulous.
“Ah …” He groped for remnants of coherence. “About the usual.” A flash of concern penetrated the feelings of drunkenness. “Am I hurting you a lot?”
“N-no, not exactly. Just … can you not move for a minute?”
“A minute, an hour. All my life, if you want.” He thought it would kill him not to move, and would have died gladly.
Her hands moved slowly down his back, touching his buttocks. He shivered and ducked his head, eyes closed, painting her face before his mind’s eye with a dozen small and mindless kisses.
“Okay.” She whispered in his ear, and like an automaton he began to move, as slowly as he could, restrained as he went by the pressure of her hand on his back.
She stiffened very slightly and relaxed, stiffened and relaxed, he knew he was hurting her, did it again, he ought to stop, she lifted up against him, taking him, and there was a deep and bestial noise that he must have made, now, it had to be now, he had to …
Shaking and gasping like a landed fish, he jerked free of her body and lay on her, feeling her breasts crushed against him as he jerked and moaned.
Then he lay still, no longer drunk but wrapped in guilty peace, and felt her arms around him and the warm breath of the whisper in his ear.
“I love you,” she said, her voice husky in the hop-scented air. “Stay with me.”
“All my life,” he said, and wrapped his arms around her.
They lay peacefully together, welded with the sweat of their efforts, listening to each other breathe. Roger stirred at last, lifting his face from her hair, his limbs at once weightless and heavy as lead.
“All right, love?” he whispered. “Have I hurt you?”
“Yes, but I didn’t mind.” Her hand passed lightly down the length of his back, making him shiver despite the heat. “Was it all right? Did I do it right?” She sounded faintly anxious.
“Oh, God!” He bent his head and kissed her, long and lingering. She tensed a little, but then her mouth relaxed under his.
“It was all right, then?”
“Oh, Jesus!”
“You certainly swear a lot, for a minister’s son,” she said, with a faint note of accusation. “Maybe those old ladies in Inverness were right; you have gone to the devil.”
“Not blasphemy,” he said. He put his forehead against her shoulder, breathing in the deep, ripe scent of her, of them. “Prayers of thanksgiving.”
That made her laugh.
“Oh, it was all right, then,” she said, with an unmistakable note of relief.
He lifted his head.
“Christ, yes,” he said, making her laugh again. “How could you possibly think otherwise?”
“Well, you didn’t say anything. You just lay there like somebody’d hit you over the head; I thought maybe you were disappointed.”
Now it was his turn to laugh, his face half buried in the smooth damps of her neck.
“No,” he said finally, coming up for air. “Behaving as though your spinal column’s been removed is a fair indication of male satisfaction. No very gentleman-like, maybe, but honest.”
“Oh, okay.” She seemed satisfied with that. “The book didn’t say anything about that, but then it wouldn’t; it didn’t bother with what happens afterward.”
“What book is this?” He moved cautiously, their skins separating with a noise like two strips of flypaper being parted. “Sorry about the mess.” He groped for his wadded shirt and handed it to her.
“The Sensuous Man.” She took the shirt and dabbed fastidiously. “There was a lot of stuff about ice cubes and whipped cream that I thought was pretty extreme, but it was good about how to do things like fellatio, and—”
“You learned that from a book?” Roger felt as scandalized as one of the ladies of his father’s congregation.
“Well, you don’t think I go around doing that with people I go out with!” She sounded truly shocked in turn.
“They write books telling young women how to—that’s terrible!