The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [96]
“Yes?”
“I’m inside you. Just a bit more. You’re doing very well. I can feel your maidenhead. Can you feel me feeling it?”
“Yes.”
Then it was simply too much. The man and the vicar broke; he lost himself and all his good intentions. He couldn’t stop himself, he pushed hard until he broke through her maidenhead and went deep. Dear God, he was touching her womb. His heart pounded, his body was more alive than he’d ever felt in his entire life. He was on the edge of a cliff, and he wanted to leap off that cliff right this very instant, but he heard her crying. “Mary Rose? Are you all right?”
“Yes, Tysen, I swear it to you. That maidenhead part was a bit difficult, but you’re not moving now and it isn’t too bad.” She added, wonder in her voice, “I knew that a man came into a woman’s body, but I just never imagined it like this.”
Oh, dear God, he thought, he was so crazed with lust, so over the edge with a need that was eating him alive, that he thought he would die. It was soon over, and he’d never imagined anything like it in his life. He had died, he thought, a wonderful death. He was hanging over her, balanced on his elbows, breathing so hard, feeling his heart pounding against his chest, still beyond words, beyond any rational thought. It was wonderful, what had just happened. He’d forgotten—that, or he’d never experienced it. It was beyond wonderful.
Mary Rose wasn’t moving.
He said, once he could speak coherently, his voice all stiff with guilt, “I am sorry that I hurt you. That won’t happen again. Can you forgive me?”
“Yes, of course. You’re my husband, and I suppose things have to happen that aren’t always pleasant. I don’t know, Tysen.”
“I didn’t make you laugh,” he said, and he slowly came out of her. He lay beside her and pulled her into his arms. He realized that he’d jerked off his nightshirt and that he was naked and she could feel that he was naked. He could imagine that it would send her running from the bedchamber. “Let me put on my nightshirt,” he said, but Mary Rose just shook her head against his shoulder. “No, please don’t. You are so very warm, Tysen, and hard. I love the feel of you.”
He nearly swallowed his tongue. A woman—his wife—had said that to him. He didn’t say a thing because he simply couldn’t think of anything to say. Did a man thank a woman—his wife—when she said something like that to him? He didn’t know. He was, however, immensely grateful that she was still in her nightgown. That was for the best, given how her words had made him feel. It was sinful, what he was thinking, it was excessive, what he wanted to do again, and boorish and probably so pleasurable that he nearly groaned. No, it was time to sleep, time for her to ease with him, perhaps forgive him for hurting her, though she hadn’t seemed upset with him.
He snuffed out the single candle, then he was lying on his back, in the dark, and he could feel her pressing against him. She was soft and warm and her breasts were against his side. Yes, God be blessed that she was wearing a nightgown. He knew he should say something. It was difficult to tell her to trust him when it came to matters of the flesh, since he was such an ignoramus and a clod, but he tried. “Trust me,” he said, kissing her cheek when he missed her mouth. “Trust me.”
“I would trust you with my life, Tysen,” she said, her breath warm against his flesh, and he shuddered. He didn’t trust himself to say anything more. He just might start begging her to let him have her again.
He held her against the length of him. He wanted to come inside her again, right now.
He remembered overhearing Douglas and Ryder talking about how a man should never be a pig, it wasn’t worthy. He held himself very still, and eventually, he slept.
Mary Rose didn’t sleep for a very long time. How very odd, she thought, looking off into the darkness and feeling him so very warm and alive pressed next to her. He was a man, and he had actually been inside her, and he’d touched her, he’d kissed her.