Widow - Anne Stuart [89]
She didn’t open her eyes. She probably knew he was naked and aroused and she didn’t want to see what she was about to get.
Simple enough. He took her hand, kissed her palm, and placed it on his cock.
Her eyes flew open, and she tried to yank her hand away. He didn’t let her, he simply held her there, till she stopped trying to pull away. Her hand gentled, and her fingers encircled him.
“You’re too big.” Her voice was so quiet he almost didn’t hear her.
He didn’t laugh, though he wanted to, from relief and pure joy.
“I’ll fit,” he said. Much as he regretted it, he leaned over and slid the briefs down her long legs. He’d seen her naked, huddled, frightened in Pompasse’s paintings. The woman lying in his bed, looking up at him with a dizzying combination of need and panic, was far more beautiful, to him at least.
But he needed to wipe that fear from her eyes, from her face, from her soul. And he needed to do it now.
He slid onto the bed beside her, learning her curves, letting his fingers brush the underside of her small, luscious breasts. Her nipples were hard, but he didn’t know if it was from fear or desire. She lay still beneath his touch, that martyred look coming over her once more.
“What have you got against sex, Charlie?” he whispered, brushing his lips against the beaded peak of her breast. “Were you ever hurt? Abused? Raped?” Not the most erotic questions, but he needed to know the answers. If she’d been violated he’d have to be even more careful with her.
“No,” she said in a low voice. There was a sexy catch to it when his tongue touched her nipple. “I just…don’t like it.”
“Why not?” He liked her hipbones. In general, he liked more flesh covering a woman’s hipbones, but this was Charlie and right then she was perfect.
“It was never what I thought it would be,” she said finally. “It was never…magic.”
He slid over her body, pinning her with his strength, catching her face with his hands and putting his forehead against hers, so she couldn’t miss the implacable gleam in his eyes.
“Charlie, love, sex isn’t magic. It’s not making love on a cloud with angels singing and fairies dancing. It’s real, it’s human, it’s wet and sweaty and nasty and the best thing about being alive. And it’s past time you learned that.”
He kissed her mouth. He kissed her eyelids and her cheekbones and her nose, and then he pushed himself inside her.
She was wet, and tight, and her fingers clenched his shoulders as she braced herself, obviously expecting the worst. It didn’t matter—she felt too good to him. It took all his iron self-control to keep from letting go. He pushed slowly, filling her, taking it slow so that she wouldn’t panic. The need to have her was almost primeval, and he had to fight back from the mists in order to slow himself down.
He took a deep, shaky breath when he’d finally sheathed himself completely inside her warmth.
“It fits,” she said in a soft, startled voice.
He let his forehead rest on her shoulder, in both relief and tension. And he slid his hands under her hips, pulled her up tighter against him, and began to move.
She came immediately, a small, shattering orgasm that was over too soon. But he’d waited too long for her, and he wasn’t about to spend it too quickly. Once the breathless peak had passed, he started to move again, slowly at first, setting an almost lazy rhythm to lull her into a state of security. The second climax had drained her of the last vestiges of doubt and shyness, but she still didn’t know what she had in store for her. What he had in store for her.
He was moving a little faster now, and he heard that breathless catch in her voice. She was climbing again, and this time she knew where it would lead. And she wasn’t sure if she was ready to go there again.
But he was. He wanted her with him. He wanted her convulsing around him as he spilled inside her, and he wasn’t going to come without her.
“No,” she said. The first time she had said no all night.
“Hell, yes.” He reached between their bodies and touched her, hard.