“I don’t want to hurt you.”
Another difficult laugh. “I hurt with wanting you.”
The jagged admission banished the last of her timidity. With more confidence, she curled her hand around him. He felt alive and strong and dauntingly big. How on earth would he fit inside her?
“Goodness gracious,” she breathed, tentatively running her hand down the hot, satiny column, feeling vitality in the raised veins beneath her fingers.
Liquid heat flooded her at her bold forays. She shifted, feeling sleek and needy. More slowly she moved her hand up until she brushed the swollen tip. He was damp, too.
As all the new experiences of the night crashed down upon her, she snatched her hand away.
She felt fretful, needy, hungry. This wasn’t at all what she’d imagined after her mother’s advice. She’d pictured herself lying back while he took control. This degree of involvement felt threatening, like she surrendered more than just her body. And however much she liked the man she’d married, she didn’t yet trust him as the keeper of her soul.
She’d recognized Blair’s emotional power over her yesterday when she’d seen him with Amelia. Now fear and desire battled for supremacy and she wasn’t sure which was stronger.
“Trust me,” Erskine said softly. When he’d asked Philippa to trust him before this, she’d never failed him. Let her trust him now.
He’d never imagined that introducing his wife to pleasure could carry such importance. Dear God, let him do this right. Let him show this innocent, gallant girl bliss. As he rose above her and stared into her brilliant eyes, his desire for his wife burgeoned into an emotion strong enough to shake kingdoms.
He sucked in a shaky breath. Her scent filled his senses. Lemon and flowers. Arousal. A trace of sweat. The mixture was as intoxicating as brandy.
“Yes,” she said simply, and relief struck him like a blow.
“I’ll be gentle,” he promised, praying that it was true.
His hand drifted down from her face, lingering to test the kick of her pulse at her collarbone. She had a beautiful body, small and slender and graceful with high, round breasts that fit his hands as if created for the purpose.
“Oh,” she gasped as he kissed a particularly sensitive place on her neck. “I like that.”
He loved the taste of her skin. Clean and fresh and warm with life. Tonight he awoke the sensuality that he’d always suspected lurked inside her. He loved watching her amazed wonder at every new experience. He loved watching her confidence build with every sizzling moment.
“Good,” he whispered, fighting the urge to rush to fulfillment. Patience now would reap untold rewards. “I hope you like everything else I’ve got planned.”
To his delighted surprise, she giggled. He’d never heard his serious little bride giggle before. He nuzzled his way across the slope of her breast, drawing in her scent, so much warmer and richer there. “You’re quite delicious, you know.”
“You sound like a hungry lion,” she responded breathlessly, curling her fingers over his shoulders.
At her touch, heat blasted him. “This lion wants to eat you,” he growled.
He came down over her, balancing on flattened hands, and bent to kiss her. She met him readily, darting her tongue into his mouth with a daring that set his blood swirling with need.
The craving to slide into her tight velvety passage was overwhelming, but still he reined in his impulses. He wanted her so drunk with arousal when he took her that any pain became merely a fleeting distraction on the road to rapture.
“Can you feel how much I want you?” He brought her hand down. Excitement shuddered through him as she closed her fingers around him.
“I…I want you, too,” she admitted, caressing him as she raised glittering eyes to his. He saw right to the pure depths of her soul. Through a wave of unfamiliar emotion, he offered up a prayer of gratitude to whatever powers had decreed this union.
Her hand flexed, setting off an explosion behind his eyes. For endless excruciating minutes, he bore her ministrations, gritting his teeth to stop himself from driving to culmination. He relished the intense concentration she devoted to his enjoyment, but he was only human and this tentative, searing torment approached the limit of his endurance.
He caught her hand and glanced a kiss across her knuckles. She was breathtakingly lovely with her creamy skin and drifting
cascades of hair. His nostrils flared as he took in her hot scent. Her body told him it wanted him. “It’s my turn to please you, my darling.”
Erskine wasn’t by nature prone to endearments, but something about Philippa made him want to call her every silly fond name he knew. He became completely starry-eyed over his young wife.
“You do,” she admitted in a choked voice.
Deep emotion shone in her eyes. He wasn’t alone in tipping over the edge of physical pleasure into something more profound. He’d had no idea what he’d invited the day he’d offered to marry this woman.