‘Aah,’ she whimpered as he began to lick and suck and the sensitive, tight nipples hardened and her breasts swelled and ached. ‘Don’t stop, Luc.’
‘I have no intention of stopping,’ he said and she felt a deep satisfaction at the way his voice shook, even as he struggled to sound in control. ‘I don’t think I could if I wanted to.’
She found herself sprawled on the bed without knowing how she got there and Luc had got rid of boots and breeches and was standing over her aroused and magnificent and she wondered if she should feel fear, but all she could summon up of coherent thought was that she wanted him inside her, she wanted to surround him, hold him, be one with him.
He knelt on the bed between her spread thighs and she reached for him as he lowered himself over her. ‘Averil, don’t be afraid.’
‘I am not afraid. I want you.’
He did not answer her in words, only with the caress of his hand as he opened her and the weight of his body as he came down on to her so that the hair on his chest fretted at her sensitive breasts almost unbearably and the heat of his mouth made her lips part, trembling even as she closed her eyes the better to feel and touch and taste him.
Her thighs cradled him and she remembered that moment in the hut when she had realised what her aunt’s careful words of explanation had meant in reality and she smiled as he entered her, smiled through the discomfort that vanished into wonder and delight and she was still smiling as his mouth captured her lips and he began the slow, perfect rhythm that transformed the two of them into one striving, passionate creature and finally, finally, broke her into a million shards of pleasure.
She tried to hold him as she felt him leave her, then remembered why he had to and tightened her arms around Luc as he shuddered and groaned and the heat gushed on to her belly and he lay still in her arms at last.
I love you, I love you, I love you. The words kept running in her head as he finally rolled from her, stooped to kiss her and then went to wash. She was still thinking it as he came back with a damp cloth and cleaned her sticky skin. She should not be surprised he was so gentle with her, he had nursed her before. But now she was conscious.
Luc bent over her and brushed the tumbled hair back from her face. ‘Thank you.’
‘Was it—was I—all right?’
He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them the deep intensity matched the seriousness in his voice. ‘You are everything I had dreamed you would be.’
‘Really? I am so ignorant. I don’t know all the things I should know to please you.’
‘You do not need tricks to please me. You just need to be yourself and to do what comes naturally.’
‘May we do it again?’ He was ready for her. ‘You cannot hide what you want,’ she said, and, greatly daring, reached for him. So hard and yet so smooth. Finest kid leather over steel. She stroked along the length and then curled her fingers round, gauging the size with a purr of satisfaction.
‘Wanton.’ He did not look displeased. ‘We will not do that again today, you will be sore.’ She registered the look of satisfaction at her murmur of disappointed protest. ‘But there are other things we can do. Let me show you,’ he said, his voice husky as he knelt by the bed and pulled her towards him so her legs dangled over the edge.
‘Luc?’ He parted her thighs and the dark head bent closer. ‘Luc!’ She had thought she could not feel anything more intense than what she had already experienced. It seemed she was wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘I had not understood,’ Averil whispered as Luc leaned back on the chaise beside her after dinner and rested his head on the carved back rail with a sigh of repletion. Sex or food? she wondered. Perhaps both.
‘What did you not understand? You don’t have to whisper, no one can hear you.’
‘I thought we would make love once or perhaps twice a day. I did not understand that we can do it over and over again.’ She managed to raise her voice above a whisper, but it still seemed wicked to be talking about things like this outside the bedchamber. Luc turned his head and smiled that lazy, satisfied smile she was beginning to recognise.
‘Am I wearing you out?’
‘No, not at all. I still … It is very shocking.’ And wonderful. She had not realised that she could speak of love without words, with her body.
‘You still want more?’
Blushing, she nodded. How was it possible not to? Perhaps one simply dropped from exhaustion after a while—or burned up with frustration if you had to stop.
Luc slid down until he was lying on the chaise, then he unbuttoned his evening breeches. ‘If you want more—’
Of course she wanted more. But surely not in the dining room, on the chaise. ‘The servants!’
‘They will not come until we ring.’ He had freed himself from his clothing and she could not help but reach for him as he shifted a little. ‘Kneel over me, there is room either side of my hips.’
‘Me—on top?’
‘Then you can be in control, go as slowly and as shallowly as you like. I don’t want to hurt you, Averil. You are very new to this.’