Before she knew it her hair was falling around her, the pins scattering from Sebastian’s fingers to her shoulders, the cushioned bench, and the floor below. He pushed his hands through her curls and the coils Verbena had made, combing from her neck along her upper arms, then moving to unfasten the pelisse that buttoned tightly over her bosom.
Pulling the tight jacket off her shoulders, pushing it down over her arms, he continued to kiss her on the mouth, the jaw, the neck, until she struggled beneath him. “The sleeves…need to be unbuttoned,” she told him, trying to shrug out of the tight jacket.
“I know,” he said in her ear, and pushed the sleeves farther down her arms so that the coat slipped over her hands, leaving her wrists trapped inside the arms, pulling the pelisse taut behind her hips.
“Sebastian,” she said, a warning note and a tinge of panic in her voice. “I don’t like this.”
“Shhh,” he murmured against her neck, brushing his eyelashes over her cheek. “Just relax. Enjoy.” He sucked on her earlobe, his mouth warm and slick.
Victoria took a deep, shaky breath and realized that the hint of panic was subsiding as he spread his hands over her shoulders, pulling the bodice away, then slipping behind to unfasten the buttons and unlace the top of her stays—mainly because of what his mouth and hands were doing to distract her.
He was quick and smooth, her breasts free and bare, jouncing in the darkening carriage before she realized it. He covered them, lifted and thumbed them, gentle and then firm in his touch. Victoria closed her eyes and sighed when his lips closed over one nipple and drew it sharply into his hot mouth, flicking over it with the tip of his tongue. The pulsing sensation matched the throb between her legs, and she shifted her hips beneath his weight.
With one last tug from his lips, Sebastian chuckled against her breast. “Patience, my dear,” he said, but lifted himself away to attend to his breeches. She saw them fall, baring muscular thighs, and then his drawers; and then he bent forward as his hands smoothed up beneath her skirts, sliding along her thighs, baring her legs and piling her gown into a mass of silk and lace in her lap.
His fingers slipped and played where she ached and burned, making her sigh and shift and leaving her wanting the rest. She felt the brush of his hair over her cheek as he kissed her neck, his breath rough in her ears.
Victoria wanted to reach for him, but her arms were still trapped behind her. “Sebastian…” she began to say, but the rest was lost when he covered her mouth with his, closing off everything but her soft moan as his hands moved up and under her gown to touch her vis bulla. She felt them brush over it, tug gently on the silver cross. Then his hands spread over her belly, under her shift and stays, and lifted her hips so her piled-up skirts rode higher.
Sebastian moved away, releasing her mouth with a low, delicious pop that made it clear he would have kissed her all night. With one last look up at her, as if to confirm this next move, he gave a gentle sigh and fitted himself into her with one smooth slide.
Oh. Victoria closed her eyes as her heart thrummed and the lovely feeling of being joined with a man settled over her. A pleasure tear trickled down into her hair, and she drew in a deep breath and just felt.
She realized he wasn’t moving. They were joined there in the rumbling carriage, his hands positioned next to her shoulders, one knee bent next to her thigh on the bench. When she opened her eyes, it was to see him looking down at her with a grin.
“I always knew our first time would be in a carriage,” he told her. And drew a deep, shaky breath. Then exhaled. Closed his eyes.
And still he didn’t move.
She shifted under him because her hands were trapped. “Sebastian.”
“What’s the hurry, ma chère?”
He bent to kiss her again, fondling her lips with his, tasting them as they rocked gently against each other with the carriage rhythm. It was enough of a movement, that incessant jolting, that Victoria felt every bit of her attention focused there where he’d slid in, and where her nipples brushed against the shirt he hadn’t bothered to remove. Her gown bunched between them, spilling over the bench, and his legs were warm against hers.
He moved forward and she tasted the skin of his neck, faintly salty, and felt the hard pumping of the pulse in his throat. The throb between them ached and burned, and she felt the way they slid together ever so slightly, and the long-lost familiar coil that would begin to unwind deep inside her. That great need dug at her, incessant, until all she could think of, focus on, was him inside her and not moving.
Sebastian rested his cheek on her forehead and at last shifted. Slowly, drawing each stroke in and out with deliberation, he pressed down and in and up, his hands moving in the cushioned seat next to her shoulders, tangling in her hair, fingers crushing into her skin. Their breathing matched, rushed and urgent, capped with sighs and soft groans.
Victoria moved too, felt the tension that had sat dormant as it built inside her, and it wasn’t long before she shuddered beneath him, more tears sliding from her closed eyes, then felt him bow into her one last time, and the pause as he came inside her.
“Ah, Victoria,” he murmured next to her ear, his voice low and barely audible over the carriage rumble, “I am so glad you changed your mind.”
“About what?” She could barely form the words.
“About making me wait a very long time for this.”
“You gave me little choice,” she said, her lips brushing against the beginning of stubble on his jaw. “You were quite convincing. And Sebastian…my wrists are hurting.”
“Of course.” He pulled out, sat back, and tucked himself into his breeches, leaving her without the pleasure of seeing his chest or any other part of his body. Then he helped her extricate herself from the pelisse and arrange her breasts demurely into the dress.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, lounging back in his seat.
“How long until we arrive to wherever we are going? Or was it truly a ploy to get me into this carriage?”
He smiled with great insouciance. “It was indeed a ploy. I wanted desperately to get you into this carriage. But we can still eat, can we not?”
The basket had been tucked under one of the bench seats, and Victoria helped him pull it out, her long hair sliding down to get in the way as she bent forward.