He caught her thighs and held them apart. On a powerful surge, he rose and thrust forward. As he pushed into her body, she hissed with satisfaction and dug her nails into his back. The sharp sting heightened the avalanche of sensations overwhelming him.
Tight, hot and wet, she clenched around him. How could a man survive such bliss?
She arched up and kissed his neck. “Gervaise.”
Just his name. No more. But it was enough. He heard every ounce of her pleasure in the single word.
With heavy strokes, Pascal moved, staking his possession with every plunge. The soft music of her moans, the grip of her body, the flutter of her hands against the bare skin of his back and arms, all fed his fierce arousal. His thrusts intensified, pushing her into the mattress. Still she rose to meet him, lifting her hips to take him deeper.
Her breath escaped in erratic gusts. Pascal was so close, but through his approaching crisis, he held back. He needed her to go first, to find what she’d never known before. She jerked her hips higher, but still didn’t cross over into release.
He shifted to lean on one elbow so he could touch her and take her over. For a fraught moment, she tautened into quaking stillness. He rose on his arms to slide into her again, and she cried out in astonished discovery. The storm finally broke and made her shake and sob under the onslaught of pleasure. The eyes that met his shone liquid gold.
Through her shuddering peak, he poised over her, battling to hold still. The moment stretched into rapturous agony.
At last, with a guttural growl, he wrenched free to spill his seed on the soft curve of her stomach.
In blind, primal release, he pumped his passion onto her skin. Then he slumped beside her, burying his face in the pillows.
Pascal felt elated, exhausted, free. While some wicked, hungry part of him regretted that he hadn’t flooded her womb with sweet heat.
* * *
Amy lay naked and shaking beside Gervaise, as those unearthly, shattering feelings slowly ebbed. The peak had flung her clear of the world and sent her soaring through blazing light. She still felt lost among the stars. She’d had no idea. No idea at all.
Now the world was made anew. And her principal reaction was poignant gratitude. That fate had seen fit to place her in Lord Pascal’s path. That she’d finally mustered the courage to act on the attraction. That she’d had a chance to discover the magic a man and a woman could conjure from two naked bodies in a bed.
She spared a moment’s pity for Wilfred, who had never known this ecstasy. The few times he’d come to her, their union had been quick, fumbling. Hidden, because he felt ashamed of wanting her, even though she was his wife.
There had been none of the unabashed enjoyment Gervaise had taken in her. And Wilfred’s discomfort with his physical needs had made her feel awkward and ugly, so she’d never asked more fr
om him.
Now she looked back on her marriage and thought how sad it was that delight had been a stranger. Wilfred had been a good man. She was sorry this rich fulfillment had been denied to him.
The irony was that she’d felt a thousand times more shame, lying with her lawful husband, than with her dissolute lover. She was now a fallen woman, and she’d never known such happiness.
Clearly she was a brazen hussy.
“Why are you smiling?” Gervaise asked softly.
She turned to find him resting his head on his arm and studying her. “I think you know.”
When attractive amusement crinkled his eyes, his physical beauty struck her anew. She’d never seen his expression so unguarded. With a shock, she realized that even with her, he’d maintained a slight detachment.
Long ago, she’d guessed that Gervaise’s outstanding looks were as much burden as blessing. But she only now understood how he cultivated a constant emotional distance. Essential, she supposed, when the whole world wanted something from you.
“I can guess.” His kiss expressed a searching tenderness that made her toes curl against the rumpled sheets. “Or at least hope.”
The thread of intimacy spinning between them was too fragile to bear the weight of vows and plans. She drew him down for another kiss, trying to tell him without words how he’d changed her. Because after this afternoon, she’d never go back to being frightened, crippled Amy Mowbray, closing herself away from life and joy and danger.
He rolled out of bed and crossed to the washstand. How she admired his comfortable nakedness. Even now, after those extraordinary moments in his arms, she wasn’t quite so brave.
Amy was reaching for the sheet when he splashed some water from the ewer into a bowl and began to wash. Her hand stilled and she lay transfixed. Something about observing this private activity strengthened the invisible net drawing them together.
Once he’d finished, he poured fresh water into the bowl and approached the bed. “Let me wash you.”
His seed was sticky on her stomach. She thought back to the fiery moments when she’d burst through into transcendent pleasure, followed by the faint disappointment, even then, when he’d withdrawn.