Keeping his expression bland, he pointed to the hall stand. “Perhaps if I had my cane?”
She fetched it. “You should be using it all the time—at least until you’re back to full strength.”
Leaning on the cane, he took an awkward shuffling step.
Making another of her disapproving sounds, she swooped closer. “Here—let me help.” Grabbing his free arm, she draped it over her slender shoulders.
Ryder smothered a triumphant grin. Because he was so much taller—the top of her head barely reached his shoulder—the only way she could assist him was to brace his body with hers. Which she promptly did.
“Thank you,” he murmured. Letting her press as close as she wished, he allowed her to steer him across the hall and on down the corridor.
The feel of her against h
im—the svelte but definite curves pressing against the side of his chest, her feminine warmth seeping temptingly through the layers of fabric separating their skins, the pressure of her small hands on his chest and back—stirred him to an uncomfortable degree, but as they made their slow way back into the library, he decided this much nearness was worth every second of the resulting discomfort.
Especially as it gave him the chance, once they’d reached the middle of the library and Pemberly had shut the door behind them, to halt, shake loose the light hold she had on his arm, and slide it around her—and then he was holding her.
Wide cornflower-blue eyes stared up at him, her wits—if he was any judge—momentarily suspended. He seized the moment to indulge his senses, but the instant her lips started to firm and her eyes started to narrow, he said, “I haven’t yet thanked you for saving my life.”
Her eyes stopped narrowing, but the expression in them declared she didn’t intend to allow him the upper hand. “I’m still considering what I should claim as my reward.”
“Indeed. You must tell me when you’ve decided. For now, however, I thought I should start paying my dues . . . like this.” Eyes locked with hers, leaving his cane resting against his thigh, he raised his hand, tipped up her chin, and slowly, giving her plenty of time to anticipate the moment, lowered his head and, very gently, kissed her.
The first touch of his lips on hers . . .
Mary felt a shivery tremor slide deep, to her marrow. A tantalizingly delicate caress—more promise than substance, more lure than bait; he supped while she savored, and promptly wanted more.
Both of them wanted more. Without direction, she parted her lips, thrilled to her core when he angled his head and immediately accepted her invitation.
His lips firmed on hers, pressure and heat, veiled hunger and even more heavily screened desire—both were there. She unfurled and reached for him; even though all she did was lean more definitely into the kiss, that’s what it felt like, a physical unfolding and stretching.
A coming alive in a wholly novel way.
She felt no surprise that it was he who made her feel so; he was an expert in this sphere, after all.
His arms, both now, slid around her and gently tightened, gathering her to him. She shifted closer yet, tilting her face to his in clear demand.
She sensed his satisfaction.
Then his tongue traced her lips, then plunged between.
And she stopped thinking.
Ryder teetered on an edge he hadn’t walked in years, an instinctive compulsion to dive deep and plunder almost overwhelming the sensual tactician who knew the best strategy was slow and steady.
Slow so he could savor, could draw every last iota of significance from, and invest every possible nuance back into, the exchange—the first kiss they’d shared. The first of many, true, but this was one to embed in their memories—hers, most certainly, but in this instance his as well.
And steady as a rock so she wouldn’t take fright; virgins were like unbroken fillies—they had to be gentled to a man’s touch, to his tasting, eventually to his taking. His claiming.
But she clearly had no notion of the way things should, for her own sake, be; as reining his baser self well back, he traced the inner contours of her luscious mouth, tasted tea and the honey biscuits she’d nibbled, and gloried in the promise of latent passion the hunter in him sensed dwelled beneath her innocence, she boldly and brazenly stepped fully into him.
The contact seared him, frazzled his control.
And the kiss tumbled headlong into the heated and wanton.
Into a sudden rage of giddy passion and unscripted delight.
Not so slow. Nowhere near steady.