He wanted to tell her that past hurts properly buried didn’t slice at one in the here and now. But he couldn’t find the words, any she would accept.
“I’m not usually so sensitive about it, but this business with you and Elizabeth…” Her voice faded; she took in another breath, still looking away, into the trees. “So now you know. Are you happy?”
“No.” He stirred, stepped around the stone and closed the gap between them. “But at least I understand.”
She glanced over her shoulder as he slid his hands around her waist. Frowned at him. “I can’t see why you need to.”
He drew her around, closed his arms, and bent his head. “I know.”
But you will.
He heard the words in his mind as he set his lips to hers. Not hungrily, but temptingly, coaxingly. She followed, not at first with her usual tempestuous yearning, but yet she went with him. It was a slower, more considered, more deliberate progression into the flames; step by step he led, and she followed.
Until they were burning. Until the heat of their mouths, the pressure of body against body, was no longer enough, not for either of them.
Caught in the moment, wrapped in its promise, needing the heat of it to drive away the past’s chill, Caro resented even the moment he took to step back, shrug out of his coat, flick it out on the ground in the shade beneath a huge oak. When he reached for her and drew her down, she went eagerly, wanting, needing the contact, the wordless assurance that came with his kisses, with each increasingly bold caress.
As usual, he didn’t ask permission to open her bodice, strip away her chemise, and lay her breasts bare—he simply did. Then he feasted, pressing delight upon sensual delight upon her, until she was gasping, skin taut and tight, fevered and burning.
He didn’t ask, but simply reached for her skirt, tugged the front up between them and slid his hand beneath. His searching fingers found her knee, circled it, then traced upward, lingeringly caressing the inner faces of her thighs until the muscles flickered, until she shifted, pressed closer, wordlessly demanding…
She knew what she wanted, but when he touched her curls she nearly expired. Not just with delight, but anticipation. He boldly nudged her thighs apart, stroked through her curls, traced her soft flesh in a languid exploration that left her heated, slick, and throbbing. Then his touch firmed.
He released the breast he’d been tauntingly suckling; lifting his head, from under heavy lids he held her gaze as he slid one finger deep inside her.
Awareness gripped her, excruciatingly acute. She lost her breath, lost touch with her wits; every sense she possessed locked on that assured penetration, on the steady invasion as he pushed deeper, then reached deeper still.
Before she could catch her breath, he stroked, firmly, deliberately. Then he bent his head and covered her lips, kissed her as if she were a houri he owned.
She kissed him back as if she were, avid, greedy—demanding, commanding, even deliberately taunting. He responded in kind. Their mouths melded, tongues tangling as between her thighs he worked his hand, stroked, and drove her mindless.
Gripping his shoulders, she held him to the kiss, suddenly desperate on so many counts. Desperate for him to keep kissing her so he wouldn’t see, wouldn’t have a chance to see—so she wouldn’t have a chance to give herself away by revealing how novel, how indescribably exciting yet glitteringly, fascinatingly new the sensations he was pressing on her were.
Desperate that he wouldn’t stop.
Desperate to reach some sensual pinnacle, to shatter the tension growing and coiling and building within her.
She felt like screaming.
Even through the kiss, she sensed him swear, then between her thighs, his hand shifted.
She tried to pull back to protest; he refused to let her, followed her, holding her trapped in the kiss—then a second finger pressed in alongside the first, suddenly, startlingly, escalating the pressure. The tension racked up another notch; she could feel her body tightening against his.
He held her down, then his hand shifted again; his thumb touched her, stroked, searched, then settled—pressed in time with the stroking of his fingers.
She fractured like crystal in bright sunlight, shards of white-hot pleasure streaking through her, sharp, slicing, abruptly releasing the tension, letting it flow into a golden pool. The pool glowed, throbbed; its heat sank into her, pulsed beneath her skin, in her fingertips, in her heart.
The wonder held her, cradled her, ripped from the world for the very first time, afloat on the ecstasy of her senses.
Slowly, she returned—to the physical world, to comprehension. To the knowledge of what physical delight was, to some inkling of what she’d missed all these years—to a deeper knowledge of what she’d been waiting for, and what he’d brought her.
He’d raised his head; he’d been watching her and still was.
She smiled, slowly, lazily stretched, sensually sated for the first time in her life. Glorying in it.
Her smile said it all; Michael drank it in—decided it was even better than the smile she’d gifted him with when he’d told her he was no longer considering Elizabeth as his bride.
This was a smile worthy of the efforts he fully intended to make—mentally renewed his vow to make—to see it wreathe her face every morning, and every night. It was a smile she deserved as much as he did.