A Night to Surrender (Spindle Cove #1)(60)

He flexed his strong arms, drawing her close. It wasn’t until he had her molded against his chest, surrounded by his heat, that she realized she was trembling.

“Don’t be afraid,” he murmured, pressing kisses to her brow.

She wasn’t afraid, just . . . overwhelmed. What did this mean to him? What did it mean to her? Just kisses, she reminded herself. To him, these were just kisses. He didn’t want romantic attachments.

Don’t get any ideas, she sternly told her heart.

“Don’t be frightened,” he told her. “You’re so passionate. So beautiful. There’s so much more I could show you. So much pleasure we could share.”

“Tell me,” she heard herself say.

She didn’t know what possessed her to play innocent. Susanna certainly understood the concept of intercourse, if not from personal experience. She knew what the books said about coitus and human reproduction, and she’d worked alongside midwives, and she heard how the scullery maids giggled and gossiped among themselves. But she wanted to hear what it meant to him. What he thought it would mean between them.

He took her hand and brought it to his body, cupping her palm over the bulge tenting his breeches’s fall. “Feel this?”

She nodded. How could she fail to feel it? It wasn’t precisely a negligible size.

He kept her hand pressed snug, dragging her palm over his full length. His organ throbbed and strained beneath her touch. “It’s for you, Susanna. For your pleasure.”

“Good heavens. All of it?”

He chuckled low and kissed her neck. “Yes, all of it. It’s made to fit inside you.”

Leaving his manhood in her grasp, he let his own hand drop to the hem of her shift. He gathered the light, thin fabric and eased it up to her thigh, skimming his fingers along the sensitive hollow of her knee. Then his hand delved between her legs, spreading her thighs apart. His fingers found her warm, wet intimate flesh. As he traced the contours of her sex, gently exploring and teasing her apart, a low moan pulled from her chest.

“This”—he ground his erection against her hand—“belongs here.” His finger slid inside her, giving her an exquisite sense of fullness and bliss. “It’s as simple as that.”

As simple as that.

So this was coupling, as he understood it. An uncomplicated, natural act. A mutual sating of needs and desires. They were made for this. His body belonged inside hers.

He pumped his finger in a slow rhythm, plunging a fraction deeper with every stroke. Though she’d just experienced a wrenching climax minutes ago, her arousal built at an astonishing pace. Soon she was arching her hips to meet his clever fingers, stroking her hand over his arousal in time with his thrusts. He kissed her thoroughly, forcing her jaw wide and delving deep with his tongue. She struggled to reciprocate, tasting and teasing him with voracious hunger. He growled his approval against her lips.

He slid his finger from her aching cleft, and she whimpered at the sudden loss. Her complaint was swiftly addressed, however, when he moved atop her, nestling between her thighs. She had to spread her legs wide to accommodate his hips—an act which drew her feminine mound snug against his hardness. He rocked against her in just the right place, and pure, bright pleasure shimmered through her veins.

He framed her face in his big hands. His gaze was dark and hungry as a wolf’s. “Do you want me, Susanna?”

She couldn’t dissemble. Her body made an answer of its own, as her hips tilted and arched, rubbing sinuously against his arousal. “Yes.”

He didn’t move. “Yes?”

Another man would have taken her at her first answer, if he’d bothered to ask at all. But he wanted to be absolutely certain she wanted this, too. If she’d harbored any lingering reluctance, his thoughtful concern dissolved it.

Yes, she wanted this. Not just this. She wanted him. Perhaps she would never marry. Perhaps she would never know true, lasting love with a man. But she wanted to explore passion and pleasure, and she wanted it to be with Bram. In all her five-and-twenty years, no man had ever made her feel this way. She might be waiting another five-and-twenty to experience this wonderful yearning again.

“Yes,” she said again.

Still, he hesitated. “We shouldn’t. Not tonight. Your first time really should be in a bed. What’s more, that bed should be a marriage bed, for a girl like you.”

“I never planned to marry at all. And as for beds . . .” She looked up at the willow branches sheltering them, and the scattered stars twinkling through. A more romantic setting couldn’t exist. “Everyone has beds. I’ll take this. So long as—” She cleared her throat. “You will be careful, won’t you? At the end. I shouldn’t want to get with child.”

“I can be careful. But you should know, there’s always a chance.”

“I know. I’m willing to take the risk, if you are.”

“To be with you?” He kissed her lips. “I’d risk a firing squad.”

Her heart turned over in her chest. “Then yes. To all of it.”

This time, he took her at her word. With one hand he impatiently pushed her shift higher, baring her abdomen and her left breast. He paused a moment, just looking.

“So beautiful.”

The words rushed over her skin on a hot, ragged breath, drawing her nipple to a tight pucker. He bent his head and suckled her, drawing the aroused peak deep into his mouth and swirling his tongue around the sensitive tip. As he sucked and licked, the rough fringe of his whiskers scraped over her tender skin. Her every nerve attenuated, drawing tense and thin with the mounting pleasure.