Where Dreams Begin(79)

“Hurry,” she said in agitation. “Zachary, please, I…I need you.” Now that she had abandoned herself in passion, she had lost all shame, all restraint. She wanted him over her, inside her, the heat of him couched between her legs.

Hushing her with his mouth, Zachary shrugged off his shirt and waistcoat, baring his gleaming sculptured shoulders. He sat on the green cushions and pulled her to his lap. Reaching beneath her skirts, he spread her knees apart and guided them to either side of his hips. Holly turned scarlet with excitement and apprehension as she settled onto his loins and felt the swollen hardness of his erection straining beneath his trousers. She could feel the immense shape of him burning against the delicate veil of her drawers. Hooking his hands beneath her arms, Zachary brought her forward and kissed the space between her br**sts. She cradled his dark head in her arms, and gasped as she felt his mouth close around a tender, peaked nipple. The strokes of his tongue were soft and hot. He moved to her other breast and she felt the gentle pressure of his teeth as he tugged at her aching flesh.

Quiet, incoherent sounds filtered from her throat, and she slid lower on his body, thrusting her damp br**sts into the wiry curls of his chest. The coarse silken hair teased her, stimulated her, and she rubbed herself against him with a moan of pleasure. Later she would be mortified at her own wanton actions…much later. For now there was only Zachary, his sleek muscled body, his amorous, marauding mouth, and she was going to savor every moment with him.

His hands slipped beneath her skirts, and he fondled the round curves of her bottom. His touch became gentle, almost lazy, drifting over her body with maddening slowness. Shakily she urged him once more to hurry, while in the back of her mind she was appalled by her own desperate need. Suddenly Zachary laughed, the sound soft and low in his throat. He untied the tape of her drawers and pulled the garment down her hips. She moved awkwardly to help him, feeling light-headed as the drawers were stripped away.

“T-tell me what to do,” she begged, anxiously aware of her lack of knowledge. This reckless encounter in the midst of an afternoon storm was entirely different from the peaceful nighttime interludes she had shared with George. Zachary Bronson was so terribly experienced—jaded, even—that there seemed no possible way she could satisfy him.

“Are you asking how to please me?” His lips moved tenderly over the rim of her ear. “You don't even have to try.”

She pressed her red face against his shoulder, breathing fitfully as he widened the spread of her legs over his hips. Peals of thunder continued to rip across the sky, but the noise had lost the power to startle her. All her being was focused on the man who held her, his hard body beneath her, the masculine hand that fondled her so gently. His fingertips drew across the fragile crease of her thigh where it met the softer skin of her groin. He stroked the feathery whorls of hair, searching for the place where her intimate flesh parted…He found the small, secretive cove that moistened eagerly at his touch. All her muscles tightened, and she sat suspended over him in trembling astonishment. Her forehead dug into the sinewy surface of his shoulder, and she groaned his name.

She had never been taught any sort of bedroom etiquette, but she and George had both shared the same instinctive understanding that most married couples did—a gentleman accorded his wife the highest respect at all times, even in the conjugal embrace. He would refrain from touching her in indecent ways, and he would not seek to encourage her passions. Her character was to be kept untainted, and though a man should make love to his beloved with kindness, he should never touch or speak to her lewdly.

Apparently no one had ever informed Zachary Bronson of these facts. He whispered words of love and lust in her ear while he played with her unmercifully, his fingertips circling the tiny sensitive peak hidden between the folds of her sex. Aroused and perspiring, she pushed herself farther into his hand, and she gasped as she felt his finger slip inside her.

A strange, burning agitation spread throughout her body, and she twisted against him, her hands opening and closing against his shoulder, her open mouth pressing to his neck in beseeching kisses. His throat hummed with a crooning noise, and she felt the incredible tautness of his body, his muscles tightly bunched with compressed energy. Slowly, as if he were wary of frightening her, he drew away his hand and tugged at the fastenings of his trousers. She felt the hard, heavy spring of his released flesh, and her body jerked as she felt the first scalding touch of him. He positioned her wider and wedged himself against her damp opening.

Holly quivered as she felt him ease inside her, stretching her delicate flesh. She let out a faint whistling breath through her teeth.

“Am I hurting you?” His gaze, dark as midnight, raked over her face. His hand slipped between their bodies, stroking and adjusting, spreading her so that he rubbed directly against the aching nub hidden amid the damp curls. The moment was so astonishingly intimate that she nearly wept. Her body relaxed to accommodate him, the pinching tightness easing, and suddenly there was no pain in his possession, only pleasure. Abandoning herself completely, she wrapped herself around him, her legs clamping on his hips.

Zachary's eyes closed, his brow furrowing. He took the back of her head in his hand and brought her forward, his mouth claiming hers hungrily. His other hand splayed over her hips, urging her against him in an insistent rhythm, thrusting in deep nudges that made her squirm and writhe helplessly. He kept kissing her all the while, his mouth offering, taking, consuming her with feverish heat.