The Study of Seduction (Sinful Suitors, #2)(79)

But no matter; he would work with what he had. “My point is, we have plenty of time to do this however we want. For tonight, all I ask is if you’ll let me demonstrate how it works. Nothing more. We don’t have to actually do what I show you. Or we can, and the minute you balk, we’ll stop. The minute you’re frightened, we’ll stop.”

Her gaze turned hard. “I once heard that a man can’t stop. That it’s almost impossible to stop.”

He snorted. “That’s a lie men tell women to get under their skirts. Have I not stopped more than once? Was I not fully aroused this afternoon?”

She sucked in a ragged breath. “Yes. But you said you couldn’t keep going through that.”

“I was wrong.” He buried his fingers in her loosely pinned hair. “I can go through that as many times as it takes to make you comfortable. I only ask that you talk to me. To tell me what you’re feeling, what you want, what you—”

“Kiss me, Edwin. Just stop talking and kiss me.”

He didn’t need another invitation. He took her mouth, feeling all at sea. While he was glad he now knew why she’d shied from him, it was hard to realize she both wanted and feared him. He hated having her fear him.

So when her lips parted to let him in, it touched him deeply. His determined wife was always willing to “try”—and now that he realized how difficult even that was for her, he couldn’t be insulted by it.

They kissed, his heart thundering in his chest, her breath stuttering against his. She tugged at his coat, so he shrugged it off and let her unbutton his waistcoat while he spread openmouthed kisses down her cheek and jaw and throat. He pulled off her coat and waistcoat—odd to be doing that—and then tugged her shirt out of her breeches so he could slip his hands beneath the linen to fondle her breasts.

“Yes,” she murmured. “I like that. It feels wonderful when you do it.” She pulled his shirt out, and ran her hands beneath the fabric and all over his bare chest. “You’re so hard, so strong. It thrills me. And scares me.”

“Your softness does the same thing to me. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you.”

“You won’t. In my head, I know that.” She stretched up to brush a kiss to his lips. “It’s only my body that doesn’t know it.”

“Perhaps you should show your body that there’s nothing to fear.” Taking her by the hand, he drew her over to the window seat that overlooked the garden. He shucked off his trousers and his drawers and sat down, letting his shirt cover his erection. “When I’m afraid of something, it always helps me to get a good look at it. So perhaps if you get a good look at my . . . er . . .”

“Cock?”

He blinked. “You know that word?”

“I learned it from Yvette’s slang dictionaries. That’s what men call their . . . their things, isn’t it? Cocks?”

“Vulgarly, yes.”

“Then I shall call it that, too.” She edged close to pull his shirt up, and her throat worked convulsively as she saw him fully erect. But at least she wasn’t turning away. “And now that I get a good look at it, I’m not surprised. It’s rather impudent. And big. It’s no wonder that dealing with that . . . that monstrous thing hurts. I don’t know how other women stand it going in.”

“You suffered more pain than you should have.” His throat tightened. “It hurt because Whiting took you even though he knew you weren’t ready.”

“Ready?”

Reaching up to undo her breeches, he exulted when she didn’t shy away as he pushed them down. She even stepped out of them.

As he’d suspected, she wore no drawers underneath, but her long shirt covered her privates from his sight. Perhaps being covered would ease her fears a bit.

Like a gamekeeper approaching a wild deer, he inched his hand beneath her shirt to the juncture of her thighs, where he stroked her with slow, careful caresses. “This wetness? It’s to make it easier for you to let a man in.” He dipped his finger inside, relishing her soft sigh. “I daresay Whiting frightened you so much that whatever might have been there in reaction to his kisses dried right up.”

“I was very . . . upset.”

What an understatement. It took all his will to keep his expression calm and even, instead of black with the rage he felt every time he thought of Whiting ravaging her. “But the bastard didn’t care and entered you anyway. It’s rather like when I try to fit two pieces of an automaton together. If they’re not properly oiled, the friction of the movements can damage the metal. You weren’t ‘oiled.’ That’s why it hurt so much.”

She blinked. “Oh. That makes sense. But women are always talking about the pain—”

“The first time can hurt for some, I’m told, but that’s mostly because a virgin goes into the experience nervous and afraid. That doesn’t help.” Continuing to caress her, he glanced up into her wary face. “Nature created men and women to fit together, sweetheart. But we have to want to fit together. Whiting didn’t wait for you to want him. I will.”

“I know. I trust you.”

The words were a balm to his aching heart. “Then may I lift your shirt?”

“I’ll do you one better,” she said, her voice a little shaky. Then she pulled it off over her head and dropped it to the floor.