Page 66 of The Dangerous Love of a Rogue
He’d said in his letter, the day she had met him in the summerhouse, he did not know love. He did not – but she would teach him. ‘I love you too.’
A guttural sound escaped his throat. ‘I like you calling me Andrew, no one else does.’ He kissed her, urgently. Her arms encircled his neck. Then she realised he was drawing up her dress.
She broke the kiss. His dark eyes stared at her.
Before she could speak, he threw her his rogue’s lilting smile. ‘Let me make love to you now, as we are, no foreplay, no procrastination.’
Her next breath faltered.
He moved her hand to the front of his trousers. ‘See how ready I am.’
She was not ready at all.
She tilted her head. ‘No.’
‘I am your husband in all but name.’
‘Which is why you should not ask it of me.’
He dropped her hand.
She thought he would turn away, instead he said, ‘Please, may I make love to you now? Because I love you and I need to feel how much you love me.’
It was the need in his voice, not his words, the voice of the Andrew she thought she was the only one who knew, that made her want this too. She answered physically, stepping forward and kissing him.
Yesterday, he had been tender. Tonight, he was wicked. But his wickedness made something lurch low in her stomach as her body recalled the feel of him inside her, while his hands pulled up her dress. It was as if she had touched a flame to tinder and ignited an inferno.
Within minutes, he freed himself from the restrictions of his clothing, lifted her feet from the floor, wrapped her legs about his waist and pushed into her. There was pain at first, and heat in flashes, as he pounded into her. Her arms clung about his neck as her head and back hit the bedchamber wall over and over.
‘Am I hurting you?’
The urgency in his voice caught at her heart. He was hurting her, but it was pleasure too. He loved her passionately, there was nothing wrong in that. ‘No,’ she lied.
His fingertips pressed hard into the flesh of her thighs as he held her up, the sounds escaping his throat like an animal’s growl.
She thought he would reach his conclusion before she was even close to it. Then. ‘Andrew!’
When the ecstasy of their union struck, it was in a rush that knocked her flying, the surge of it racing to her toes and fingertips. Before she had come down from her peak, he sighed heavily, his breath brushing her earlobe, and she felt him pulsing inside her, his conclusion reached too. Her body trembled as his stiffened.
After a moment, he lowered her legs. He smiled. His forehead rested against hers and his nose brushed hers tenderly. ‘I felt as desperate as this last night, but… well… it would have been wrong for your first time.’
The tone of his voice told her he needed her more than physically. She kissed him, just a press of lips to lips.
‘Say you love me,’ he said.
Mary smiled. There were so many seams in him for her to mine, she did not understand all of his motivations and behaviours, but she had a feeling his past, perhaps the family he hated talking about, had made him the man he was. ‘I love you.’
‘And I you, Mary.’ The husk in his voice seemed heavy with unspoken words.
She would make her parents understand. She would make them like him. If she saw the good in him, they must see it too – and they must understand that no one else would have been enough for her, no one else could love her with the passion and intensity he did.
* * *
Drew lay still and silent, watching Mary breathing. He could not sleep. She lay beside him, naked. But it was not only her body that was naked; it was also her heart. Her openness, and innocence, cleansed him. Even the air drawing into his lungs felt cleaner. She had washed away the stains the other women he’d taken to bed had left on his soul. She was as clean and white as snow, and now he lay beside her feeling as though he was too.
He wanted to hold her. He did not, because he did not want to wake her. The candle had burned to a stub, it would go out soon and he would no longer be able to see her. Her beauty was incomparable. That was because it was soul-deep.
He had left a first footprint on her snowy white soul. He hoped they would keep walking together until the very last footprint. He hoped he did not spoil her, ruin the beautiful parts of her. If the emotions he felt were love, then love was all-consuming and possessive.
