Page 79 of The Truth About Lord Stoneville
“No.” Amusement shone in his eyes as his hand found the slick, tender flesh he’d pleasured only a short while before. “But I don’t imagine it’s much different than usual.”
His finger delved inside her, making her gasp.
“A-Aunt Rose said it hurts the first time. And there could be blood, and—”
He cut her off with a kiss, his body hard against hers, though the weight of him was oddly soothing. Holding himself partly off her with one hand, he stroked her below with the other while his mouth fed on hers.
She looped her arms about his neck and threw herself into the kiss. This, she knew. This, she liked. She liked the slow, devouring way he took her mouth, as if she were the first woman he’d ever kissed and he had to eke every drop of pleasure from it.
She was so busy enjoying his kisses that she didn’t realize he’d replaced his finger with something bigger, until the something bigger began forging its way inside her.
Pulling her mouth from his, she tensed.
“Relax.” He held her gaze with his heated one. “Our bodies are made to do this, strange as it seems. And no matter what you’ve been told, it’s the most natural thing in the world.”
“It doesn’t feel natural.”
“That’s because you’re resisting it.” He nuzzled her cheek, then whispered, “Don’t fight it. Let go. I promise I won’t hurt you any more than necessary.”
“That’s not terribly reassuring,” she said as he pushed farther inside her.
With a strangled laugh, he pressed his mouth to her ear. “Shall I tell you a joke to keep your mind off it?”
She arched one eyebrow. “A naughty one, I suppose.”
“Of course.”
When he eased deeper into her, she stiffened, unable toprevent it. It was too strange—having him inside her, so thick, so unwieldy. “A-all right.”
“An old man asked his daughter what sort of plant she thought grew the fastest. She said, ‘A saddle pommel.’ ‘How so?’ he asked. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘when I was riding behind the footman and I was afraid of falling off, he told me to reach around his waist to grab the pommel. It was no bigger than a finger when I grabbed it, but by the time we reached home it was as big around as my wrist!’”
With the evidence of such thickness now planted inside her, she couldn’t help but laugh. And while she was still laughing, he broke through her maidenhead.
Though there was pain, it wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d imagined. And the feel of him, so intimately joined to her, was indescribable.
“All right?” he murmured against her ear, his voice strained.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“It will get better.”
Then he made good on that promise. As he drew out, then thrust in again and again, her pain became a liquid warmth, then an urgent heat that engulfed her senses, searing along her nerves, turning her blood molten.
“My God, angel,” he said hoarsely as he drove into her. “You feel like heaven.”
When she arched up against him, seeking the same sensation she’d felt before, he growled, “I love the way you respond to me.” He pressed a kiss into her hair. “And I love your hair. It smells like spices.”
She stared up into his face. “For a man who doesn’t believe in love, you certainly throw the word around a lot.”
He blinked. A strange alarm flitted over his features. Then he bent to take her mouth again.
She rose to his kiss as a flower rises from the earth to meet the spring. Because when she was in his arms it felt like spring, like the world coming alive after the gray death of winter.
His kiss turned desperate, as if he couldn’t get enough of her, and his thrusts became more urgent, driving into her in hard, deep strokes that made her gasp against his mouth. Still kissing her, he tugged her knees up higher so that he was pounding against the very part of her that ached for him so desperately.
Fire flared high inside her, until she couldn’t think for the flames. Every nerve burned with it, and heat flooded her like molten lava. “That is . . . ohhh . . . my darling Oliver . . .”
“Yes,” he said hoarsely, sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Yes, angel. You’re mine now. Mine, do you understand? Mine . . . mine . . .mine. . .”
