She shivered, not with the cold, but with fevered excitement as his gaze traveled from her face down over her naked body. She felt her nipples contract and grow hard as his blazing sapphire eyes took in every detail of her unclothed form.
Shameless. She was shameless, and she didn’t care one bit. She
wanted
him to look at her with fierce, unrestrained need.
“Meggie,” he breathed. “You are so lovely. So very lovely, so alive. So responsive. So desirable.” His hands grazed lightly up her rib cage, his thumbs stroking the underswell of her breasts.
She trembled with longing, her eyes closing, her head falling back, and yearned for the fullness of his touch on her aching flesh. But instead of giving her the satisfaction she craved, he bent down and effortlessly swept her up in his arms, cradling her against his chest.
“Oh,” she said in disappointment. “That felt so nice. I wish you hadn’t stopped.”
“I am delighted to hear it,” Hugo said with a low chuckle. “However, do try to curb your impatience. I shock easily.” He brushed his mouth over her forehead and she felt the smile that curved his lips.
She wrapped her arms back around his neck and sighed, drinking in his heady scent. “I can’t help desiring you,” she whispered, stroking her fingers through his silky hair. “Am I terribly unladylike?”
“Delightfully so,” he replied, carrying her over to the bed as if she weighed no more than a feather. “But there is much to come, and I want you to enjoy every moment of this night, Meggie. And you will enjoy it, I promise.”
“Oh, you needn’t worry about that,” she said, nuzzling her nose into the side of his throat, his skin hot and slightly damp. “I told you I’m not afraid.”
“You might not be afraid, but I’m terrified,” he said dryly.
Meggie, taken aback by the absurdity of that statement, raised her head and stared up at him. “What could you possibly be terrified of? It’s not as if you haven’t done this a hundred times before.”
Hugo smiled, caressing a strand of her hair. “Not with my wife I haven’t. What I’m terrified of is wanting you so badly that I go too quickly. You wouldn’t thank me for it, and I would hate myself.” Bending down, he kissed the very tip of her nose. “So as much as I may desire you, I am determined to take my time. You, my greedy darling, will just have to put up with me.”
He stripped back the counterpane, cursing as a flurry of rose petals rose from the bed, swirling everywhere.
Meggie burst into laughter as fragile pink blossoms drifted down over them, covering them both from head to toe. “You look like a flower shop,” she said, brushing her fingers through his hair and dislodging another shower.
“Damned old bats,” Hugo said, plucking a petal out of his mouth. He laid her down on the bed and stepped back, his gaze sweeping over her in admiration. “On the other hand, I must say, you look rather charming dressed in nothing but rose petals.”
Meggie pushed herself up on one elbow. “I wish I could say the same for you,” she replied, her lips trembling with mischief.
“Ah. A hint, and I do believe a rather broad hint at that,” he said, stripping off his coat and undoing the buttons on his shirt. “I think I can oblige the lady.”
Meggie’s breath caught in her throat as he removed the fine linen. Firelight flickered like gold over his smooth skin, revealing every last magnificently chiseled muscle of his broad chest, from the flat planes of his pectorals to the sculpted ridges that ran over the top of each rib.
Bending, he pulled off his shoes and stripped off his trousers. He straightened then, as naked as she was, and looked straight at her, his expression unreadable.
Meggie stared, drinking in the absolute beauty and raw power of the male body. Of Hugo’s body.
Her awed gaze traveled from broad shoulders and chest over his lean waist and muscular hips, down toward his powerful thighs. Her widened eyes arrested just at the juncture of his thighs where his manhood jutted stiff and ready toward her from its thatch of dark hair. So that’s what Adam was hiding under the fig leaf.
Just the sight made the secret, feminine place between her thighs throb with renewed longing. A deep intuitive knowing stirred in her, every instinct wanting—needing—to take that masculine part of him into her, to be filled with his length, to embrace him with her body, to make his flesh one with hers.
“Oh…” Meggie whispered. “Oh, Hugo. I had no idea. I’ve always wondered, but I never even imagined anything so perfectly wonderful … You are beautiful.”
Hugo reached the bed in two strides and drew her up into his arms. “Meggie,” he groaned, his mouth pressed against her cheek. “How do you do this to me, undo me to such a degree that I no longer know myself? Dear
God,
how I want you.”
He gently took her face between his warm hands and fitted his mouth to hers, kissing her until her senses swam and she cried out in mindless need.
Pressing her back against the bed, Hugo trailed his hands down over her throat. His palms slipped over the rise of her breasts, softly cupping them, while his thumbs stroked over her nipples. Meggie’s back arched in pleasure and she strained toward him as he circled the sensitive tips, lightly pinching and rolling them between his fingers.
Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might give out altogether. She’d never felt anything so glorious in her life—until he lowered his mouth and took one nipple into it, nipping and pulling. She thought that not only would her heart give out, but she’d have to be carted off to the asylum like Martha Lindsay.
“Hugo,” she gasped as he inflicted the same intense bliss on her other breast. “Hugo, she was right.”
“Who was right?” he murmured, his hands tracing lazily down her spine and drawing a line over her hips to her belly.
“Mrs. Lindsay,” she said through the dreamlike haze that had overcome her. “She knew just what she was talking about.” She caressed his back, her fingers traveling down to the carved hollow of his buttocks and exploring their shape. So hard. So beautiful. So very masculine.
Hugo raised his head and looked down at her, breathing hard. “Meggie, my girl, somehow I do not believe Mrs. Lindsay told you the half of it. You will just have to see for yourself.”
He kissed her again, hard, then lightly bit her throat. His fingers splayed low over her abdomen, reaching into her soft, damp curls, gently tugging.
Meggie gasped, writhing, with her hips twisting against the pressure of the masculine thigh that had somehow inserted itself between her own. His hard arousal pressed against her belly, and she cupped her hands around his buttocks, pulling him even closer. She wanted him so desperately that she nearly died with longing.
“Oh—oh, please,” she begged, not entirely sure what she was begging for, but certain he would know exactly. Hugo knew everything.
He did. Of course he did. His fingers slipped even lower, sliding against her parted cleft, stroking that most secret of places languidly, as if he understood perfectly what she needed.
She arched up to his touch, a low cry escaping her throat. Her hips undulated against his fingers as they gently, insistently parted her yielding, willing flesh. His fingers slipped inside, rocking rhythmically, stoking the fire that burned bright and fierce—a fire that spread from her most intimate of places and flashed through every last nerve ending in her body until her entire being shook with exquisite sensation.
She gathered the fire, carrying the brilliant blue-white center back to its origin where it focused like sunlight concentrated through a fragment of glass.
“Hugo,” she cried, the center of the flame transforming into an explosion of sensation bright and intense. It took her in pulsating waves that she thought might never end.
He stayed with her, his fingers moving in subtle but exact rhythm with her body’s inner spasms.
And when they finally died down he was still with her, kissing her hair, her wet cheeks, her mouth, her throat, even the palms of her hands.
“Meggie,” he whispered. “Meggie, I never imagined you would be … Will you have me? Will you take me inside you?”
She opened her eyes, gazing up at him with all the love in the world, her heart about to burst with it. “Yes—oh yes, and quickly, please?” she managed to say, her voice shaking badly.
He seemed to laugh, but she couldn’t be entirely sure, since his head dropped down into the space between her breasts. She couldn’t tell if it was his shoulders that shook or her fingers resting on them that trembled so badly.
She only knew that his hips rose and centered over hers. The blunt tip of his manhood pressed against her swollen, moistened flesh, seeking entrance.
Meggie embraced him with her thighs and raised her hips in invitation. Pressing her face against his chest, she cradled his back with her arms. Martha Lindsay had so far been correct in her details of the joys of lovemaking, and what she’d described as coming next Meggie could barely wait for.
Hugo shifted very slightly and pushed into her, stretching her with his rigid width and only the beginning of his length. Despite her desire, Meggie winced at the unexpected burning.
“Meggie? Meggie, love?” Hugo stroked her face, her neck, her breasts as he stayed very still just inside her entrance. “Do I hurt you?”
“Not—not enough for me to ask you to stop,” she said, forcibly thrusting her hips up against his, then crying out in pain. This was the last thing she’d anticipated. Martha Lindsay hadn’t mentioned this part, if indeed it was natural.
“Meggie—Meggie, my sweet girl, let me—please let me. I am sorry to hurt you so, but you are very tight, and it’s best done quickly.”
“What is best done quickly?” she said, frowning up at him. “I thought you said you liked to take your time. And I distinctly remember your saying I’d enjoy this.”
“I do. You will. But I refer to your maidenhead, which has to be broken before you can enjoy my being inside you. It will hurt only this one time, I promise.” He stroked the damp hair back off her forehead. “It’s what happens when you lose your virginity—some brief pain and a little bleeding afterward.”
“Oh,” she said, hugely relieved that there was nothing wrong with her. “If that is all it is, then do what you must, Hugo. I’ll try to be brave.”
He cradled her face between his hands and gazed down into her eyes. His own eyes were filled with such tenderness that she would have done anything for him, including accepting his manhood that pressed painfully and insistently against her.
She told herself that something truly magical must lie beyond, maybe even something glorious. But, she found it hard to imagine how there could be anything glorious at all when she felt as if she were being skewered.
Hugo took her hands in his, folding his fingers through hers. He covered her mouth with his own, kissing her deeply, then thrust his hips hard.
Meggie gasped at the explosion of pain that ripped through her as Hugo broke through her barrier and drove deep into her passage. Tears stung at her eyes and she buried her face in his shoulder, her fingers clutching his in a death grip, her breath coming in rapid, shallow pants.
“Meggie, sweet, it’s done now,” he whispered against her hair. “All finished, my brave girl. I suppose your Mrs. Lindsay forgot about her own deflowering once she realized what came after. She obviously didn’t tell you what to expect, and neither did anyone else.”
Meggie turned her head and looked up at him through wet lashes. “No…” she admitted, dimly aware that the throbbing pain was slowly subsiding and she was gradually adjusting to his hard length inside her. Really, he didn’t feel so
very
awful. “At least now I know why I wasn’t a nervous bride,” she said, summoning up a smile. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she really didn’t like this part at all.
“Lovely Meggie,” he said, releasing one of her hands and gliding his fingers down her throat to her breast, tracing its outline, circling the nipple until she shivered. He touched his tongue to it, then delicately took the hardened bud between his teeth and lightly bit.
Meggie sighed, and he moved his mouth to her other breast and did the same. She looped her arms around his neck as he continued to work his sensual magic. Little cries escaped from her throat as he drove her upward, back to that place of intense sensation where she lost herself in his sweet caresses, where nothing existed but his touch and taste. She felt the moist heat of his body against hers, the low moan against her cheek that told her his pleasure was as great as hers, the powerful thudding of his heart in his chest, the blood that beat hard in her ears so that she could no longer tell whose heartbeat she heard.
His hand slipped down to the place where their bodies joined. His fingers stroked her, finding the sensitive little nub at the apex of her tender flesh. She gasped as every nerve ending sparked with a desperate joy, his touch fanning smoldering desire into white-hot flame.
“Sweet girl, you like that, don’t you?” he murmured, his fingertips circling, circling, until she writhed against him. Her fingers clutched his hair, her head tossed on the pillow. “I like it, too. Dear God, but you are beautiful, my Meggie. Let me love you. Let me show you how good it can be.”
He shifted very slightly, his rock-hard length sliding higher inside her and she gasped, but this time in blissful pleasure.
Her thighs fell open, her hips tentatively swayed up toward him, seeking more of the same, and Hugo obliged her. He rocked his hips in the gentlest of rhythms, a soft undulation that slowly, slowly built in strength until he stroked her with the full length of his manhood, thrusting into her hot center. Her body opened and yielded to his in wondrous acceptance.
He reached around her, cupped her hips, and showed her how to move with him, how to open even wider, how to take him deeper still.
Her hands explored over the length of his back, down to the curve of his buttocks, up over his straining muscles. She found the rhythm he had set, her body flowing with him, against him as if they were point and counterpoint, a harmony that blended perfectly and resonated in her very soul.
And as it did, she reached once more toward the bright fire that he’d brought down from heaven to her. Her soft cries became sharp gasps that mingled with his as heaven’s flames blazed and exploded in her body’s heart, the racking spasms shaking her until she sobbed.