To distract herself from the quivering that erupted low in her belly, she lowered her brows and grasped wildly for the lost thread of their conversation. It sounded as though he was experiencing the very same difficulty she was. Perhaps they could find a solution to the distracting preoccupation together. “What have you tried?”
He blinked at her question. “Tried?”
“Yes, what have you tried in your attempts to dislodge me? Surely something should work.”
Rutherford laughed then. The sound reverberated through her body. Liquid warmth flowed to her extremities and pooled luxuriously at her center. She shifted again beneath his weight, finding it difficult to think with the contours of his hard body fitting so intimately against her.
“It would be best if you stopped moving,” he suggested through gritted teeth. “It is not making this easier.”
“I cannot help it,” Eliza muttered in rising frustration. “You are making me hot.”
Rutherford groaned and closed his eyes.
Eliza worried her wiggling had somehow hurt him when he muttered under his breath, “Blast it, I am likely to regret this.” He opened his eyes and looked down at her again. “Do you mind if I try one more thing to get you out of my head?”
Wary of the sharp glint in his gaze and the way he seemed to be holding himself stiffly in check, she answered with some trepidation. “If you think it will help.”
Almost before she finished uttering her agreement, he lowered his head and covered her mouth with his.
Chapter Eighteen
The desire she had been resisting flooded her system in a blazing instant. Every inch of her body was suddenly ignited in a firestorm of sensation. She curled her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders and arched her back in a tense bow, flattening her breasts against his chest.
He looped his arm beneath the hollow of her waist to hold her more securely to him as he swept his tongue into her mouth. The lovely taste of him burst past her lips and she groaned with a mixture of dismay and relief.
It was a decadent kiss and Eliza wanted more of it. She tilted her head and met his tongue with hers, her bones melting. She grasped his face in her hands, loving the rough texture of the stubble on his jaw, and gave herself over to the exploration of what could be experienced in the passionate play of lips and tongue and teeth.
He kissed her with the ferocity of pent-up desire and she responded in kind. Her skin grew flushed and her pulse tripled in speed. Bright new emotions stirred and she delighted in the delicate rush of power and pleasure.
When he executed a sensual roll of his hips between her thighs, lightning sparks of pleasure exploded through her and she broke from the kiss to gasp for air. He rocked his hips again and her gasp turned to a heavy moan as heat bloomed in her sex. He slid his hand up the outside of her leg, pushing her skirt up to her hip. His fingers curled around the back of her thigh, reaching deliciously close to the center of her current frustration. Acting purely on instinct, she bent her knee and planted her foot against the sofa to lift her hips, pushing herself against the hard length of him.
She feared she had done something wrong when his fingers dug painfully into the flesh of her thigh. He pulled back, breaking the lock of their mouths. His breath was ragged. Hers was thin and gasping. They stared at each other for a long moment and Eliza saw the battle waging within him. His desire was potent. She wanted to sink into it, be consumed by it, match it with every pulse of longing within her. But she saw a shadow of denial in his gaze. A hard note of resistance.
Panic speared through her. She bit her lip against the words of entreaty that rose in her throat and met his gaze with all of her feelings exposed and raw.
She needed him. And she knew in the depth of her marrow that he needed her.
“After this, there will be no turning back,” he said in a gravelly voice full of tension.
“I do not care,” Eliza whispered as she curved her hand around the back of his neck and urged him back to her.
He lowered his head again and plunged his tongue past her teeth. Her entire body went up in flames. She lifted her leg higher against his side, urging him farther.
He responded with a sweeping caress over the curve of her buttock and a decadent thrust of his hips.
“Not here,” he muttered against her mouth.
In a swift and sudden motion, he lifted himself clear of her body, rising beside the sofa so fast she barely had time to utter a sound of protest. Once on his feet, he reached for her. He wrapped his hands about her waist and before she knew it, he had tossed her over his shoulder to carry her from the room.
A bubble of laughter escaped from her throat as he stalked down the hall.
“What are you doing? Where are we going?” she asked, pushing her hands against his back to lift her upper body. Her hair loosened from its pins to tumble down over her face.
“Somewhere more private.” He turned into a room and kicked the door shut behind him. A brief moment later, he lifted her from his shoulder and she fell back onto a high four-poster bed.
“That was delightfully barbaric.” She grinned as she pushed herself onto her elbows.
He stood at the side of the bed and started to unbutton his shirt. His harsh gaze traveled over her body, igniting more sparks of delicious sensation. He stripped the shirt from his body and tossed it aside.
“You enjoyed that, did you?” he asked with an arched brow.
There was something dangerous in his tone, but she couldn’t bring herself to focus on that as her senses were overwhelmed just then by the simple sight of him. Her breath caught as the wild tingling in her belly intensified. Goodness, but he was an amazingly formed man. Her gaze flew over the sculpted contours of his chest and abdomen. Her mouth went dry with the desire to press her lips and tongue to every inch of him.
As if sensing her hunger, he stopped in the process of opening the front of his breeches and reached for her instead. He removed her shoes and then leaned over her and grasped her wrists to draw her to her feet. Standing between the hard wall of his body and the bed behind her, Eliza felt a wonderful surge of vulnerability. As he reached around her to release the line of buttons at the back of her gown, she laid her hands on the muscles that wrapped his ribcage and stood still within the circle of his arms, content for the moment to await his next move.
Time seemed to slow as she breathed in the heady male scent of him, but soon he had the gown loosened enough that it slipped from her shoulders. The only sound in the room became the sliding whisper of silk and satin and the hushed whisper of bated breath. When the dress caught at the swell of her hips, he eased it past her curves with the flat of his hands sliding down the sides of her body. Her petticoat followed.
Still without a word, he turned her around, keeping her positioned between his body and the bed. When he swept the tangle of her hair over her shoulder to expose the laces of her corset, her chin dropped forward and shivers cascaded like a fall of delicate sparks down her back. He pressed light, feathery kisses across her nape and she had to bite her lips against a groan and lock her knees to keep her legs from collapsing beneath her.
He released the laces of her corset and removed the stiff stays. All that remained now was the light chemise, and suddenly that one piece of clothing felt unbearably cumbersome and suffocating. Eliza could remain still no longer. As she turned back to face him, she grasped the material of her chemise and whipped it off over her head.
She heard his breath catch on a heavy groan and the chemise drifted from her fingers to the floor. Standing completely naked, inches from pressing her bare skin to his hard body, she lifted her gaze to his.
The stark heat of need raged so profoundly in his dark eyes that an inexplicable sob clogged her throat. She swallowed down the swift rise of emotion and lifted her hands to lay them flat against his chest. Feeling the harsh thud of his heart beneath her palm gave her a rush of feminine power and she leaned into him, making contact by slow, torturous degrees. First the peaks of her breasts, then her belly and thighs. She slid her arms up over his shoulders and rose up onto her toes to press her mouth to the underside of his jaw.
With a growl of possession, he wrapped her in his arms and lifted her off her feet to drive them both back onto the bed. They fell together, the welcome weight of his body crushing her into the softness of the mattress.
Rutherford struggled to shove his breeches down his legs without breaking the contact of their bodies. Realizing his trouble, Eliza lent her assistance and the last of his clothing dropped to the floor. And then she felt it all; the heat of his skin, the crisp brush of hair on his legs, his solid muscled frame moving over her as he positioned himself between her thighs. And then the smooth tip of his erection was poised at the entrance to her body.
They paused then as if in mutual acknowledgement of the line they were about to cross. He lifted his head to look fiercely into her face. So much in his expression felt like a reflection of her feelings and she smiled up at him. She lifted her hand to trace her fingers over the stern creases in his forehead until they flattened out. Then she ran her thumb over the firm line of his lips until they softened beneath her touch. He darted his tongue out to flick against the pad of her thumb. A gentle laugh bubbled in her throat and she lifted her head to press her mouth to his, sweeping her tongue against his to taste him fully.
He grasped her head in his hands and kissed her back. A wealth of words were contained in that kiss, and Eliza heard every one of them. When he shifted his hips against her, she relaxed her thighs and raised her knees, entreating him to go farther.
He obliged with a deliberate thrust of his hips that slid his erection along the seam of her sex, gliding in elegant contact against the sensitive bud at the apex. Showering sparks of pleasure spread out to every available corner of her awareness. He repeated the action twice more while she gasped and lifted her hips for more. He obliged again, except this time he changed the angle of his thrust and the very tip of him pressed past her entrance and eased a short way into her body.
The pressure of his penetration was intrusive and hot and incredible.
Eliza arched her back. A whimper escaped from her lips and he responded with low murmurs of comfort and encouragement. And all the while he pushed forward, claiming her body, her heart and her soul. The pain was inconsequential to the lovely possession and fulfillment. Eliza held her breath from the wonder of it all and did not even realize he had stopped moving until she felt his breath ragged with forced control against the side of her neck.
They were so deeply joined she could feel the pulse of his member against her womb. And something new and amazing began to happen then.
The stretching pressure within her began to lessen, and as it did, the burning pain of her rent virginity receded. The taut muscles of her thighs trembled and heat bloomed in the place where he pressed so intimately into her body. She realized she needed him to do something.
She wanted to move. She wanted
him
to move.
He lifted himself to his elbows so he could look into her eyes. Eliza thought perhaps she should be embarrassed by this new level of familiarity between them, but she met his gaze openly.
“Are you all right?” The rough texture of his voice warmed her nearly as much as his concern. “The pain?”
Eliza slid her fingertips up and down the surface of his broad back, feeling giddy and languid all at once. “The pain has gone, but…”
“What?” His brows furrowed. “Something is wrong.”
“It is just…” she paused, uncertain how to voice what she wanted. She shifted beneath him and the small movement caused him to draw a tight breath between his teeth as he closed his eyes. “There is more, isn’t there?” she asked hopefully.
His eyes opened again and she saw a flash of surprise in his gaze, then his beautiful lips curved into a smile and a warm chuckle rolled from his chest. “Yes, you minx, there is more. Much more. I wanted to be sure you were ready.”
Eliza smiled back at him. She arched her back and wrapped her arms more tightly around his back. “I am ready. Please tell me what to do.”
“No,” he said gruffly as he lowered his head to press hot kisses across her chest between her collar bone and the swell of her breasts. “I will do everything. All you need to do is feel.” His murmured words rolled across her skin, and he slowly withdrew from her sex.
Eliza’s eyes fell closed at the delicate sensation aroused by the strange friction. Before he completely left her, he slid forward again, claiming her anew. The pain had gone and she felt only pleasure in the glide of his body in hers. His movements were long and leisurely, as if he would willingly take a lifetime to ease her initiation into this heady new realm. He coaxed pleasure from her body with slow and torturous attention. His strong hands roamed her curves, caressing and gripping her thighs, drawing her legs higher around him as he plunged into her core. And his mouth teased. His tongue laved the sensitive pulse behind her ear, the slope of her shoulder and the peaks of her breasts.
The build-up was slow, wondrous and exhilarating. After a bit, something fierce and demanding began to swirl with the pleasure flowing from her center, making her limbs tense and her back arch deeply. She curled her fingers into the muscle of his shoulders and moaned with the clawing need that overtook her. The pleasure that had been growing began to spark with sharp points of sensation. Then the sparks flashed into a rushing wave that flooded her entire body. The pleasure overtook every bit of her awareness. It took her very breath. She squeezed her thighs tightly against his hips and she curled her face into his shoulder as she rode the sensations to their end.