There was something about the way Luke kissed her which always completely scrabbled her wits, and this one was no exception. He started with her neck, his big hands exploring the curve of her waist and hips, only moving to her mouth when she had shamelessly splayed herself against him to prevent him prolonging the agony further.
Except this time, as his lips whispered over hers, something felt very different.
She felt very different.
It might have been his proposal. It might have been the heady knowledge that he adored her enough to plant not one, but two separate beds of yellow roses for her. It might also have been the romance of the waltz and the sublime intimacy of the beautiful starlit night around them now, or her imminent trip to Bath which made everything feel so poignant. But whatever it was, she was prepared to take Maria’s advice and stride boldly towards it for a change, rather than shy away from it, paralysed by fear. She had done too much of that with him and he deserved better. He had always been her friend first and foremost. Her ally and her confident. Soon, he would be her husband too and they would have exactly the sort of marriage she had always dreamed of. One of two equals and mutual respect.
Except with Luke there would also be passion. An aspect of a partnership which she had underestimated, not understanding that a man’s desire could be a beautiful and liberating thing instead of a violation. She was excited by the rigid press of his hardness against her belly. Curious about it and the next stage of their relationship. The intimacy of living with a man. Being with a man. Waking up next to him each morning. Going to bed with him at night. Seeing his naked body again—but being able to touch it and explore it. Succumb to it. Both friends and lovers—husband and wife.
When the tone of the kiss inevitably turned carnal as the mutual lust between them quickly burned too hot and once again became unbearable, it was Luke, as usual, who pulled away, trying to rescue them both before the sublime pull of it banished all good sense.
He held her at arm’s length, his breathing gloriously erratic and his intense gaze darkened by desire, and she realised that, as usual too, he was giving her all the power. For Luke, his own needs and wants always came secondary to hers, and likely always would. She knew that now without a shadow of a doubt. There was no ulterior motive. No hidden agenda. To him she was more than a conquest. He adored her.
All of her. Body and soul.
Wanted to marry her and would probably spend the rest of his life doing everything in his power simply to try and please her, and doubtless making the odd hash of it because he adored her most of all.
With him by her side, it was hard to feel pessimistic. Luke was all optimism and solutions rather than disappointments and defeat. The light to her shade and the love of her life.
She stared deep into his eyes, saw the emotion as well as the desire swirling in them, and knew the depth of his feelings mirrored hers. As she cupped his cheek, she smiled. His mother was right—what was she waiting for?
In less than thirty-six hours she was going away and wouldn’t see him for an eternity. Only a fool would waste a moment of that.
Instead of allowing him to be the noble gentleman and the eternal rescuer, the natural sensual and feminine part of her which she always tried to suppress came to the fore. She traced her fingers lovingly down his cheek, then boldly traced the pad of one around his lips, biting her own because they ached for him so much. His eyes dropped to them and heated, and simply because she suddenly felt all powerful and wantonly, sinfully wicked, she gave in to the urge to undo his cravat slowly unwinding it from his neck.
‘Are you trying to kill me, woman?’ His breath hitched as her lips nuzzled his jaw and the muscles in his chest bunched beneath his clothing as she ran her palms over them. ‘There is only so much restraint I can muster.’
She answered his question with a kiss so decadent and thorough, they were both panting by the end of it.
By then she had undone each and every button on his waistcoat, and her greedy hands had not only untucked the tails of his shirt from his trousers but had burrowed beneath it to feel the heat of his skin. Skin she hadn’t been able to forget since the day she had seen it all exposed and soaking wet on this very balcony. However, this time his nipples were puckered with desire and not the cold, and his heartbeat beneath her palms was like a rapid hammer against his ribs. His expression wasn’t the least bit cocky and smug. It was wary. Questioning. Hopeful.
She unsettled him.
Overwhelmed him—and that knowledge was intoxicating.
The infamous red gown now felt too tight. Too much of a barrier between her needy body and his. Hope craved his touch, ached for it. Yet so far, his hands had remained too respectful and would remain so unless she invited him to be otherwise.
‘I wore this dress for you, Luke.’ She didn’t recognise her voice. It was sultry. Seductive. She kissed him again. Used her teeth to nibble on his bottom lip, wanted to explore how far she could push him before he cracked. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Yes.’
His voice was gruff. Slightly strangled because he was holding himself back. So she did the only thing she could think of to set him free while enslaving him further. She tugged him by the hand into the dimly lit privacy of his bedchamber and then turned her back to him.
‘Good...then help me out of it.’
She heard him swallow as he hesitated. Heard his indecision. Could imagine how his nobleness and need to always do the right thing warred with the base urges all men suffered from.
She smiled as she removed a pin from her hair and the fat curl bounced against her shoulder, enjoying leading him into temptation. ‘I am inviting you to bed, my Luke...exactly as you requested.’
His fingers were clumsy on the laces, his soft breath uneven against her neck. Twice he gave in to the urge to press his lips to where her pulse beat but the effort it took to stop at that was palpable. As soon as the bodice was loose he stepped several feet back. Rescuing her again in case she had a change of heart and she loved him all the more for that selfless gesture.
As he watched her, she slid the garment from her shoulders until gravity took it to puddle on the floor around her feet. Only then did she turn around, suddenly feeling every inch the sultry vixen or Aphrodite she had so often been called. Only this time, she wanted to be those things, expressly for him. She had never stood quite so confidently in only her undergarments before, usually loathing the sight of her cumbersome breasts trying to break free over the top of her stays. But Luke’s eyes were on fire as he took it all in and tried and failed to keep his gaze fixed on her face.
Yet his lust-filled stare didn’t feel the least bit like a violation, more like a benediction, because he wanted all of her.
For ever.
When she walked towards him this time, he didn’t hesitate at all. He hauled her into his arms and as he poured his heart into the kiss, he allowed his hands to wander, filling them with her still-bound breasts while the stark, impressive evidence of his desire pressed insistent and proud against her.
In a frenzy of lips, tongues and teeth, they stumbled backwards on to the bed. His fingers found every other pin in her hair until it tumbled wildly around her shoulders. Hers tugged his shirt up his body and over his head before they headed to his waistband and she undid that too, pausing only long enough so her stays could be tossed to the floor and she could tug the tight fabric from his hips. Then, as she sat back on her heels as his manhood sprang free, her nerves finally got the better of her.
They must have shown in her expression, because tenderness instantly replaced Luke’s fervour. ‘I won’t hurt you, Hope. I couldn’t...’ He cupped her cheek, looking every bit as overawed as she. ‘I love you.’
‘I know.’ It wasn’t that which had brought her up short. ‘I love you too, Luke...so very much.’ So much, it rocked her to her core. ‘And I am not scared.’ Not of that at least. But now that he was naked—at her instigation—he would expect her to be the same, and she wasn’t sure she was brave enough, and certainly wasn’t confident enough, to show him everything as brazenly as he.
To cover it, she leaned over him to kiss him again, intent on distracting him from the fear he had seen in her eyes, but as she reached for the lamp to snuff it out, he caught her wrist. ‘It hardly strikes me as fair that you get to see me, but I am denied the pleasure of seeing you.’ From beneath her, two dark and much too clever eyes seemed to bore into her soul as his hands smoothed the last layer of her chemise from her shoulders, then he smiled when she clutched it tight to her chest.
‘And there I was thinking you were fearless.’
‘Frankly, there is just too much of me to be fearless.’ She didn’t have the compact and neat figures of her peers.
‘Thank goodness.’ He was smiling. Amused by her sudden prudishness. Above her hands, he traced the top of her breasts with his finger. ‘Don’t judge me, but it is one of the things I have always liked about you.’
‘And the thing about myself I most dislike.’
‘I know...but for all the wrong reasons. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, blessed with the most sinful and tempting body.’ He wound a finger in one of the curls that rested against her nipple, purposely grazing it as he did so. ‘And I am going to need to kiss it all if I’m going to make love to you properly.’ Looking her dead in the eye, he grinned and tugged the fabric some more. ‘Or is it your plan to keep your breasts hidden until death do us part, because I can tell you now that isn’t going to happen as I’ll hatch a cunning plan to get my wicked way soon enough. I am resourceful like that.’
He was and when he put it like that, her reluctance to bare all now did sound a bit daft. ‘I have fantasised about this moment for months, Hope, but I am happy to wait a few more to consummate our love if you think it might improve your self-confidence.’
Then to vex her, he folded his hands under his head, his cocky, lopsided grin letting her know in no uncertain terms that he knew she couldn’t go another hour, let alone another month without feeling him inside her.
She let the flimsy garment fall and he almost groaned aloud as a painful bolt of lust ricocheted through him. Instead, he sighed as his eyes drank her in. Her breasts were full and round and perfect, capped with dusky nipples which he was desperate to taste. The trim waist flared over the generous hips he loved, and as she primly knelt on the mattress awaiting his judgement, only the top of the red curls which nestled between her pale thighs were visible.
‘The fantasy was outstanding...but you are better, Hope. So much better than I could have imagined.’
When he could stand it no longer, and had to touch, he did so with reverence, knowing he was indeed the luckiest man in the world but that she wouldn’t believe him if he said that. ‘Look what you do to me.’ He took her hand and wrapped it around his erection. Then caressed one of her sensitive puckered nipples so that she could feel his body twitch and pulse with need. ‘What on earth makes you think that you do not please me? I am overwhelmed, Hope. A lost cause. All yours to do with as you please.’
It was pure torture watching her hand explore the shape of him, and he had to close his eyes because the pleasure was so intense. Because he had to, Luke kissed her lips again, dragging her on to his lap so that skin touched skin. Her breasts filled his hands, the saucy tips pebbling as his thumbs gently traced them. Only when he felt her sigh into his mouth did he lower them both to the mattress so that he could carry out his promise.
He trailed his lips over her shoulders first, then down her arms. Kissed every finger before he moved to her stomach, and down her legs, then took his own sweet time retracing the route, waiting until she was moaning, impatient, before he finally allowed himself to taste her breasts.
She groaned when he finally sucked her nipple into his mouth, and seemed delightfully surprised it brought her pleasure too, until the quest for pleasure took over and she anchored his head there with her hands. Sensing she needed more, he allowed his fingers to wend a lazy trail to the seductive triangle of curls, her hips instinctively rising to meet them.
She trembled at his first touch. Her body soft. Already wet and ripe. As he stroked her and that tight bunch of nerve endings awoke, she struggled and writhed, murmuring nonsense as encouragement until she forgot to be embarrassed about her beautiful, lush and overtly feminine body and thrust her breasts towards his mouth demanding they be worshipped too.
In mere moments, she was on the cusp, her muscles tense and her hips straining against his touch. He had never seen anything so alluringly erotic in his life as Hope in the throes of ecstasy. And she was his.
All his.
‘Don’t stop, Luke...please don’t stop.’
‘I won’t, love.’ Her eyes fluttered closed, and as her hips bucked he gathered her close and kissed her as she came apart in his arms, capturing her cries in his mouth as she violently shuddered her release and collapsed boneless against him.
Only then did he roll above her, moved beyond recognition by the gift she had bestowed upon him, yet still desperate for everything and needing to know her completely. As he kissed her, she stretched her limbs contentedly, opening her long legs in welcome and sighed as she kissed him back.
He tried to take things slowly, but his body was possessed and desperate to be in hers.
He tried to bring her to the cusp of oblivion again before he intruded, but his gloriously wanton and voluptuous new fiancée was having none of it. She reached between their bodies to stroke him too, smiling triumphantly at the profound effect her touch had on him, then when he could obviously bear no more, guided him to her entrance. Inviting him in. Those siren’s hips again rising to meet him until he couldn’t wait a second longer. It took every ounce of strength he had not to plunge mindlessly into her wet heat, to gently inch himself inside, only to stop short when he reached the barrier of her virginity and the barrage of intense, possessive emotions which assaulted him as he did.
He would be her first and her last. Her one and only. No one would ever know her as completely and intimately. He was humbled and elated, and so filled with love it felt as though his heart might burst.
They held each other tight as he pushed past and slowly began to move. Tentatively at first so she could get used to the size and shape of him, but as passion began to build again, she soon dictated the rhythm, enthusiastically meeting him thrust for thrust. As the walls of her body caressed him from root to tip, those long legs hooked around his hips and her fingers traced his face, more words of devotion spilled unbidden from his lips. Eyes locked, bodies joined, souls in perfect tempo, the need for words was gone and he lost himself in her entirely and all was unimaginable pleasure and exquisite pain.
Nothing existed except them and that moment. The tangled limbs. The knotted sheets. Breathless, joyous, wonderous oblivion. Total trust. Complete surrender.
A climatic explosion of light and stars and happiness.
All wrapped tight and comforting in love.