Chapter 17

Those words were nearly his undoing. But he managed, only just, to keep his own desires in check. Sweeping one arm behind her knee, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. Laying her down in the middle of it, he stepped back for just a moment and took in the picture she made there. With her blonde hair falling around her and her body clad in the dark blue silk, she was lovelier than she could ever know. He wished fervently then that he was not the man of few words she’d called him. He’d write odes to her beauty and to the goodness of her, but he lacked the ability. But he could show her. There were ways to demonstrate his appreciation—his adoration—of her that didn’t involve speaking at all.

Discarding his coat and waistcoat, he tossed both of them carelessly aside. After removing his boots, he climbed onto the bed with her and, for just a moment, rested his forehead against hers as he allowed his hands to roam over her, tracing the curve of her shoulder, the indentation of her waist, the flare of her hip. Her lips parted then on a soft sigh of pleasure and he captured it with his own, kissing her with a kind of hunger that had tormented him. It was a distinctly carnal kiss, taking and giving pleasure in equal measure.

Her arms came up, wrapping around his neck, holding him to her. As if he had any intention of leaving. He was where he’d longed to be for seven agonizing years.

His hand drifted up from her waist to the curve of her breast. He paused there, his thumb tracing delicate circles on the rounded swell. When she did not protest, he moved further, cupping it fully, caressing the hardened peak of it that was only barely evident through the many layers of clothing.

The need to see her, to let his eyes feast on her, he began to remove her clothing. Layer after layer, he peeled them away—gown, petticoat, stays, then her chemise—until the moonlight that slipped through the curtains was painting her skin silver and revealing the perfection of her form.

No longer satisfied merely to look, he dipped his head and tasted the taut peak. She gasped in shock, and after only a second’s hesitation, gave herself up to the sensuality of it. Arching her back, she offered herself up to him in a way that was the fulfillment of his most deeply erotic fantasies—all of which had featured her from the moment they had first met. The reality of it was both humbling and thrilling.

Charlotte’s heart was pounding, the blood racing in her veins as Ethan’s mouth moved over her flesh. How was it possible for something so simple to feel so good? But it did. It felt wonderful and it incited a yearning inside her for what would come next, even if she did not know precisely what that was. Twining her fingers in his hair, she held him to her, urging him on with a silent plea.

The layers of her clothes had been bunched at her waist, but suddenly they were gone. He’d slipped them over her hips and tossed them aside, and she lay there in only her stockings and garters. If she could think, she might have felt embarrassed at her nudity. But thought was beyond her at that moment. Instead, she was consumed with sensation—the soft velvet of the counterpane beneath her, the weight of him and the heat of him seeping into her, along with the glory of his mouth at her breast and his hands roaming her skin in a way that both soothed and inflamed.

He moved to her other breast, giving it the same treatment, until she was mindless from the tension building inside her. It felt as though she were hovering on the precipice of something, though she had no notion what it was. But as his hand skimmed along her inner thigh, inching ever closer to the most intimate part of her body, she found herself eager for him to touch her there, to ease the ache that seemed to be centered there.

And when that touch finally came, it was not something she could have ever imagined. The way it felt as he caressed her intimately, stroking flesh that was slick with need, was beyond her ability to comprehend. Her head fell back and she arched into his touch, craving more, as he traced a pattern over flesh that was slick with need. Still, he worked her into a frenzy, touching her in ways she’d never imagined possible, until her whole body shuddered with desire, with passion, with a kind of hunger she hadn’t imagined possible.

Her head fell back against the pillows as her hips arched upward, moving into his touch, offering him more—offering him everything. The tension building within her simply snapped, shattering as her body quivered beneath him and waves of pleasure coursed through her. She could do nothing but cling to him desperately until at last the overwhelming sensations subsided.

“What have you done to me?” she asked breathlessly.

“I’ve given you a small taste of what we can have together… there is so much more, Charlotte,” he whispered, pressing kisses against her ear. “Now, we’re going to get you another gown from my sister, and we’re going to get in the carriage and go into Blackpool. We’ll be there by sunrise and if I have to pull the vicar from the warmth and comfort of his bed, he will marry us. And then we will go straight to Aimswood Hall and to the bed we’ll share as husband and wife.”

“We don’t have to leave immediately,” Charlotte protested. “You’ve given me pleasure, but you have not shown me how to give you that same pleasure. And I desperately want to know.”

He took her hand and placed it against the hard plane of his stomach. Ever so slowly, he slid it lower and lower until she could feel the rigid shaft of his manhood. As she closed her hand about him, his breath came out on a hiss of a pleasure. Experimentally, Charlotte moved her hand, sliding her fingers up and down that enticingly firm flesh until he let out a harsh groan. And suddenly it wasn’t enough to touch him through his breeches. Reaching for the buttons that closed the fall of his trousers, she released them and then slipped her hand inside.

It was a marvel to her, that such rigid flesh could be covered by skin that was smoother than silk. “Show me how to please you,” she urged him.

He closed his hand over hers, guiding her, teaching her precisely what she wished to know. After several moments, she felt him tense, then shudder as he lost himself to his own release. Afterward, they both lay there for a moment, quiet in the darkness. But not alone. She wouldn’t have to be alone ever again.