Chapter Six

H elena gulped for air and curled her hands into the sheets beneath her. The opulent room turned suffocating. And tiny.

While West seemed terrifyingly…large.

“Dear heaven…” she croaked from a mouth that felt drier than a desert. She couldn’t look away from the stiff column of flesh rising between his legs.

West laughed. “Hel, don’t tell me you’ve never seen a naked man before.”

She couldn’t mistake his affectionate amusement. The traitorous warmth in her chest became harder to deny. She licked parched lips and managed to squeak out, “Crewe didn’t look like you.”

West’s eyebrows rose. “I assure you I’m perfectly normal. Well, apart from the damned fever I picked up in the Crimea, but that hasn’t changed my basic anatomy.”

“I’m going to faint,” she said in a thready voice.

“Never. Not my stalwart Helena.”

How she wished she shared his confidence. Although sparking excitement underlay her trepidation. Excitement and curiosity. And something that could be need.

Despite her best efforts, the hand she stretched toward him trembled. “Show me.”

He covered the distance in a single stride and caught her in his arms. As he lowered her to the bed, his touch swept away all misgivings.

He kissed her ravenously and set out to explore her body, learning every line and hollow. When his fingers trailed between her legs, her thighs fell open. What point playing coy when she ached with desire?

A sound of satisfaction emerged from his throat as he bent to take her nipple between his lips. Sensation assaulted her from two directions at once, and every muscle contracted in response. Nothing Crewe had done could compare to these shuddering reactions.

And West had barely started.

He stroked her cleft and lingered on a sensitive place that sent lightning streaking through her. She whimpered as a liquid surge greeted his daring caresses. Her heart hammered against her ribs, as if it fought to break free.

The tension rose higher and higher while he tormented that small, secret pearl. She squirmed. The pleasure sharpened until it approached pain. She gasped when he slid one long finger into her, adding to the giddy mix.

“Let it happen, Hel.” He raised his head from her breast and stared at her. “Don’t fight me.”

She gasped as her body stretched to accept two seeking fingers. “Fight you?” She couldn’t contain an unsteady laugh. “I’m positively begging.”

Something flashed in his eyes that struck her as important. If only she could read it. “You’re pure gold. You always have been.”

He curled his fingers inside her and stroked a place that set her quaking. Yet still what she wanted remained out of reach.

It had been like this with Crewe. He’d take her so far, then while he found release, she’d stay teetering on the brink. She dug her fingernails into West’s arms in a silent plea not to leave her behind.

“It won’t work,” she gasped. “I think it’s going to, then—”

He kissed her, and the touch of his lips soothed the demons. “Trust me.”

“Crewe was right. There’s something wrong with me.”

“Damn it, there’s nothing wrong with you, except the man you chose to marry.”

West kissed her again, until she forsook self-doubt and yielded. His fingers moved in and out of her with a hard, regular rhythm that made her shake. Each time he withdrew, the heel of his hand pressed on her mound and fire shot through her. Craving spiraled tighter and tighter, until surely she must snap into pieces.

Fulfillment still hovered too far off. As release evaded her, stinging tears seeped from her eyes. She couldn’t do it. Even with West, even wanting him so desperately.

“Curse you, you’ll get there,” he snarled, urgency roughening his voice. He changed the angle of his caresses and lowered his head to the curve between her neck and shoulder.

As he bit down hard, pain and pleasure collided in a fiery crash. Helena cried out in wonder. The world shattered around her, and she crossed the barrier into glory.

Free. She was finally free. And swooping and dipping and rolling among the stars. The view from paradise was extraordinary. As her blood lit to unquenchable fire, she shivered and squirmed. And when she wafted down from that blazing peak, even the embers were beautiful.

After a long time, she opened dazzled eyes to see West beside her, leaning on his elbow. A lazy smile hovered around his lips.

She rose to kiss him with all the poignant gratitude she felt.

He looked startled. “What was that for?”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you.”

She struggled for some way to describe the experience. “That was even better than a good gallop.”

He burst out laughing and flopped back onto the sheets. “Hel, you’re priceless.”

Helena frowned, although she felt too marvelous for genuine displeasure. For years, she’d closed more and more of herself away, until a hard little ball of hurt and hate and self-pity lodged in her chest instead of a heart. Those miraculous moments when West had set her flying let her breathe for the first time since she was a carefree girl. “And you’re a lunatic.”

His green eyes glittered as he sucked in an unsteady breath. “No argument there.” Another breath. “Actually that counts as high praise from horse-mad Helena Nash.”

He’d used her maiden name. As if they returned to those sweet days when she’d been in his thrall. Before she’d decided dark, dangerous Lord Crewe was the most exciting man she’d ever met.

How tragically wrong she’d been.

“It was a compliment,” she said.

“I’m sure.” His tone was dry.

He rose above her and kissed her with a serious intent that his tone belied. His legs tangled with hers, and his hips pressed her into the mattress with sensual purpose. She shifted and felt his powerful hardness against her belly. Interest sparked anew, although surely she’d received her measure of delight.

When he stroked her slick cleft, she raised her knees. She didn’t expect to experience more of that sublime pleasure, but she didn’t mind. She wanted West inside her. She wanted to offer him a share of the delight he’d given her.

His back tensed under her hands, then with a smoothness she hardly believed, he thrust inside her.

“West,” she gasped in shock, opening her eyes wide. He looked powerful and intent—and strained. At last she saw how the leisured seduction had tested his control.

He rested on his elbows and looked down at her. “Am I hurting you?”

Helena wriggled, feeling him settle inside her, hard and purposeful. “No.”

“Not too big?”

A smile tugged at her lips. How flustered she’d been. How silly. Right now, she felt magnificently full, as though he laid claim to every inch. “Perfect.”

He kissed her again. After they’d married, Crewe hadn’t been interested in much beyond his own relief. He hadn’t wasted time on kissing.

She’d missed out.

“Hold on.”

With uncharacteristic obedience, she clutched West’s broad shoulders. His skin was hot and satiny against hers. His masculine musk imbued every breath she took. Instinctively she tightened.

His eyes darkened, and a muscle flickered in his hard cheek. “Merciful God.”

She tugged at the damp strands of hair at his nape. “Good?”

“Damn good.”

This time she contracted on purpose, and exulted in his shudder. Giving West pleasure was a pleasure. Perhaps he hadn’t been quite as unselfish with her as she’d credited. She arched up to bite his neck, and he shuddered again.

“You’ll kill me before you’re done,” he grated out.

“At least you’ll die smiling.”

Her eyelids fluttered in bliss at the slow glide away. When he slid inside again, she rose to meet him, bringing him deeper.

Helena’s wordless encouragement broke some last bastion of his will. He began to move with inexorable purpose. She thrilled to his male power. His breath escaped in soft grunts, and his muscles turned hard and hot as granite under a noonday sun.

With luxuriant enjoyment, she ran her hands down his long back to his firm buttocks. How she loved West’s possession. She felt like the only woman in the world.

Astonishingly, as he pursued that relentless rhythm, a now familiar response fermented in the pit of her stomach. The sensation spread, flooding her with heat. By the time his control frayed, she trembled on the verge.

He surged up hard and fast. The tendons on his neck stood out in relief. His grip on her hips turned unyielding. On a great groan, he plunged one last time.

She dived into the fire, closing hard around him. This response was deeper and purer than the first time. As she crashed out of the mundane world into the brilliance of the sun, West stayed with her. Her fingernails scored his shoulders, and she arched toward him in shaking, incoherent delight.

“Damn it, Hel,” he bit out.

As she quivered in helpless rapture, he held her beneath him. Then with another rasping groan, he wrenched out, and pumped his seed onto her naked belly.