She struggled to fill her lungs. I advise you to please your husband … you can hasten it along by letting him look at you … She hadn’t wanted to hasten anything along a moment ago, adrift in the voluptuous sensations of his kisses. As the pause drew out, he seemed to sober, and focused on her face. “You want to wait?”
He meant waiting for all of it. His hand was still on her breast, and he probably hadn’t planned to ask. She had thought about waiting, but then she had pictured herself wandering around the house in nervous anticipation and with little reward in the end. The truth was, when one’s husband was such an unfortunate match, the passing of time would never transform him into the gentleman of her dreams. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to wait.”
He sat up and shrugged out of his robe. She saw pale skin and sculpted muscle. Dark hair scattered across a powerful chest. It took her a moment to understand that the purple and silvery marks on his arms and abdomen were scars. When he turned his attention to undressing her, she closed her eyes. She kept them closed when cool air brushed her bare limbs. In the silence, she heard Lucian breathing harder, and her exposed skin prickled under the heat of his gaze. She had seen bodies like hers in prints of paintings they hid away from the ladies, scandalous works by Falero, for example, who painted his female nudes as lusty witches, with lushly rounded hips and thighs and bellies, and breasts too ample to suit fashion. The unabashed indulgence in feminine curves had enchanted her. Now that Lucian was studying her, a tiny voice amid ambivalence and breathlessness wondered whether he found her beautiful, too … Her eyes popped open when he put his hand on her breast again. He plumped it up with a satisfied growl and dipped his head, and she felt the now familiar silky slickness of his tongue. Warmth flooded her middle and she squirmed. It seemed to encourage him; he used his teeth on the tip, biting gently, then he sucked, and she choked back a moan. He glanced up, his face looking fever flushed. Her nipple was stiff and glistening wet from his mouth. “Make noise if you want,” he said.
Unsettled that he could read her when she knew nothing, she pressed her lips together and only noticed when she saw Lucian frowning at her mouth.
He raised himself up on his elbow. “I don’t know what you were told,” he said slowly. “But you needn’t be scared of me. I won’t hurt you.”
“I’m not scared of you,” she said, truthfully, for what he did was arousing and done gently enough. And yet … “I’m uncertain,” she guessed, “uncertain about all that is to happen, and how.”
“I see,” he said. “I …” He gave a small shake and began again. “You don’t have to do anything. You can, if you want, but you don’t have to.”
He was absently stroking the soft underside of her breast with his thumb, as if he couldn’t quite keep from touching her.
“And you,” she murmured, “what will you do?”
His eyes darkened. “I’ll lick your cunny in a moment and then I’ll come to you.”
“Lick me?” she repeated with a mindless stare.
“Well, here.” He slid his broad hand down her stomach and rested it between her thighs.
“Oh no,” she said quickly. “I wouldn’t like that.”
His brow furrowed. “How’d you know?”
Because she felt all sorts of emotions at the thought of his soft tongue on her most sensitive place and like was not one of them.
“I’d rather we just got on with it,” she said.
Lucian stilled. Then he gave a shrug. “As you wish.”
He rolled to his side and worked on his trousers, and she tried to keep her gaze averted, but of course, she looked. That was when matters began to go wrong. Something was wrong with him. Or with her. Sweat broke over the length of her body—he had lied; he would hurt her, because there was no part of her anatomy where he could safely put that.
He placed his knee between her thighs, and she reared up. “We … won’t fit.”
He looked bemused. “We will,” he murmured, “trust me.”
She flattened herself back into the mattress. Lucian palmed up her left calf and braced her knee back, and then both his strong thighs were between hers. Trust me. He glanced down at her cramped form, at how her fingers were gripping the coverlet.
“Put your hands on my shoulders,” he said, and the low, steady timbre of his voice touched on something inside her. She obeyed. His skin was scorching against her palms, the strength of hard muscle and sinew beneath unyielding, and her limbs went strangely loose in response. Trust me. His face was tense above her. A stranger’s face. And he was about to hurt her, and about to tie her to him. How on earth could she trust him? She felt blunt pressure at her entrance.