Still kissing her, Garson placed one hand on her breast and squeezed. Even through the nightdress, he felt the exquisite roundness. The nipple jutted impudently into his palm. He caught the brazen peak between his thumb and forefinger and pinched softly, cursing the nameless bastard who had invented flannel. She gave a muffled squeak against his lips and lurched up toward him in welcome.
Then every damn thing in the whole wide world went wrong.
*
Chapter Eight
*
Jane battled to stay enmeshed in sensual bliss. When Hugh first kissed her, the unfamiliarity of what he did left her reeling. Then she reeled because she’d never known anything as intoxicating as the pressure of his lips on hers.
How amazing that a kiss could heat every inch of her. When he began, she just felt disturbed and needy. Then the heat became more specific, weighting her belly and waking a restless craving in the secret hollows of her body.
Barely had she found her balance in this incendiary new universe when he changed the game yet again.
He’d licked her. It sounded so bizarre. But in practice, it was… It was like someone set a blazing torch to dry tinder. That yearning sensation intensified, and her heart pounded hard and heavy, shaking her with every beat.
He kissed and kissed her, as if he fed off her. She lost all contact with the Jane she’d been before and verged on becoming Hugh’s creature, quaking and grasping. Natural caution made her retreat from the brink, even as she kissed Hugh back with all the untried passion she’d had no idea existed within her.
Natural caution whispered one unwelcome word. A name. A ghost. A curse.
Morwenna.
Hugh laid her down on the bed and rose over her. Even in her innocence, she couldn’t mistake what was about to happen.
She arched up to meet him, struggling to silence that insidious voice. Hugh had married her to have children. She owed him the use of her body. It would be cowardly—and dishonorable—to draw back now.
Morwenna.
Over and over, that name played in her mind, no matter how she fought to block it out.
Hugh’s powerful form dominated hers as he shifted closer. She felt utterly consumed in his animal appetite. He was hot and strong, and ready to do his duty.
Duty was another unwelcome word, although surely that was all that held them together.
Jane strained toward him. He didn’t appear to notice the desperation creeping into her responses. Or if he did, it didn’t make him pause.
One large hand landed on the breast no man had ever touched. She tensed against a liquid surge deep inside her. Was this arousal? When she yielded to her husband, she’d expected something swift but measured. Pain, if Susan was right. An invitation to participate in actions that might seem strange and perhaps repugnant.
She hadn’t expected to be swept away into an ocean of temptation. An ocean likely to close over her head and drown her.
He squeezed her breast, and her nipple tightened into a tingling point. Unfamiliar forces battered her from all sides. It was all too much.
She made a distressed sound against his lips and stiffened in his hold.
An instant longer, his hand remained heavy on her breast, before he heaved himself to the side with a guttural groan. His eyes fastened on the ceiling, while she remained on her back and gulped for her first full breath in what felt like hours. Searing tears pricked her eyes. His scent suffocated her. Hot, male musk.
“I’m sorry, Jane.” His voice was so gravelly, it emerged as a growl. “I went too far too fast.”
She rose on one elbow to study him. His massive chest heaved as he sucked in air. The loose dressing gown allowed shadowy glimpses of dark curls across his chest.
He looked like a ruffled Zeus. Massive. Virile. Omnipotent.
His thick hair was untidy, and one coffee-colored lock tumbled over his noble forehead. In some men that might add a boyish touch. Not in Hugh.
Almost convulsively her gaze ran over him. Now she’d touched him, she knew how strong those shoulders were and how his body covered hers when he lifted himself over her. Even as she told herself to stop, her attention traveled downward. Over his flat stomach to where the part that he would thrust into her rose hard and insistent against his belly. There was hair down there as well. She bit her lip and couldn’t help staring, even as she wondered how it was physically possible for something so large to fit inside her.
When she looked up, she realized he’d shifted his attention from the ceiling to her. A slant of one eyebrow mocked her imprudent curiosity. A painful blush flooded her cheeks when he tugged the rich crimson silk across his legs, restoring his dignity, if not hers.