“That’s wonderful,” she gasped, sliding beneath him in a way that threatened his tattered control.
For as long as he could bear, he kept still, letting her become accustomed to his body. Despite her unabashed welcome, he remained overwhelmingly conscious that she’d never done this before. Then slowly and tenderly, he moved. The glorious sensation threatened to incinerate him.
Again he thrust, more purposefully. This time she shifted, changing the angle, and his hunger sharpened to the verge of agony.
Still she stroked him, urged him on, told him with fluttering sighs and touches that she wanted more. He abandoned himself to the fierce, vital rhythm.
Fiery thunder shook his world as he claimed his wife. He’d think he acted the complete barbarian, if not for her whispered words of encouragement and delight. Those sweet little murmurs of praise smashed restraint to oblivion.
She shuddered on her climax and cried out, the sound sharp and triumphant in the firelit room. Then on a mighty rush, Erskine lost himself in a release unlike anything he’d felt before.
He flooded her with his seed and forever united his life to hers.
Chapter 9
WHEN PHILIPPA STIRRED from deep, dreamless sleep, her husband held her clasped her tight to his powerful chest. Dull gray light edged the curtains, and the candles had burned down to puddles of wax. A shy glance up at Blair’s face from where she lay tucked into the curve of his shoulder showed her that he was still asleep.
With those cynical green eyes closed, Blair looked younger. She realized with a start that this notorious libertine must be only a few years older than she was. At Hartley Manor, he’d seemed so impossibly beyond her in experience and sophistication that she’d felt a complete child in comparison.
After last night, she didn’t feel like a child anymore. She felt like a woman.
A woman suffering the pangs of an excruciatingly guilty conscience. With morning, so much became painfully clear, and she cringed at how she’d wronged her husband.
Queasy with self-disgust, she eased away from Blair and gingerly sat up. As she pulled her nightdress over her head, her body twinged in unfamiliar places. A reminder that despite his care with her, she was unused to a man’s possession. The faint discomfort only made her recall his gentleness, and how that gentleness had flared into a passion beyond imagination.
Blair had repaid her sins against him with breathtaking pleasure. But this morning she faced the stark truth that fate had dealt him an awful hand when Philippa Sanders broke into his room.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The drowsy baritone question from behind her made every muscle tense. Muscles already aching after the night’s exertions.
It seemed her husband was a light sleeper. Curse him for stirring. She’d hoped to escape unnoticed.
Long fingers curled around her wrist above where her hand spread against the rumpled bed. As if she needed reminding of how uninhibited they’d been. Twice. Blair had woken her after midnight and used her slowly and sweetly with whispers of praise that her lonely soul had soaked up like a desert soaked up water.
The first time had been astonishing enough. That second time had threatened to break her heart.
“I thought I’d go and sleep in the next room,” she mumbled, without looking at him.
He’d made such a gallant effort to pretend that this forced marriage hadn’t blighted his life. But of course it must. Devilishly handsome rakes didn’t willingly tie themselves to women undistinguished by either fortune or beauty.
How wrong her first impressions of him had been. Blair was the kindest man she knew. She didn’t deserve him. And he certainly didn’t deserve a disaster of a wife like her.
“Did you indeed?” Even with her back to him, she knew he studied her. Worse, he probably guessed that she’d woken unhappy. She was developing a healthy respect for his powers of perception. “Why?”
“I thought you might like some privacy.”
She definitely wanted some time alone. Lying in his arms, she couldn’t think, and she badly needed to think. There must be some way to release him from the prison of this marriage.
The bed dipped as he sat up and shifted closer. “I can think of something I’d like much more than privacy.”
After last night, she thought she’d never blush again. She was wrong about that. “Do you want to do…that again?”
“Don’t you?” He didn’t sound sleepy anymore.
“As you wish.” She blinked back tears and finally made herself turn in his direction. She struggled to appear calm.
Apparently she failed.