Reluctantly he withdrew his hand. “Are you all right?”
“I…I think so.” She sounded more surprised than ecstatic. “What was that?”
He laughed softly. “A taste of what’s to come, my darling.”
Before she could question him further, he snatched her up for another kiss. After what she’d just experienced, her response was deliriously uninhibited. For the first time, her tongue invaded his mouth. The kiss became aggressive. She strained against him. Her nipples pressed into his chest, her arms encircled his neck, her hips thrust into his with an evocative rhythm.
Need surged like a tidal wave. But unlike this morning, it was need tempered by care. He intended to find joy tonight, but more than that, he intended Charis to find joy.
He swung her into his arms and carried her toward the bedroom. In graceful surrender, she rested her head in the crook of his shoulder.
“It’s time, my wife.”
He staked a claim he knew he had no right to make. But neither God nor the devil would stop him now. The world had stolen so much from him. It wouldn’t steal this.
He kicked open the door. It crashed against the wall. Overwhelmingly conscious of her naked body and the moist brush of her breath against his skin, he strode across to the bed.
He laid his precious burden upon the sheets. He waited for her to cover her breasts or her sex, but she lay motionless, open to his gaze.
Perfect.
Time halted while he drank in her beauty. She still wore stockings and slippers, tied with ribbons around her neat ankles.
“Why are you smiling?”
He hadn’t realized he was. “There’s no end to an Englishwoman’s armor. I’d forgotten your blasted shoes.”
To his surprise and delight, she raised one leg and pointed her toes in his direction. He caught a tantalizing glimpse of the dark mysteries between her thighs. The sight made his cock swell and strain with agonizing need. He locked his teeth and fought back the rip of desire. He was going to do this right. And that meant maintaining at least a shred of control.
“Why don’t you take them off?” she asked in a sultry voice he’d never heard from her before.
He wasn’t giving her everything her own way. He let his smile broaden, become knowing. “Later.”
His hands dropped to his waistband, and he roughly tugged his trousers open. Her eyes rounded. She licked her lips. His arousal built another notch, bathing his body in sweat. His heart raced with excitement.
Swiftly, he tugged off the rest of his clothes. He hadn’t undressed in front of a woman since well before Rangapindhi. He’d imagined if he ever did, it would be an occasion of embarrassment and concealment.
But the light in Charis’s brilliant eyes as she watched him looked like admiration.
How could that be? He was hardly a young girl’s dream, with his scars and grotesque hands. But the familiar self-loathing couldn’t sink its teeth into him when the woman he loved gazed at him as though he made the sun rise in the sky.
She slid up against the pillows, and her lush lips curved into a breathtaking smile of welcome. Her eyes were clear and burning with light.
She extended one hand toward him. “Come to bed, Gideon.”
Twenty
Gideon’s guarded expression as he stared at her outstretched hand harrowed Charis’s heart.
He’d been so hurt. Even now, when it couldn’t be clearer how she loved and wanted him, he didn’t trust his welcome.
The candlelight softened his terrible scarring. Instead, it emphasized the lean, muscled strength, the grace, the height. For all their vile tortures, the Nawab and his thugs couldn’t destroy his essential beauty. Her gaze fell to his powerful thighs and the hard, seeking flesh rising between them. His virility filled her with shivery excitement.
“Come to me, my darling,” she said on a breath.
His hesitation splintered. He surged onto the bed, bracing himself over her. She strained up and pressed her mouth to his. He groaned and kissed her back, soon taking charge.
His kisses were still so new, so startling in their delight. Perhaps one day, she’d become inured to the magic of his mouth on hers. In about a thousand years. Perhaps.