“It’s a very nice room.” She looked around and walked over to a tall chest of drawers, mostly because it was the opposite corner of the room from the bed. She ran a gloved hand over its oak wood. “It’s good solid furniture.”
When she turned, Lorna found Benteen watching her with warm amusement. “The bed is solidly built, too,” he murmured.
A scarlet heat burned her face and neck. Nothing she had learned at Miss Hilda’s School for Young Ladies had told her the proper behavior and procedure on her wedding night. She knew all about setting a fine table and arranging flowers and embroidering the linen, but she knew nothing at all about what was expected of her on this night of all nights.
“I’m sorry, Lorna. I shouldn’t have embarrassed you.” Even as Benteen apologized, amusement continued to deepen his voice.
“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted with a slightly bowed head. “You’ll have to tell me. Am I supposed to go into the dressing room first? Or …”
When she hesitantly lifted her gaze, Benteen was shaking his head to the side. She thought it was in answer to her question. When he started across the room, she thought he was going to the dressing room. Instead, Benteen walked to her. Very lightly, his hand cupped her chin.
“I’ve waited a long time, Lorna. Too long to waste time with playing musical chairs with the dressing room.”
Her heart was beating so fast that she couldn’t speak. She had been waiting for tonight, too. Not dreading it as a proper girl should do, she realized. She wasn’t afraid of what Benteen was going to do to her. She wanted it to happen. If anything frightened her, it was this clawing need to find out what it was like, because passion was something respectable women shouldn’t feel.
There was a wild fluttering inside while Lorna watched the strong line of his mouth make its descent toward hers. A flare of excited panic held her completely still as his mouth touched her own. It moved slowly and sensuously, exploring the stiff curve of her lips until they softened under his gentle insistence.
Then the kiss was ending and Benteen was slowly lifting his head, studying her expression with eyes that were three-quarter-lidded. Lorna hoped he couldn’t see what she was thinking or feeling. A glint of satisfaction appeared, and she drew a breath of relief that she hadn’t been too forward.
He took her by the hand and led her to the bed, his gaze never breaking contact with hers. Before he let go of her hand, Benteen slipped off the glove and took her other hand to do the same. There was a controlled deliberation in his actions as he laid them on the stand beside the bed and turned down the covers.
When he faced her again, Lorna was captivated by the quiet strength etched in his features, a solid assurance that he knew exactly what he was doing. It helped, because she didn’t. For a small second, she felt some of his confidence. Then his hands touched the first button of her gown, and the sensation fled. She dropped her gaze to the starched-stiff collar of his sh
irt, so white against the tanned column of his neck.
All her senses became charged. She stood stock-still under the brush of his fingers, making no attempt to interfere while Benteen slowly unbuttoned her gown. With each shallow breath, Lorna caught the scent of bay rum from his lean and closely shaven cheeks. Her heart was drumming in her ears at a forbidden tempo, too excited by the removal of her dress. She closed her eyes.
Layer by layer, her petticoats were removed and spread on the chair with her gown. All that was left was her chemise and her stockings. Lorna hadn’t moved. When his hands didn’t return to remove the last garments, she raised her lashes to look at him in uneasy curiosity.
The jacket of his broadcloth suit was off, and Benteen was unfastening the boiled collar to remove his shirt. At the first glimpse of the breadth of his naked chest, darkened with curling brown hairs, a fluttering weakness attacked her stomach. Lorna was shocked by her reaction, because she wanted to see more of his lean, hard body that until now she had only felt pressed against her.
The impropriety of that desire forced her to turn away so she wouldn’t see how he looked unclothed. The tightness in her stomach was increasing, until it was almost an actual pain. A lamp was burning next to the bed, throwing a steady light over that corner of the room. Lorna wished for darkness. At least, then, if she was tempted to look at him, she wouldn’t be able to see.
“We should turn out the lamp.” The disturbed pitch of her voice revealed too much of her inner feelings.
“Then we couldn’t see each other,” Benteen pointed out, and came up silently behind her. “And I want to see my wife.”
She breathed in sharply when his lips touched the curve of her neck and nibbled at the pulsing vein. She closed her eyes tightly, fighting the violent storm of sensations breaking over her. Her knees went weak when she felt the steady pull on the ribbon tie of her chemise. Benteen lifted it over her head, discarding it with a careless toss.
Suffused with heat, Lorna could hardly breathe when his strong hands began rolling down her stockings, traveling down her thigh and over her knee and calf and gently lifting her feet to peel the stockings off completely. She was shaken with tremors that she rigidly tried to conceal from him. All her underclothing was gone.
“Will you look at me, Lorna?” The firm insistence of his voice made her open her eyes, but she fixed her gaze steadfastly on his face.
In the periphery of her vision, she was conscious of the muscled width of his shoulders and the dark hair on his bare chest. The dark light in his eyes burned down her body with ravishing force before it came back to her face.
His hand circled her wrist to pull her in the direction of the bed. Overcome by a surge of modesty, she resisted its pressure.
“I’ll need my nightgown,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t,” Benteen stated in husky denial. “Nightgowns are for sleeping. We aren’t going to sleep for a while. Not for a long while.”
A little sound trembled from her throat as she allowed herself to be drawn to the bed. The soft mattress offered blessed support for her shaking limbs. Her gaze clung to the contoured planes of his face as the bed took his weight as well as her own. The taut, queasy feeling in her stomach became worse, but she couldn’t let Benteen know the extent of lust in her flesh. She didn’t want to shame herself in his eyes.
With her head on the feather pillow, Lorna was careful to keep her body stretched out straight and her arms at her side. She didn’t want to show any awareness of the heat that radiated from his body across the few inches that separated them. Benteen was lying on his side, angled toward her. His breathing had thickened. The look that smoldered in his eyes contained a potent force that shook Lorna all the way to her toes.
When he let that look wander to her high, firm breasts, the tense flatness of her stomach, and even lower, Lorna couldn’t suppress a shudder. Again she closed her eyes, trying to shut out her brazen thoughts.
“It isn’t wrong for me to look at you. I’m your husband,” Benteen reminded her needlessly, because she was fully aware of the multitude of rights the gold band around her finger gave him. The anticipation of them was tearing her apart. He reached over and dragged the pillow from under her head, then remained partially leaning over her, the hair-roughened texture of his chest brushing the naked curve of her breasts. A tingling sensation started over her skin, prompting Lorna against her will to look at him. His face was very close to hers, filling her vision until she could see the pores of his tanned skin and the faint scar on his temple.