She gasped. She’d never before seen a naked man, except for Mr. Ffalkes. He’d been disgusting. But goodness, North was something she couldn’t have imagined.
“North, you—”
“Yes, Caroline?”
She didn’t have time to answer because he was on her, jerking loose the ribbon tied in a bow beneath her breasts, pulling her nightgown over her head. “There,” he said, throwing the gown to the floor in a heap atop his dressing gown. “Ah, Caroline,” he said, then he was kissing her and he came down on top of her. All of him, all at once. The richness of his body, all its textures—from his flesh that was smooth and hot against her, to the crispy hair, thick and black as sin on his chest and legs, and the sheer size and heat of him, it froze her. She was engulfed by feelings she couldn’t begin to understand. He was so different from her that she simply couldn’t take it all in. There was too much of everything and it was hitting her too fast, and she gasped into his mouth, “North, do you think you could roll over on your back and not touch me?”
Her request was so unexpected it got through to him, breaking through the frantic urgency he felt, and he reared up on his hands, stared down at her, and said, “Very well.”
He rolled onto his back, calmly crossed his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes. “Is this what you want? Shall I be holding a lily?”
“Oh no, please put your arms at your sides.”
He did, only now he was watching her as she sat on her heels beside him. Her hair was wild about her shoulders, spilling over to curl around her breasts.
“You are possibly the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said, lifted his hand to touch her breast, only to have her say, “No, please, North, keep your hands at your sides.”
“Why?”
She looked mildly perplexed, then said, “It was too much at once, the differences between us were just too much for me. I couldn’t take all of it in and it was frightening.”
“I’ll get that bloody book. Surely there must be a chapter about a bride losing her hold on things just because the groom disrobes and leaps on her.”
“Oh no, just stay there, please. I want to look at you. I want to see what you’re all about. I want to understand you before you, well, do all the things you want to do to me.”
He laughed, his muscles so tense they were nearly cramping. He watched her study him, and her study was so thorough it took all his fortitude to lie there quietly and not fling her onto her back again.
She touched her fingertips lightly to his chest, then very slowly, she flattened her palms over him. She was leaning over him now, her breasts loose and very nearly touching him. He arched upward so he could feel her against his chest. It nearly sent him over the edge. He forced himself back flat against the mattress, groaned, and closed his eyes.
“You are very nice, North, just so very different from me. I like the way your hair is so very thick here on your chest, so crinkly beneath my fingers. And just look how it thins out over your stomach.” She ran her warm palm down his chest over his navel, coming to a stop only at his groin. “It’s not a thin line here,” she said, and her hand stopped cold. He heard her suck in her breath. He couldn’t help himself, he opened his eyes to look at her. She was silent, just staring down at him for a very long time, for far too long a time, he thought, and said, “Do I repulse you, Caroline? I’m not smooth and white and soft like you. Do you find all the hair and my rod and the rest of me distasteful?”
“Rod,” she repeated, still just staring down at him. “That’s an interesting word.”
“There are many words for it, just as there are for your womanly parts.”
She said nothing more, merely continued looking down at him. Then she was leaning down and her mouth touched his belly. Then she lightly rubbed her cheek, back and forth, across his belly. He nearly arched off the bed. He was panting like he’d just run up the cliff at St. Agnes Head. His chest was heaving like he’d just been in the boxing ring with Gentleman Jackson himself and had lost badly.
She immediately straightened and looked up his body—taking her time—until she met his glazed eyes. “Oh dear, I hurt you?”
“Don’t be a fool. If you do that again, Caroline, you will be the one on your back and I won’t be able to stop. No, don’t touch me there, it’s simply too much, it drives me over the brink. Oh, all right, kiss me some more, go lower, please, perhaps even touch me with your fingers or perhaps your mouth that’s so soft and wet or—” He groaned and twisted as her fingers splayed through the thick hair at his groin until they finally closed around him. She stared down at her hands holding him. Then she smiled, giving him a sloe-eyed look, leaned over him, and touched her lips to his belly again.
Her hair fell in a thick curtain over his belly, hiding her from him. He wanted to see her killing him, see her holding him in her hands. He raised his hand and lifted the thick hair. She turned slightly so he could s
ee her clearly. He nearly lost his hold on what little sanity he had left when she did, it was so incredibly provocative.
“You must stop that now,” he said between his teeth. “I swear it, Caroline, I’ll spill my seed if you don’t stop. A groom spilling his seed in his bride’s hand simply isn’t done on a wedding night. I’d never be able to hold my head up again around other men. I would be cast out of the male fraternity. I would have been an inept clod on my wedding night and that I simply couldn’t bear. Please.”
She held him between her warm palms for just a moment longer, until just the point when he knew it was all over for him, when he wanted to throw back his head and yell, then she released him.
She stretched out on top of him, her belly against his, her breasts pressed against his chest. She held his face between her hands and looked down at him. “You’re magnificent, North. I now understand a bit more about you and how you work. Perhaps you could take over things now?”
He laughed; it was the only thing a sane man who was on the edge of insanity could do. He didn’t move, merely raised his own hands and cupped her face between them. “You’re always a surprise, Caroline. You’re also a tease. Oh, you don’t know you’re a tease, or perhaps you do. Perhaps all women know instinctively how to drive a man mad. Come here and open your mouth to me.”
She leaned down and his mouth was hot on hers.
“Open your mouth. The good Lord knows I taught you how to do that the second time I saw you.”
“Maybe it was the third time,” she said, and opened her mouth. His tongue was inside her mouth, touching her own tongue, and it was quite splendid, she thought, until she felt his big hands on her bottom, kneading her flesh, pressing her hard against his man’s sex. Then she stopped thinking. His fingers were between her thighs and he found her flesh and he was touching her, exploring, gently entering her and she was shaking now, moving against him, unable to help herself, all of her merging into him and what he was doing to her and what he was making her feel. In the next moment she was on her back and he was between her legs, pushing them apart with his hands and holding them steady and staring down at her.