She was finding it hard to think, let alone converse. He was over her, around her, inside her.As close as two people could be. She bit her lip and watched in satisfaction as his eyes followed the movement. She licked it, just to tease him, and raised her brows. “Is that it?” She tried to sound unimpressed, but her voice held a betraying quiver. “I have to say, I’d expected something…different.”
He raised his own brows. “Different how?”
“Well, something”—words failed her—“more.”
His lips curled upward. “More, as in, like this?” He rocked his hips and slid inside her fully.
Heloise gasped as her chin tipped up. “Umm…well, yes…” she managed. “That’s…ah—”
He withdrew and did it again, a slow, voluptuous slide that pulled him out and then eased back in. Each time was easier than the last. A ripple of delight shimmered through her as the fire he’d built with his mouth returned. Heloise closed her eyes. Oh, the beast, he knew full well the torture he was inflicting. But it was hard to complain when it was so insanely pleasurable.
He pressed again and she arched instinctively as he increased the pace.
“Oh God.” He bent his head and kissed her, openmouthed, his tongue mimicking the movement of his body in hers in a wicked, insidious rhythm. They were both gasping when he pulled back. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he panted.
“I don’t want you to hold back,” she countered fiercely. “No half measures, Ravenwood, I’m warning you. I want everything.”
Whatever restraint he’d still had vanished with her words. With a groan he pressed feverish kisses onto her face and then dropped his forehead to her neck and abandoned all pretense of control. His hand gripped her hip as he pulled her up to meet him, the other threaded through her hair to cradle the back of her head.
Heloise gloried in his tender violence. His body was twice the size of hers; he pushed her down into the mattress with breath-stealing force, but she felt only a thrill at his possession, his dominance. All this strength was hers. She defeated him, owned him. Loved him. She’d wanted this forever, wanted him to be a part of her. Even if he left her eventually, she’d have this—this thing they could never undo. Never take back.
He filled her whole world. All she could see was the outline of his shoulder, the strong curve of his neck. His breathy encouragement rasped in her ear, praise and beseeching and nonsense.
Heloise almost laughed aloud. Before, at thepalacio,it had only been about her pleasure, with him firmly in control, but now he lost himself, too. His big body trembled as he took her, thrusting with urgency instead of control. He drove her upward until she was clutching at his shoulders, sobbing for breath. Closer and closer, as if she were running, but couldn’t run fast enough, as in dreams.
And then he put his hand between them, teasing with his fingers, and Heloise forgot to breathe.
“Now, Heloise.”
His husky command tipped her over the edge. Blinding sweetness pierced her; beat after beat of pleasure, of blackness and falling and total annihilation. Raven threw his head back as shudders racked his body and Heloise pressed her face into his shoulder, tasting the salt on his skin, feeling the frantic beat of his heart beneath her lips.
He relaxed heavily on top of her and she held him, loving the weight of him as the world swam back into focus. Every nerve ending in her body tingled with repletion.
Raven pulled back, still within her, and met her eyes. He looked as shaken, as shattered, as she felt. A lock of hair had fallen over his forehead and she reached up and stroked it back lovingly. He closed his eyes and rolled off her and she felt a twinge of discomfort as he withdrew.
Well, she was no longer a virgin. Now what? She had no idea what sophisticated women did in circumstances like this. What was the etiquette? Was he going to leave? Should they talk? Have a drink? Go to sleep?
She held her breath as Raven turned on his side and wrapped his arms around her. She opened her mouth to speak but he let out an exhausted chuckle and pulled the blankets over them both.
“Don’t you dare say anything,” he murmured into her nape. “You’ll only ruin it. Just be quiet and go to sleep.”
Heloise scowled at his high-handed attitude but she was too exhausted to take him to task. She struggled to muster up even an ounce of regret, and failed. According to the strict rules of theton,she was ruined, but she could find nothing but joy in it.
Her scattered thoughts went back to what he’d said outside. When he’d kissed her scar it had been the most amazing, heart-stopping moment, a healing and a benediction all in one. Not even her mother had ever done that. Heloise had always seen her injury as a failure, a flaw, buthesaw her as unbowed. Not a ruined beauty, but a survivor. No wonder she was in love with him.
He was delusional, of course. Someone like him was bound to have warped ideas of beauty. But she wanted to believe him with every fiber of her being.
Heloise closed her eyes and snuggled deeper into his embrace, amazed at how natural it felt to be held against his naked body. Her limbs were suffused with a wonderful languor, a feeling of peace and contentment unlike any she’d ever known.
When she awoke it was daylight, and she was alone. She hadn’t expected otherwise.
As tempting as it was to hide in the cocoon of the caravan forever, she wasn’t a coward. She could be mature about this. Sophisticated. There was no need to make Raven feel uncomfortable. She’d asked him to stay. And then practically begged him to make love to her.
She refused to wonder how she compared to all his other women. It crushed her to think of him doing with other women what he had just done with her. She was nothing like the voluptuous Lady Brooke.
She’d worried that he’d find her inexperience boring and gauche, but he’d seemed to enjoy himself well enough. Heloise flushed, recalling the unaccustomed stickiness between her legs when she’d washed. Her mother, ever practical, had told her what to expect. There had been no blood that she could see. She had nothing, in fact, to show for her experience except a few aches in rarely used muscles and a wistful pang in her heart.
Raven wasn’t in the camp when she went to the fire, and from a series of mimes and gestures she discovered he and Alejandro had gone ahead to scout out the trail. She helped the women and children pack up, and before long they all set out on a lumbering procession, guarded on all sides by Alejandro’s men, their rifles slung over their shoulders.