Page 108 of The Quiet Wife
His lopsided smile widened. “I can try.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant. “You don’t have to.”
“Darling. I want to make love to you all night long. However, men need some time after they have… ah, spent… to recover sufficiently to do it again.”
“Oh, I see. Well, that’s fine. I’m happy to wait until you recover.”
“You are an absolute delight,” he told her.
“Well, Frederick never took more than a few minutes, then disappeared for months on end, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not au fait with the etiquette here,” she said, with more humour than umbrage, making Jemie laugh and that dispelled any remaining nervousness between them.
“When you say you need time to recover, I’m hoping it’s sooner than a month?”
He laughed again delightedly as she hoped he would. As he always did. He never failed to understand her. “Come here, you,” he growled, scooping her into his arms and making her shriek with laughter as he carried her like a maiden in a fairy tale to the bed. He laid her gently on the cool, white sheets and then arranged her hair just as he wanted it. The laughter subsided as he gazed down at her.
“I want to draw you like this,” he whispered. “I need to draw you like this.”
She held out her hand. “Then you shall.”
He pushed the covers away and lay beside her. She waited for him to climb atop her, but he didn’t. He leaned over her, bringing their naked bodies together in a way that stole her breath. He kissed her as his hands explored her body. He took one of her hands and placed it on his hip. An invitation for her to touch him too? She let her fingers glide over the smooth skin of his back and felt him shudder. She let them drift lower, over the swell of his rear and he moaned and pressed harder against her.
He pulled his mouth from hers, and proceeded to kiss every part of her he could, driving her towards something just out of reach. When he took her breast in his hand, she arched against him crying his name.
He pulled away but she clutched at him. “Don’t stop… It’s… Oh…”
He growled softly and then his hands, and his lips showed her exactly what passion was. When she was a burning bundle of sensation, he shifted so he could skim a hand down her stomach. When he moved lower, the burning, needful sensation reached screaming pitch.
“Is this good?” he whispered against her skin.
“Yes…” it came out as a low moan.
“Are you ready for me? Can you help me?” He took hold of her hand and drew it down between them.
Bemused, she took hold of him and guided him inside. It was fiercely intimate, but his care of her, his consideration rather than blundering in made her catch her breath.
He brought them together, sunk deep inside her and braced himself on his elbows. He looked down at her as if searching her face, making her close her eyes and moan softly.
“Good?” he whispered, stilling.
“Very.” She opened her eyes and beamed at him. “It didn’t hurt at all.”
He groaned, buried his face in her neck, and moved. Slowly at first, but with a gathering pace and Frances clung to him, utterly swamped by the joy of the intimacy, and at the overwhelming emotion that threatened to overtake her. It was a sensation she had never felt before.
“Jemie,” she murmured over and over as she strained again for that something that hovered just out of her reach. He shifted his position, adjusting his hips, bringing him into closer contact and increased his pace to something more frantic, desperate, and Frances clutched at his back, squeezed his hips with her thighs and then her world exploded, and she threw her head back on the pillow with a shout not caring who might hear.Jemie didn’t stop. His movements became jagged, ravenous, until he too groaned and sank deep into her, pressing so tightly it felt like they were just two halves of a whole.
Tears leaked from her eyes as she stroked the back of his head. His breathing, like hers, was stertorous, and it was a while before he moved to look at her.
He lifted himself up and gazed down, searching her face. He wiped at the tears with his fingers.
“Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head.
“Frighten you?”
She smiled. “Not in the slightest.”
“So, these are happy tears?” he ventured cautiously.
