Page 64 of Loving a Beast of a Marquess
Now they were here, she wanted everything, and there was nothing more to prevent her from taking it. The ring on her finger only served to prove it.
“I shall never stop,” he promised, shrugging off his waistcoat. “My every day will be devoted to making you happy.”
Next, she pulled off his shirt, running her hands along the scars covering his skin. He tensed, and she smiled up at him. “And I shall spend my every day endeavoring to remind you why I love you,” she said. “This is one reason.” She pressed her palm against his frantic heart, marking each beat. “You are perfect to me.”
“Even though I am damaged?” he asked, hovering above her. “Even though the fire has left me deformed?”
“These scars make up who you are.” And they were scars indeed, marring the skin. It was raised under her fingers, but she had not come into this believing his skin was unmarred, and she cared little about the supposed deformity. “Is it deformity when I love it?” She bent her head to kiss each one, letting her lips linger across his scars. “They are a symbol of strength. You have endured, and you have prevailed.”
He shuddered under her caresses as though he could hardly believe she was committing them, and as though he never wanted her to stop. “Would you not prefer me to be undamaged?”
“You would not be Zachary if you were undamaged,” she said, splaying her fingers on his stomach. His breeches were not yet removed, and she had a mind to turn her attention to them next. “And I have no wish for a man who is not Zachary.”
“I do not deserve you,” he said, drawing her back up so he could kiss her. “I have done nothing to earn your favor though it is so freely given. But”—he drew away to look at her seriously—“I am glad you have chosen to give it to me.”
Evangeline could hardly believe she was doing this, lying in a bed with her husband with every intention of consummating their marriage. He wanted it with the same fervor she did, but he, at least, was familiar with the process, having done it before.
She had been waiting months for this moment, yet now that it was finally here, she felt uncertain. Her hands did not know where to go, and neither did her legs. The rod that she had felt through his clothes so many times—seen once—was alien to her even as she wanted to learn its secrets.
In the art of pleasure, she was nothing but a novice, no matter how much she might wish to please him as he pleased her.
As though reading her insecurity in her face, Zachary propped himself up on his elbows to look down at her, one hand brushing the hair back from her face. “You are beautiful,” he told her. “There is nothing I have wanted more in the world than this, but we do not have to rush. The night is ours.”
“You are mine,” she told him, capturing his lips with hers. “I don’t want to wait any longer.”
“Then we shall not wait,” he murmured against her lips even as his hands found the buttons on her dress and opened them with far more dexterity than she could have presumed. “But that does not mean we must be hasty. I mean to enjoy you.”
Evangeline barely had time to protest before he was tugging her dress from her. She allowed him to, helping him remove her stays and shift before finally lying before him naked.
He caught a sharp breath as his eyes dipped to her breasts and further down across her stomach then lower. She felt the weight of his gaze like trailing fingers, and when he finally looked at herthere, where the secrets of her womanhood lingered, she fisted her fingers in the sheets. She had not expected him to look at her like this. Like she was a banquet.
Like he wanted to feast on her.
When he brought his face down to kiss her stomach, her entire body felt as though it was both freezing and loosening.
“Zachary,” she said, her voice a little too small and uncertain. “What are you doing?”
His smile was warm enough that it alone almost dispersed her fears. “I’m enjoying you, my sweet.”
“I—”
“Trust me. This will not hurt.” He stroked a hand down between her breasts—although they ached at his sheer proximity—to her stomach, tracing her belly button before exploring the curve of his hips.
As his hand descended, so did his head, until his warm breath danced on the delicate skin between her legs. First, he dipped a finger there as he had done once before, and the wave of pleasure was enough that her hips bucked toward him. Then, as she reeled from the thought of what might happen—the sheer depravity of it, the panting need the very thought sent through her body, the vulnerability of it—he replaced his fingers with his tongue.
Evangeline was undone.
His tongue was hot and wet, and he groaned as he licked her, flicking in such a way that made the heated feeling in her rise and tighten.
She wanted more. She wanted it in a desperate, frantic way that made her knot her hands in his hair and gasp and beg him.
When he finally brought her to the edge, his fingers dug into her hips as she bucked against him. His tongue coaxed every second of pleasure from her, and when he was done—when she was spent—he climbed back up her and kissed her with lips that tasted of her.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she told him when she finally found the ability to speak again. “I’ve never—”
“Hush.” He pressed a finger to her lips and smiled down at her. “I will guide you, my love. There’s nothing to fear.”
Evangeline didn’t have the words to explain that she didn’t know how to make him feel the way he had just made her feel. That her tongue, no matter how hot and wet, did not know how to move the way his had done. She could not read his body the way he had read hers.
