Page 77 of The Wrong Bride
Smiling, she kept her face buried against his shirt, breathing in the precious scent of him. “I had help from both Maggie and your mother. How is Brendan?”
“He’s glad to know the truth. I asked him to move here, but he’d rather have his old life.”
“I understand that.” With her ear on his chest, she listened to the solid, reliable thump of his heart. The wine had given her the courage to think of nothing beyond tonight.
“My Riona.”
His voice was low with yearning, and he lifted her face until their eyes met and their smiles died. When he kissed her, Riona felt every last resistance fade away into some distant corner of her mind. They kissed and tasted with a growing urgency that she didn’t question. Her hunger for him was insatiable, demanding. She came up on her knees over him and began to pull at the laces of herbodice, and then he was helping her. She’d never been undressed so swiftly in her life.
When she was standing, wearing only her chemise, she took the hem in her hands and met his suddenly narrowed eyes.
“Riona—”
She pulled it up and over her head, saw his indrawn breath as he took in her nudity by candlelight. He’d seen—or at least touched—her bare skin before, but there was something empowering about choosing to stand before him like this, unafraid.
And then he pulled off his own shirt and pulled her to him. The press of his hot skin along hers was wondrous. She clutched his shoulders and arched her back to be even closer to him. The hair on his chest teased her nipples, but that was nothing next to the feel of his hands sliding down to cup her backside. He separated her legs to straddle him where he sat on the edge of the bed, then arched her back so that he could take one breast into his mouth. She cried out and held him against her, unable to stop moving against his hips.
“Take me,” she whispered. “Hugh, please, don’t make me wait.”
Her fingers fumbled between them for the buttons on his breeches. He reached to help her, and when his erection was free, she briefly took it in her hand as he’d shown her how to do. Her thighs werespread before him, and she moved forward as if to put him inside her.
And then she found herself on her back, Hugh bracing his hands on either side of her head.
He stared hard into her eyes, his breath coming fast. “Ye’re sure ye want to do this.”
“We’re doing this,” she answered with no hesitation. “I just don’t know how best to—”
“Lift your knees,” he said between clenched teeth.
When she did, he settled between her thighs.
“The first time—” he began.
“—might hurt,” she finished. “I’ve been told. I don’t care. Do that part quickly.”
She felt the hard smoothness of him slide along her wet opening, and then he was deep inside her, filling her, the pain brief and fading compared to the incredible sensation of fullness and heat and dawning passion.
He kissed her then and she let her tongue invade his mouth as he was invading her body. For a long moment he didn’t move his hips, just kissed her and caressed her breasts until passion heated her skin. She needed more and she began to squirm beneath him to make it happen.
And then he withdrew and slid deep inside her again, and she gasped.
“Oh. Oh!”
He laughed against her mouth, and they began the ancient dance of lovemaking, surging togetherand coming apart. Desire bubbled up ever higher, overcoming her, heating her, until all she could do was focus on the friction of their bodies, the wetness of his mouth on hers, the feel of his callused palm kneading her breast.
The culmination swept over her in a flash of brilliant awareness, as pleasure seemed to infuse and sensitize all the way to her fingers and toes. He continued to thrust into her faster and faster, and her pleasure went on until it was almost too much. And then he groaned and found his own release, crushing her into the mattress, but oh, it was good to be beneath him, to accept all of him at last.
“I love ye, Riona,” he said quietly against her cheek.
And she burst into noisy tears.
CHAPTER 21
Hugh had never told a woman he loved her before, but he didn’t think abject sobbing was the right response. “Riona?”
He propped himself up and tried to see her face, but she covered it with both hands and sobbed even harder.
“You can’t love me,” she cried between her fingers.
