Page 81 of Where the Heart Leads
Every muscle in her body felt liquefied, all tension released, yet…still she hungered.
Opening her eyes, she looked down at him. He’d lifted his head, and was watching her.
He studied her eyes, then shifted, rising like some powerful god over her.
Raising one hand, she set her palm to his chest, stroked lightly. Even through the gentle touch she could feel the steely tension coiled within him. Feeling entirely too powerful—knowing that tension was because of her, was born of desire for her—she found the strength to arch her brows. “Is that it?”
She knew perfectly well it wasn’t.
From under heavy lids, his eyes met hers. He’d set her thighs wide; now he wedged his hips between. She felt the broad head of his erection seek, and find, her entrance; it hovered there, and she quivered.
Bracing his forearms on the pillows, caging her head, he bent his and found her lips—took her mouth in a slow, deep, soul-stealing kiss that once again had her wits whirling, that when he finally lifted his head left her breathless.
From a distance of mere inches, Barnaby met her gaze. “That was the prelude.This”—he thrust slowly, powerfully, and steadily, deep into her slick heat—“is the beginning of the main event.”
He felt the restriction of her maidenhead, tested it, then withdrew and thrust sharply, more powerfully, breaching the barrier and riding deep into her luscious body.
Shock lanced through her; her features pinched, reflecting pain.
Inwardly cursing, he held still, jaw clenched with the effort to deny his raging impulses—his primitive side that wanted immediately to plunder and ravish unrestrained; despite having been more than ready, she was small—and he wasn’t.
Head bowing, muscles bunching and flickering, his breathing harsh in his ears, he fought to give her time to adjust.
She did. In tortuous increments. As if unsure how far she should go, how far it was safe to relax. Her muscles unclenched in stages.
Gritting his teeth, he gave her as long as he could, then looked at her—met her eyes. “You’re all right.”
Not a question. She blinked up at him, her eyes dark, lustrous pools in the candlelight. Their expression grew briefly distant, as if she were checking the validity of his statement, then she refocused on him. And there was wonder in her eyes. “Yes. You’re right.” Her lips curved. The last of her panicked tension evaporated.
Tension of a different sort returned to fill the void, and called to him. To every instinct he possessed.
The sudden glow in her eyes, the subtle deepening of her sirenlike smile, the way her hand slid up to cradle his nape, the way she met his gaze—inviting, alluring, a female who sensed her worth—said she knew it, knew the effect she had on him, knew exactly what he wanted to do—and approved. Wholeheartedly.
On a groan, he surrendered to her urging and lowered his lips to hers.
And gave them both what they wanted.
He took her mouth in a soul-deep kiss, anchoring them. Then he withdrew and thrust again, whirling them into a landscape he knew well, one of sensual pleasure. He kept them there with each slow, measured thrust, every deep, forceful penetration.
As when they waltzed, she followed his lead. Her body undulated beneath his, complementing, matching, receiving, taking, giving.
The pleasure swelled, welled, swirled through them as they danced, growing ever hotter, ever more insistent, ever more intense.
He refused to rush, and wonder of wonders she didn’t press him to; rather, she matched him, readily rode with him, her curiosity and delight apparent in every gasp, every encouraging murmur, every evocative touch of her fingers on his skin.
Wherever she touched, he burned, but that was nothing—no comparison to—the fiery heat of her sheath. It gripped him, drew him in; scalding and wet, she took him in and plainly gloried in the act.
Beneath him, she writhed; as the tempo inevitably increased, she clutched, nails digging in as she held tight and urged him—drove him—on.
He dragged in a shuddering breath and complied. The sensations that surrounded him, her lush body, her passion, her readily offered desire, colored his familiar landscape more brightly, more intensely, than it had ever been before.
Every movement, every touch, of his body and hers, every exchange seemed more laden with feeling. Tactile sensation, true, yet it carried something deeper, something finer—something other.
Some intangible part of them both. As if on this familiar landscape they’d somehow shifted onto some higher plane and were communing at a more elemental level.
He couldn’t think about it, define it, now. His mind was too awash with whatever he was feeling. The intensity alone, the heightened sensations, battered at his mind.
He wouldn’t have believed it if he’d been told—that she, an innocent no matter how well read, could so easily and completely and utterly engage with him, with his sensual side, one so very experienced—more, with the primitive passions he normally suppressed, normally kept on a tight leash so he wouldn’t shock his partner.
