Page 77 of Better Love Next Time
She shook against him, her fingers clenched about his forearm locked at her waist. “Please make it go away. I can hardly breathe for it. This unbearable pain.”
Surprised, he looked down at her trembling shoulders. “You want me to fuck you?”
“Yes. Yes, please allow me to feel something more.” Her voice was strained, almost unhinged.
He breathed in her scent. Kitty. Warmth, uncertainty, innocence. Pain. He knew he had made a mistake treating her harshly. He knew what he was about to do was wrong. For both of them.
He laid her on her stomach over the foot of the bed, brushing the hair from her face where it pressed to the red counterpane. A perfect foil to the stark contrast of her ivory skin and ebony hair.
He draped himself over her back, his mouth grazing the delicate shell of her ear. This meant nothing. Nothing but lust.
Her hazel eyes fluttered shut.
He planted his hands at her back, rubbing his palms over her fragile shoulder blades, sliding down her slim arms, snagging each wrist and swinging her arms over her head. “How do you want it?”
She licked her full lips. “However you wish.”
He worked at the buttons of his fall, ripping two off when they did not cede quick enough to his need. He tore at his drawers and shoved them down.
“Grab the bedcovers,” he ordered.
She dug those tapered fingers into the silk. He licked the salty and sweet perspiration beading at top of her spine. Scoured a hand through her hair and another along the curve of her hip. And tossed up her skirts.
His knees weakened at the twin dimples above her buttocks. Perfection, round and plump and game for a man’s hands to slap, squeeze, spread.My hands. Which he fisted at his sides. He unleashed them, gripped her buttocks, and rubbed himself there. Her flesh rippled, a bated moan blew from her lips as he stroked her. She was wet. The tight, engorged bud didn’t lie. She wanted it.
He slid a finger in her, then two. She strained upward, her girlish profile shocked, her mouth parted as he fingered her. She moved with his thrusts. He watched her come in a pinpoint haze of lust, nothing else but Kitty and need.
He could end this farce and every vow he had made, when she left him with a bleeding soul, would be broken. He gripped her hips, his thumbs depressing her plump buttocks, and dragged her up. He grappled with his shirt, pushing it up and watched his cock sink into her. He shuddered at the heat and sealed their marriage with a thrust. And he was gone. Like a boy again.
He worked inside her unheeded. He needed to slow down. He couldn’t. She was hot and tight. The vision before him, if he avoided her face, could be any woman. But it wasn’t, and his mind knew it wasn’t, and his body didn’t care. He filled her, over and over. He splayed a hard hand between her shoulder blades and plunged deep, deeper. He groaned and shook and released inside her, and he hadn’t done that in years.
His hips jutted in shallow strokes. He dropped his head to her shoulder and tamed his breath while she lay unmoving below him. Shameful remorse, that she had not found release in their coupling, needled at his peace. He had rutted on her like a brute. Like a husband.
He lifted his head and saw his hands planted on the mattress, framing her pained expression. She fumbled for his hand, threading her fingers within his.
“Was it good?” she asked. “Are you happy?”
She could have rolled to her back and encircled her arms about his neck and said it was good for her or that she was happy. But no, it came down to him and what he wanted. Just like blaming her desertion on him.
He shoved off the bed, disgusted with himself, and yanked his shirt down to cover his waning erection. But if he wanted to, it would take only minutes before he could take her again.
The sight of her spread legs, the black stockings and pink garters in contrast to her naked buttocks and fingers curled into the counterpane was too painful to bear.
“Get up please,” he said. When she struggled, he helped her, and then he was sitting on the edge of the bed with his wife in his arms and she was shaking.
“You know,” he said as her breath bated against his cheek. “I think you are right. We were too young.”
Her shoulders shook.
“Kitty, I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done…” He swallowed. “Rest assured, it won’t happen again.”
Her hair fell in unkempt strands. She wouldn’t look at him. “I asked for it. I… wanted it.”
“I’ll call for Miss Dixley and have a bath drawn for you.”
“Thank you.”
During the next week, they said nothing about the Sunday after dinner when Julian had taken her selfishly and he suspected, shamed her without intention. Except, the next evening as he sat in the gallery and brooded, it struck him that he hadn’t answered her questions.
