He shook his head. “I haven’t.”
“But they’re brilliant. You’re brilliant. I’m sure your mother would love to see them.”
“I don’t know why,” he said, feeling sheepish, “but I never wanted to share them.”
“You shared them with me,” she said softly.
“Somehow,” he said, touching his fingers to her chin, “it felt right.”
And then his heart skipped a beat, because all of a sudden everything felt right.
He loved her. He didn’t know how it had happened, only that it was true.
It wasn’t just that she was convenient. There had been lots of convenient women. Sophie was different. She made him laugh. She made him want to make her laugh. And when he was with her—Well, when he was with her he wanted her like hell, but during those few moments when his body managed to keep itself in check . . .
He was content.
It was strange, to find a woman who could make him happy just with her mere presence. He didn’t even have to see her, or hear her voice, or even smell her scent. He just had to know that she was there.
If that wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was.
He stared down at her, trying to prolong the moment, to hold on to these few moments of complete perfection. Something softened in her eyes, and the color seemed to melt right then and there, from a shiny, glowing emerald to a soft and lilting moss. Her lips parted and softened, and he knew that he had to kiss her. Not that he wanted to, that he had to.
He needed her next to him, below him, on top of him.
He needed her in him, around him, a part of him.
He needed her the way he needed air.
And, he thought in that last rational moment before his lips found hers, he needed her right now.
Chapter 17
This Author has it on the finest authority that two days ago, whilst taking tea at Gunter’s, Lady Penwood was hit on the side of her head with a flying biscuit.
This Author is unable to determine who threw the biscuit, but all suspicions point to the establishment’s youngest patrons, Miss Felicity Featherington and Miss Hyacinth Bridgerton.
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 21 MAY 1817
Sophie had been kissed before—she had been kissed by Benedict before—but nothing, not a single moment of a single kiss, prepared her for this.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was heaven.
He kissed her with an intensity she could barely comprehend, his lips teasing hers, stroking, nibbling, caressing. He stoked a fire within her, a desire to be loved, a need to love in return. And God help her, when he kissed her, all she wanted to do was kiss him back.
She heard him murmuring her name, but it barely registered over the roaring in her ears. This was desire. This was need. How foolish of her ever to think that she could deny this. How self-important to think that she could be stronger than passion.
“Sophie, Sophie,” he said, over and over, his lips on her cheek, her neck, her ear. He said her name so many times it seemed to soak into her skin.
She felt his hands on the buttons of her dress, could feel the fabric loosening as each slipped through its buttonhole. This was everything she’d always sworn she would never do, and yet when her bodice tumbled to her waist, leaving her shamelessly exposed, she groaned his name and arched her back, offering herself to him like some sort of forbidden fruit.
Benedict stopped breathing when he saw her. He’d pictured this moment in his mind so many times—every night as he lay in bed, and in every dream when he actually slept. But this—reality—was far sweeter than a dream, and far more erotic.
His hand, which had been stroking the warm skin on her back, slowly slid over her rib cage. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, knowing that the words were hopelessly inadequate. As if mere words could describe what he felt. And then, when his trembling fingers finished their journey and cupped her breast, he let out a shuddering groan. Words were impossible now. His need for her was so intense, so primitive. It robbed him of his ability to speak. Hell, he could barely think.
He wasn’t certain how this woman had come to mean so much to him. It seemed that one day she was a stranger, and the next she was as indispensable as air. And yet it hadn’t happened in a blinding flash. It had been a slow, sneaky process, quietly coloring his emotions until he realized that without her, his life lacked all meaning.
He touched her chin, lifting her face until he could peer into her eyes. They seemed to glow from within, glistening with unshed tears. Her lips were trembling, too, and he knew that she was as affected by the moment as he.
He leaned forward . . . slowly, slowly. He wanted to give her the chance to say no. It would kill him if she did, but it would be far worse to listen to her regrets in the proverbial morning.
But she didn’t say no, and when he was but a few inches away, her eyes closed and her head tilted slightly to the side, silently inviting him to kiss her.
It was remarkable, but every time he kissed her, her lips seemed to grow sweeter, her scent more beguiling. And his need grew, too. His blood was racing with desire, and it was taking his every last shred of restraint not to push her back onto the sofa and tear her clothes from her body.
That would come later, he thought with a secret smile. But this—surely her first time—would be slow and tender and everything a young girl dreamed.
Well, maybe not. His smile turned into an outright grin. Half the things he was going to do to her, she wouldn’t have even thought to dream about.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked.
He drew back a few inches, cupping her face with both hands. “How did you know I was smiling?”
“I could feel it on my lips.”
He brought a finger to those lips, tracing the outline, then running the edge of his fingernail along the plump skin. “You make me smile,” he whispered. “When you don’t make me want to scream, you make me smile.”
Her lips trembled, and her breath was hot and moist against his finger. He took her hand and brought it to his mouth, rubbing one finger against his lips in much the same way he had done with hers. But as he watched her eyes widen, he dipped her finger into his mouth, softly sucking at the fingertip, tickling her skin with his teeth and tongue.
She gasped, and the sound was sweet and erotic at the same time.
There were a thousand things that Benedict wanted to ask her— How did she feel? What did she feel? But he was so damned afraid that she’d change her mind if he gave her the opportunity to put any of her thoughts into words. And so instead of questions, he gave her kisses, returning his lips to hers in a searing, barely controlled dance of desire.
He murmured her name like a benediction as he lowered her onto the sofa, her bare back rubbing up against the upholstery. “I want you,” he groaned. “You have no idea. No idea.”
Her only response was a soft mewling sound that came from deep in her throat. For some reason that was like oil on the fire within him, and his fingers clutched at her even tighter, pressing into her skin, as his lips traveled down the swanlike column of her throat.
He moved lower, lower, burning a hot trail on her skin, pausing only briefly when he reached the gentle swell of her breast. She was completely beneath him now, her eyes glazed with desire, and it was so much better than any of his dreams.
And oh, how he’d dreamed of her.
With a low, possessive growl, Benedict took her nipple into his mouth. She let out a soft squeal, and he was unable to suppress his own low rumble of satisfaction. “Shhh,” he crooned, “just let me—”
“But—”
He pressed one of his fingers against her lips, probably a little too roughly, but it was getting harder and harder to control his movements. “Don’t think,” he murmured. “Just lie back and let me pleasure you.”
She looked dubious, but when he moved his mouth to her other breast and renewed his sensual onslaught, her eyes grew dazed, her lips parted, and her head lolled
back against the cushions.
“Do you like this?” he whispered, tracing the peak of her breast with his tongue.
Sophie couldn’t quite manage to open her eyes, but she nodded.
“Do you like this?” Now his tongue moved to the underside of her breast, and he nibbled the sensitive skin over her rib cage.
Her breath shallow and fast, she nodded again.
“What about this?” He pushed her dress further down, nibbling a trail along her skin until he reached her navel.
This time Sophie couldn’t even manage a nod. Dear God, she was practically naked before him, and all she could do was moan and sigh and beg for more.
“I need you,” she panted.
His words were murmured into the soft skin of her abdomen. “I know.”
Sophie squirmed beneath him, unnerved by this primitive need to move. Something very strange was growing within her, something hot and tingling. It was as if she were growing, getting ready to burst through her skin. It was as if, after twenty-two years of life, she were finally coming alive.
She wanted desperately to feel his skin, and she grabbed at the fine linen of his shirt, bunching it in her hands until it came loose of his breeches. She touched him, skimming her hands along his lower back, surprised and delighted when his muscles quivered beneath her fingers.
“Ah, Sophie,” he grunted, shuddering as her hands slipped under his shirt to caress his skin.
His reaction emboldened her, and she stroked him more, moving up until she reached his shoulders, broad and firmly muscled.
He groaned again, then cursed under his breath as he lifted himself off of her. “Damn thing is in the way,” he muttered, tearing the shirt off and flinging it across the room. Sophie had just an instant to stare at his bare chest before he was atop her again, and this time they were skin against skin.
It was the most glorious feeling she could ever imagine.