‘I want to do that again and again,’ he promised, the heel of his hand pressing on her flesh just hard enough to keep the tremors of sensation going.
‘Okay.’ She smiled up at him, her body strangely lethargic in the midst of the passion he’d stirred up.
His laugh was a rumble...a coarse sound. He stood up, and for a moment she was assailed by loneliness and concern. Was he stopping?
But his fingers flicked at his buttons, loosening his shirt, pushing it off his body to reveal the full expanse of his tanned naked chest. She’d seen him like this before—in the pool—and the memory of that had burned itself into her fantasies.
But this was different.
He was undressing for her now. Undressing with his eyes hooked to her body, his fingers moving with determined speed as he slid the clothes from his body until he was in just a pair of black briefs. His arousal was evident through the fabric, straining against it, pushing outwards so her eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to it.
‘Am I right in thinking you have not seen a man before, Emmeline?’
The question was asked impassively, with no judgement, but Emmeline’s face flushed with blood. Embarrassment made her look away and swallow.
‘Of course I’ve seen a man,’ she said quietly.
‘Naked?’ he prompted.
She shook her head, still unable to meet his eyes.
‘Come here.’
Her heart thundered inside her body but she stood, closing the small distance between the bed and him. Even her own nakedness didn’t shame her, though she’d never been this way before.
As if instinctively understanding her thoughts, he caught her around the waist. There was something in his expression—a confusion, a newness—that made her breath hitch in her throat. He drew her against the hard planes of his body and she made a soft sound of anticipation as his arousal pressed against her.
‘I didn’t want to marry you,’ he said thickly. ‘But now I can’t think of anything I want more than what we are about to do. You are...uniquely beautiful.’
The words made her heart flutter; it felt weightless, without gravity, and she felt it might lift out of her body altogether.
‘I’m not.’ She shook her head.
‘You try to disguise your beauty,’ he corrected. ‘And I cannot understand why, when most women do everything they can to enhance what they have.’
For a moment pain lanced her. A pain so deep, so embedded, that it had always been a part of her.
‘It’s who I am,’ she said quietly.
‘I want to get to know who you are,’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t want to marry you, but you’re my wife. And I’m glad.’
Her stomach churned and emotions ransacked her body, filling her heart with something new.
A sense of belonging.
He caught her hands and lifted them to his underpants. ‘Undress me.’
Her eyes flew to his; doubt and uncertainty warring with temptation. ‘I’ve never done this...’ she babbled.
He laughed softly. ‘I’m aware of that.’
She drew her brows together, her face a mask of doubt. ‘I thought educating virgins wasn’t your thing?’
‘Not just any virgin,’ he said in a gravelled tone. ‘You, Mrs Morelli.’
‘What if I’m not...? What if this isn’t...?’ She closed her eyes, forcing herself to think clearly and speak what was on her mind. ‘You told me you’re used to experienced lovers. What if I’m terrible in bed?’
That unfamiliar stroke of guilt slashed through him anew. He’d said that. In fact he’d said words to that effect several times. Why had he been such a bastard to her?
‘Tonight I want to show you what your body is capable of,’ he said thickly, pulling her closer and making her gasp when his arousal throbbed hard against her body.
He felt her knees tremble. Her eyes were huge in her face, all honey and caramel, awash with far too many thoughts and doubts. Doubts he’d put there. Doubts he wanted to remove one by one, kiss by kiss.
‘I’m scared,’ she said, with such simple honesty it broke his heart.
‘I know.’ He kissed the tip of her nose.
His tenderness made her heart swell. Her fingers moved of their own accord, pushing at his underwear, lowering it over the hard line of his erection and then down, over his thighs. He stepped back, moving out of his underwear as he guided her to the bed.
She fell backwards, but he didn’t immediately join her. Instead he reached into the drawer beside the bed and pulled out a foiled square.
‘Protection,’ he said with a half-smile.
‘Ah. No grandkids.’
She nodded, her wink reminding him of the first day they’d discussed this marriage. When she’d been so sure of herself. Sure that she was getting a convenient husband, a ticket to her university studies and to...freedom. The word lodged in his mind as incongruous, as it had done back then.