Alex lunged once, sheathing himself fully inside her.
“Dear God,” he groaned. She felt like heaven, and every instinct screamed out for him to move, to pound into her until he reached blessed relief. But he held still, waiting for her to accustom herself to his invasion, praying she would do so quickly. The last remnants of his willpower were slipping away quickly.
“Sophie,” he murmured kissing her lips, her nose, her forehead. “Sophie.” He reached between them and rubbed gently at her most sensitive spot until finally she relaxed, then moaned and began to writhe beneath him.
Silently thanking every deity he could think of, Alex began moving in shallow strokes, reveling in every gasp of her breath, every lift of her hips until his resolve to go slow and be gentle was lost to the all-consuming desire to spill his seed deep inside her and mark her as his.
He thrust harder, faster, silently promising to gentle his movements at the first sign of her distress, and wondering how he could manage it. He could hear her cries growing louder and higher in pitch. Her hands grabbed frantically at his back.
She was so close. If he could just hold off a moment longer—
She screamed. Her muscles rippled around him and pulled him over the edge.
He made one final shove and let out a hoarse shout of his own.
When he regained some semblance of control, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled them both to their sides.
“Are you all right?” he whispered worriedly as she buried her face against his chest.
She bumped his chin when she nodded.
“Are you certain, because—”
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “Better than fine. I….”
“Then why are you hiding from me?” he asked, trying to work a hand down to her chin to bring her face up. “Sophie? If I hurt you—”
“It’s not that, truly. I’m just a little…”
Alex smiled. “Embarrassed?”
She nodded again.
He wrapped his arms around her tighter. “Sweetheart, don’t be. What we did was perfectly natural.”
She snuggled closer. “I know. I’m simply not used to it.”
“Well, we’ll just have to work on that,” Alex answered, sliding a hand down her hip.
“Now?”
“No,” he chuckled, although he certainly wouldn’t have minded accustoming her to the joys of lovemaking right away. “You’re new to this yet, and we’ve had a long day. You need to rest. Sleep now, and I’ll find something for you to wash with when you wake.”
She yawned hugely. “Stay with me?”
“Always.”
Sophie decided to worry about “always” tomorrow.
Twenty-seven
It was night when she awoke in a tangle of bedsheets and Alex’s arms. For a while she lay silently with her face resting against the muscled expanse of his chest, watching the candlelight dance about the room, and reflecting on what had happened that evening.
She’d made love with Alex. Incredible.
Sophie had heard tales of what it meant to share a bed with a man. Whispers of the pleasures that could be found with the right man, but she had always been more interested in learning the specifics of the act than the possible results.
Now she wished she had paid more attention to the other details. Had she reacted appropriately? Had she moved too much? Not enough? Made too much noise? She didn’t recall having much choice in the matter, but maybe there was a trick to being subdued, something young ladies learned before their wedding nights from the women in their families.
Sophie smiled a little at the thought of prim Mrs. Summers educating her on proper conduct in the marriage bed. And decided she didn’t want to learn what was proper and what was not. To night had been perfect as far as she was concerned. Alex certainly hadn’t complained.
She must have smiled even broader at that thought, because Alex stirred and reached up a hand to stroke her hair. “Are you awake, sweet?” he whispered.
“A little,” she mumbled.
She felt the soft rumble of his chuckle against her ear. “Well, see if you can manage a little more. It’s time to get up.”
She tilted her head up a bit for a better look out the windows. “It’s still fully dark outside.”
“Western windows,” he informed her. “It’s nearly dawn. How far is the nearest village?”
Sophie snuggled deeper into the blankets. “Three, maybe four miles I think. Not too far. We can wait until it’s light at least.”
“It’ll be light on the other side of the house soon enough. I want to get you safe to London and find out who’s behind our attempted kidnapping. And for that we need horses.”
It’d been a bit more than attempted kidnapping, Sophie thought, and he wasn’t going to be looking into it alone, but she didn’t feel like arguing with him. Nor was she going to be able to go back to sleep, she realized. Her mind was spinning now with thoughts of her upcoming marriage to Alex, their kidnappers, her cousin, her work for…whoever it was she was working for. Which reminded her…
“Alex?”