“Aye, but when we are done, if I do it all wrong or verra badly, can ye just politely tell me what I did wrong and how I might improve?” She knew any criticism, any cold words from him, would crush her.
“’Tis clear there are a few chains left to shake off. Love, ye may lack a skill or two yet but I doubt ye can do this badly. I have tasted the passion ye have inside. Ye just have to set it free.”
Before she could argue that and tell him that it could not be that easy, he kissed her. Arianna sank into his arms without hesitation. The fact that she loved his kisses, reveled in the heat of them, was one reason she now dared to go further than kisses. She stroked his broad shoulders and back and beneath her hands the heat of his skin sank into her, warming her blood. By the time he broke off the kiss, she was so swept up in the desire racing through her that it took her a moment to be aware of the fact that he was yanking her shift off her.
“Ye wish me to be naked?” she asked, and wondered if she had truly just heard him call Claud a horse’s arse. “Are ye certain I should be naked?”
“Aye, I want ye naked and I want me naked. I want us skin to skin. I want to feel your soft heat touching me everywhere it can touch me.”
“Oh.”
She was flushed with an odd mixture of embarrassment and anticipation. He tossed aside her shift and slowly pulled her into his arms. Fear crept in when he stared at her naked body and she fought it, seeing no condemnation in his gaze. She dared not trust her own judgment in thinking he looked hungry for her, even approving what he saw, but the lack of cold dislike in his gaze was enough to ease the fear that was trying to chill the warmth of her desire.
When their flesh touched, she shuddered from the pleasure of it. He was hard muscle covered with surprisingly soft skin. Arianna wanted to rub herself all over him.
“Oh,” she whispered again. “Oh, my.”
He laughed against her throat but his amusement rapidly faded beneath a pounding urge to taste, to touch, and to possess. Brian fought to control the need tearing at him. Arianna needed more than some frantic coupling. She might not be a virgin but she was wounded in heart and mind. He had to make absolutely certain that her desire was stirred into a greedy fever and that she was fully aware of the fact that he burned as she did. Even though he doubted his skill at such things, he also knew that he had to give her a lot of flattering words, praise for her beauty, and her passion. Claud had given her nothing but insult and humiliation, and Brian was determined to keep the man’s cursed ghost from sharing this bed with them.
Arianna could not catch her breath. She was panting like a hard-run hunting dog. Beneath Brian’s caresses her flesh burned. When he stroked the aching tip of her breasts with his tongue, she barely stopped herself from screeching in shock at the pure heat it sent through her body. She did not have to urge him to do it again, which was good, for she was unable to speak coherently. Instead she wove her fingers through his soft, thick hair and held him close as he licked, nipped, and suckled her breasts until she thought she would go mad from the pleasure it brought her. He kept telling her how good she tasted, how soft her skin was, how much he wanted her, and even how beautiful her breasts were, his words stirring her as much as his touch. The almost constant sound of his deep voice held her entranced and, even though she doubted the truth of his flattery, it pleased her.
The tension of what she now recognized as her need for him curled hot and tight in her belly. When Brian slid his hand between her thighs she fleetingly stiffened, uncertain about the intimate caress she had never experienced before. He said nothing about the reddish curls sheltering her womanhood, only murmured compliments about the heat she was gifting him with. The way he stroked her, dipping his finger in and out of her in imitation of what he would soon do with the hard length he rubbed against her thigh, had her arching into his touch. And still she wanted, needed, more.
It was not until he began to join their bodies that a little of passion’s haze began to clear from her mind. With Claud this was what had been the most tedious and embarrassing part and the one that had then become painful. She had barely begun to go rigid, bracing herself for the stinging pain, when Brian was inside her. Arianna blinked in surprise, holding very still until she was certain that there had been no pain and would be no pain.