He let his hands explore without hurry and his mouth wander without direction. His fingers brushed the tender spot behind her knee. His lips trailed up the inside of her thigh to the ivory skin of her belly. He lingered over the generous flair of her hips, the subtle tuck of her waist, the soft weight of her breasts.
Evie’s hands moved over him with more eagerness than skill, and he reveled in that as well. The sensation of her small fingers undoing the buttons on his shirt and the heat of her palms against his chest sent his blood roaring.
He waited until he was certain she was absorbed in pleasure before removing his breeches and covering her body with his.
“Evie. Evie, look at me now.” He caught her face in his hands, pressed a soft kiss to her brow and clung to his last shred of control. “We can stop. I will stop. If you ask it of me—”
“Don’t stop.”
He was a bastard for waiting so long to offer her a chance to back away. A bastard twice over for taking her at her word and going forward. He couldn’t find it in himself to be sorry for either. He was bloody tired of fighting against what he wanted most.
His hand moved down to cup the back of her knee. Gently, he hooked her leg over his hip.
There would be pain. He knew there was no way to avoid it entirely, but he tried his best anyway—entering her in small, careful strokes, searching her face for any sign of discomfort. He couldn’t find any. Evie arched and moaned, wrapped her other leg over him, and gripped his shoulders hard enough to dig her nails into the skin.
He relished in the sight of her lost to her desire and cringed when he reached her maidenhood.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He pushed through with a hard press of his hips to bury himself inside.
He heard his own long groan of bliss.
And Evie’s sharp yelp of discomfort. Her lids flew open. “Bloody hell.”
Her chocolate eyes, which had been glazed with pleasure only a moment ago, widened, cleared, and—unless he was much mistaken—took on the sharp edge of annoyance.
He wondered if she would start swearing. He worried she might cuff him.
“I’m sorry.” He lowered his head to take her mouth in a long, lingering kiss. He ran his hands over her, seeking out the places that had made her moan and writhe earlier. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. No, lie still. Just wait…wait.”
He set about seducing her all over again. The process was both a delight and a torture. He wanted to move. He needed to. But he didn’t, not until her eyes once again clouded over. Not until he was certain she could feel, if not all, at least some of the ecstasy he knew.
When he was certain she did, when she began to arch beneath him in wordless demand, he allowed himself to pull out and slide back. He set an excruciatingly slow rhythm, both in consideration of Evie and for his own selfish desire to draw the moment out.
Evie wasn’t having it. She struggled to pull him closer, struggled to grasp what he was holding out of reach. Her breathing grew more labored, her struggles more frantic.
“Please.”
He gave in to her demands, increasing the pace, driving deep. He listened and watched and filed away in his memory every exquisite heartbeat of Evie Cole reaching for rapture in his arms. When she found it, when she shuddered beneath him, he pressed his face against her neck and took his own.
Evie had never before experienced such an incongruent mix of emotions. She felt elated, anxious, vulnerable, replete, and a host of other things she couldn’t hope to name.
She wanted to dive under the covers to hide, almost as much as she wanted to bound out of bed and dance about, but not quite as much as she wanted to close her eyes and immediately give in to the sleep tugging at her weighted body.
McAlistair shifted, rolling onto his back and gently tucking her against his side. He pulled the edge of the counterpane and wrapped it over her. “Are you all right, Evie?” She nodded against his shoulder as a thousand questions raced through her mind.
Had she done the right thing?
Had she done the thing right?
The first question would require a more sedate frame of mind to figure through. As for the second…she looked up at McAlistair. He had one arm bent behind his head, one hand trailing soft brushes up and down her spine, and the single most serene expression she’d ever seen on his face.
At a guess, she’d done something right.
Emboldened by the modesty the counterpane allowed, she let her hand reach up to touch the white jagged scar on his chest she’d noticed earlier. The man had a frightful number of scars on his body, and it occurred to her that she hadn’t any idea how he’d received even one of them. Frowning a little, she traced the white edges of the skin.
“How did this happen?”
McAlistair felt laughter tickle the back of his throat. Evie would, of course, want to talk. Rather than respond, he drew a hand down her hair, hoping to lull her into the sleep she needed.
“I know very little of your life before you came to Haldon,” she prompted.
His hand stilled. “It’s important to you? My past?”
Let her say no. Please let her—
“Yes.”
Damn.
“It’s part of who you are,” she whispered.