He withdrew his fingers and sat up on his knees. He pulled his shirt over his head and cast it aside, then worked to undo the remaining closures of his breeches. Izzy thought about asking if she could help, but he didn’t seem to need assistance.
When he’d wrestled free of all his garments, he rejoined her on the bed. He dropped reverent kisses along her neck, her chest, her belly. She felt worshipped.
Then he moved between her legs, and his hips pushed her thighs wide.
“Wait.” She stroked his shoulders and chest, exploring the firm, sculpted contours. “I . . .” She nearly lost her courage. “I want to see you. Touch you.”
He sat back on his haunches in wordless invitation.
Izzy looked. There it was, in all its magnificence. Dusky, proud, alarmingly large. Jutting out from a thatch of dark hair and straining toward her.
She was entirely unaware of the protocol when becoming acquainted with a man’s rampant sex organ. Did she reach out and give it a handshake? Touch one finger to the tip? Bid it a polite howdoyoudo?
In the end, she decided to ask for guidance. She put her hand in Ransom’s. “Show me how to please you.”
The words alone made him moan. He took her hand in his and curled her grip about the base of his erection. Then he guided her, teaching her to stroke him, up and down. She loved the feel of him in her hand. The soft skin sliding over rigid flesh beneath. Curious, she brushed her thumb over the tip and was delighted to find it silky and sensitive.
He squeezed her hand, preventing her from indulging in any further explorations.
“Did I do something wrong? Is there something else I should do?”
“Nothing wrong,” he whispered, lacing his fingers with hers and pressing her hands back to the bed. “Nothing else. You’re perfect. Just be there. Just be you. Lovely, lovely Izzy.”
She felt the smooth, broad crown of his erection prodding at her entrance.
And then he was inside her.
She cried out. She couldn’t help it.
“Am I hurting you?”
She bit her lip. “A little.”
“Sorry.” He pushed forward, sinking an inch deeper. “So sorry.”
She struggled to breathe. He was just so foreign and . . . and just impossibly large inside her.
“I’m going to take this slowly.” He dropped little kisses on her lips. She could taste the whisky in them. “Until I can’t anymore, and then I’ll probably take it hard and fast. I’ll apologize now. Words might be beyond me then.”
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I understand.”
She didn’t, really, but she assumed she’d figure it out along the way. She was still struggling to adjust to the feeling of him inside her. The fullness, the stretching, the heat. He glided smoothly in and out, sinking a little deeper each time. Eventually, his body met hers, holding there a moment before retreating to do it all again.
Soon the pain of their joining receded, and she began to enjoy the friction of his hard, male body against hers. His legs, coarse with hair and dense with muscle, rubbing against her sensitive inner thighs. His chest pressing against her breasts.
This wasn’t so bad anymore. It was rather nice.
He lifted up on his arms. His face twisted. “Izzy. God. I . . .”
Right. So this would be the “hard and fast” part now. She was glad that he’d warned her.
He shifted, and his hips spread her thighs to a new, wider angle, holding her open for his thrusts. He drilled deep, working in and out of her body at a furious pace. It hurt her. It excited her. It pushed her to the verge of . . . of something unknown.
She felt as though she were sprawled atop not a wool-batting mattress but a tense, brittle surface. A thin sheet of ice over black, fathomless longing. Each of his fierce thrusts put a crack in it. The unknown that lay beneath both thrilled and frightened her. She wanted to let go, to fall through it . . . but she was too afraid to let go.