“No, Julian. I was in love with you,” she replied softly, her gaze seeking his. “I have always loved you. I don’t expect you to say it back,” she blurted, noting the flare of panic in his eyes. “I know you have always been fond of me. That is enough for now. Maybe, in time, it will become more.”
“Do you honestly have no idea how I feel about you?” he asked. “I’ve had prurient thoughts about you since that day you took a swim in your invisible shift.”
“It wasn’t invisible,” she insisted.
“It may as well have been,” he replied, resuming his caresses.
“But you told me that was just a natural reaction that all men have,” she said.
“It was a natural reaction at the time,” he confessed, “but that vision of you stayed with me for years. I pleasured myself many times imagining you in that wet shift, and I have fantasized many times about how you would look in it now that you’ve come into the full bloom of your womanhood.”
She swallowed hard. “You have?”
“Yes. Have you ever pleasured yourself, Henrietta?” he asked, his brown eyes darkening almost to black as he slipped a hand under her skirts and skimmed it lightly up her calf. Her pulse hammered in her throat as it slid to the inside of her thigh and then crept higher.
“You haven’t answered me,” he said.
Her breath hitched as he approached that throbbing place that now beat in tempo with her racing heart. “N-no,” she replied shakily. “I haven’t.”
“Would you like me to pleasure you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she released on a long breath.
“I won’t take you until we wed,” he said. “You have my promise on that, but I wish to touch and taste you, Henrietta. I want to discover how to please you.”
“Taste?” she repeated. “You mean kiss?”
“Yes,” he replied, adding darkly, “the most intimate kind of kiss.”
She didn’t fully understand his meaning, but his tone alone sent ripples of sensation deep into her belly. Before she could ask him to explain, he kissed her again, but this time slowly, deeply, his lips and tongue tracing, teasing, and exploring her mouth as his fingers traced and teased the sensitive, fleshy folds between her thighs. She sucked in a gasp at the shocking sensation of his long and knowing fingers sliding into her wetness. He moved back down to her breast, rooting in her bodice and tugging at her stays until he freed a nipple that he took eagerly into his mouth.
So that’s what he meant by tasting. She arched into him with a moan of pleasure as he suckled one breast and then the other. His fingers continued to play, and then the heel of his palm joined in, massaging circles over her hidden nub, circles that created the most exquisite sensations. Suddenly, her breath came shorter, in spastic pants, then her body seized and her eyes shut on a long, rapturous shudder.
“What did you just do to me?” she asked.
“I gave you release,” he said.
“Release from my own body?” she asked. “That’s exactly what it felt like. No wonder you said it was impossible to describe.”
“Consider that your first lesson in pleasure. It will be even better when we are joined. There are innumerable ways to experience pleasure together. I hope you will be as eager as I am to explore them all.”
“I told you once that I would want to do so,” she said.
“I remember that conversation very well, Hen. You don’t know how close you came to being ravished on the spot.”
“Is that why you were so eager to leave the lake?”
“Yes,” he said. “I wanted you even then.”
“I didn’t know,” she said softly. “I believed the contrary.”
“And now you know differently.”
“Indeed.” She smiled. “I’m much gratified to know differently.”
As he shifted his body from hers, she became aware of his arousal, stiff and prodding against her belly. “I wish to touch you, Julian.”
“You may touch me however you wish,” he replied, placing her hands on his chest.
“No.” She shook her head. “I meant I wish to touch you in the same way you touched me.”
His brows pulled together. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
“Why not?” she asked. “You touched me very intimately. I want to know your body just as you wanted to know mine. Please, Julian,” she pleaded. “I just want you to show me how you like to be touched.”
He eyed her warily. “Have you ever seen a male . . . er . . . appendage . . . before?”
No,” she confessed. “I have not. Why do you ask?”
“Because most virgins prefer their first encounter with a man’s cock to be under cover of darkness.”
“Why is that?” she asked.
“Because it can be intimidating.”
“I’m not afraid of it, Julian. I’m really quite curious.”
He exhaled a sigh of defeat and then took her hand in his, guiding it down between them, placing it on the protrusion in his breeches. “This is what a man experiences when he’s aroused.”
“It’s rather large and very hard.” His expression contorted as she ran her hand over it, tracing the rigid shape. “You will put this inside me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he hissed. “Are you satisfied now, Hen?”