His gaze still hot on hers, he flicked his thumb over her once, then twice, and Lorrie felt the world shatter. Her entire body convulsed in pleasure, and yet she could not look away from his eyes. He was her anchor. If she dared break contact, she feared she might splinter from the spasms rocking her body.
Finally, finally, the room stopped spinning and the wracking pleasure ebbed. Ewan slid his fingers from her, and Lorrie could not stop a cry of loss.
“Shh,” he said, moving to nudge her legs open even wider—as though she were not splayed wantonly enough. Then it was not his fingers but his large, hot member pressing against her entrance. Remembering the pain of their first mating, Lorrie clutched at the bedclothes.
*
Ewan entered her slowly and by degrees. It was no easy task, as he wanted to drive into her and feel her slick walls close around him. But Ewan believed his patience would be well worth the effort. She had looked utterly beautiful when she’d climaxed a moment before. Her eyes had been so green, her cheeks so perfectly pink, her rose-tipped breasts straining upward to rub against his chest.
Now he could see fear of the pain from their first joining in her eyes. He had penetrated her with no more than the tip of his member, allowing her time to adjust. But even as he tried to be patient, her sex clenched around him in anticipation.
Her body knew what she needed. Ewan prayed he did as well. He slid further into her tight sheath, and she clenched again. He groaned, his jaw flexing as he tightened it. Rocking against her gently, he watched as she loosed her hands of the white-knuckled grip on his coverlet. Her arms came up to caress his back. With a low growl, he pushed deeper inside her.
Now it was her turn to moan. Her hips rose to meet his, taking more of him than he’d been ready to give. “Lie still,” he ordered.
“I can’t,” she said breathlessly. “You feel so good.” Her hands kneaded his back, then slid down to grope his arse. His cock jumped, and she made a sound that almost had him losing all control.
Her hips rolled under him, and he did his best to hold her body still as he rocked inside her, giving her a little more of him, inch by inch. She shuddered beneath him, and one look at her flushed face told him she was close to climax again. God, how he wanted this woman in his bed—now, tomorrow, forever.
Her tongue darted out of her mouth to lick her kiss-swollen lips, and he could not stop himself from burying himself in her to the hilt. He closed his eyes, anger at his clumsiness warring with the pleasure of feeling her body close around his. Before he could open his eyes to beg her forgiveness, he heard her sigh and felt her hips rise to grind against him.
Little vixen.
He opened his eyes, pleasantly surprised to see her writhing not in pain but in search of more pleasure. He would give it to her, now and always. He slid out and then in again, her tight body closing around him as though it had been made for him. As he drove into her fully, she cried out in pleasure, rising to meet him. Ewan tried to move slowly, to maintain control, but the sounds she made and the way her hips pistoned against him drove him mad.
He had been afraid he would hurt her, but she was proving no delicate flower. She was taking as much as he was giving. He gave her more, thrusting hard—the way he liked it. Her breasts bounced with the movement and her fingers dug into his arse so hard it almost hurt.
“Yes,” she said on a moan. “Like that.”
Still holding himself back, he slid deeper than he had, angling up to press friction against her center. He knew the moment his efforts had succeeded. Her eyes widened and she rose up. He thought she might kiss him, but the vixen went for his shoulder, biting him hard before falling back and screaming loudly enough to alert the entire club to their activities.
Not that he cared. That bite was his undoing. He lost all sense of control, battering into her until he spilled his seed, hot and wet inside her. The orgasm seemed to go on and on and finally he realized it was not her shouts he should have worried about.
It was his own.
When they were both quiet, breathing heavy in each other’s arms, Ewan buried his face against the sweet skin of her neck. She was more than his match, more than he could ever have hoped for.
And she deserved more than a wedding by special license.
Reluctantly, Ewan pulled away from her and sat. Her body, pink and slightly damp, beckoned him back, but he resisted. There would be time to take his fill of her after they wed, time to indulge in all the fantasies he’d dared not allow to cross his thoughts, time to take her hard and slow and so gently it left them both limp with pleasure.
“Get dressed,” he said, rising.
Lorraine opened one eye. “I thought it was wonderful too.”
Ewan suppressed a smile. He supposed he might also need time to develop sweet, romantic words to give her.
He pulled her up and dumped her chemise over her head. Pulling the fabric down until it covered her body, she uncovered her eyes. “Are you taking me home?”
“Yes.”
“And if I don’t wish to go?”
“I won’t leave you here, and I plan to speak to your father.”
He dragged on his trousers, well aware that her shocked silence would not last.
“I beg your pardon? Shouldn’t you fetch the license first? Rather, why do we need to speak to him at all? He has already given his opinion, and I for one do not need to hear it again. Why would you speak to him?”
As usual, he did not know which question to answer first. “I will inform him,” Ewan said, opting to answer her last question. “That I will marry you with or without his blessing. I’ll give him a chance to see us wed properly.”
She stared at him, her green eyes glittering like emeralds. Bloody hell, he hoped those were not tears making them so shiny. “You mean like in a church?”
He nodded.
“With banns and guests and attendants?”
Good God, he hadn’t thought of all that, but he could not backtrack now.
“He will say no.” She grabbed Ewan and hugged him. “But thank you for asking. You never do take the easy way, do you?”
Ewan supposed he didn’t.
At least not intentionally, but to his surprise the duke not only agreed to see him when, after ensuring Lorraine returned safely to the house through the servants’ stairs—he should have installed a permanent lock and key on those—Ewan darkened the duke’s door. The butler returned from the duke’s library and motioned Ewan to follow him.
Ewan was so surprised he almost wished he’d worn a cravat.
When the library door opened, the duke turned from the window, where he’d stood gazing into the small, struggling garden. He nodded at Ewan and looked back out the window. “This is by far the coldest spring I remember. Look.” He pointed out the window. “The trees are still bare and the leaves brown. I have to wonder if we’ll even have a summer or a single flower.”