In the near darkness, Susannah heard invitation rather than command in his words, and she complied. Deft male fingers undid her bows—she’d tied each bow loosely, after all—and silk whispered down her arms.
“The nightgown too?” Will asked.
“Your breeches first.”
Will didn’t even undo all the buttons, just a few more on each side, a shove and a step, and there he was. Gracious.
“I desire you,” he said, his fingers wrapping around a part of him Susannah had felt but not seen previously. “I hope you want me as well, but you can change your mind, Susannah.”
Susannah stepped closer and kicked Will’s breeches aside. “Are you daft? I’ve wanted you since you first found me in Lady March’s garden, weeping into my handkerchief and despairing of my future. Every time another fellow would come fawning and simpering over my hand after that, I measured him against your example. Was he kind? Was he honest? Was he considerate of a lady’s feelings?”
Susannah hadn’t even realized what a lodestone Willow Dorning had been for her, until halfway through her first Season, she’d caught a glimpse of him leaning against a marble pillar, watching the dancers twirl past. As stalwart as that pillar, he’d stood in her imagination for the consideration a true gentleman showed others at all times.
“I have missed you, Willow,” she said, closing the distance and wrapping her arms around his waist. “I have missed you through Seasons, and summers, and sonnets and plays. Take me to bed, for I’ve had enough of missing you.”
Susannah’s silk nightgown was all that came between them, so Will’s body heat warmed her. When he scooped her up against his chest, she could feel the strength and suppleness in him, the male competence. He set her on the bed gently, and then climbed in right over her.
“I’ve missed you too,” he said, crouching above her. “I’d see you, looking cool and elegant in the park, or graceful and pretty on the dance floor, and I’d wonder: Is she happy? She looks happy, but also wistful. She’d rather be reading Shakespeare, but I’m glad she’s here, where I can reassure myself that she’s well.”
Well. A tame, tepid word for the heat building inside Susannah. To know Will had watched for her—watched over her—asking nothing in return, made her heart sing and ache at the same time. She twined a leg over his flank.
“I want to gobble you up,” she said. “I want to possess you—”
Will did not gobble, he silenced Susannah with delicate, easy kisses to the corner of her mouth, to her brow, to her chin. She’d seen his patience in action—with the rambunctious Comus and the impatient duke, with her—and knew she was in for a siege.
Well, so was he.
Susannah kissed him back, arched against him, drew her toes up his muscular calves, locked her ankles at the small of his back. She wanted his scent on her skin, his passion in her blood.
And then she got serious, tugging on his ears, gently, easing control away from him. She set up a rhythm with her hips, until Will braced over her, his breath a soft rasp against her cheek.
“I have no…”
“You have no prayer of withstanding my determination, Willow Dorning. Stop playing and love me.” For Susannah loved him, had loved him for years as a girl. Now she loved as a woman loves, with heart, mind, soul, and body.
“I have no sheath,” he muttered. “No goddamned sheath to protect you from conception, to—damn it, Susannah. That feels so good.”
She’d got hold of him and traced the pad of her third finger around the tip of his member. Delicate touches for delicate flesh.
“You like that?”
“Much more of that, and I won’t need a sheath.”
Will would spend, in other words, and then he’d be finished and want to nap. Susannah’s previous experiences had taught her that simple sequence, so she left off tormenting him.
“I’ll withdraw,” Will said. “I will die fourteen thousand deaths, but I’m dying fifteen thousand right now. Do you understand what I’m saying, Susannah?”
He was saying he desired her nearly as desperately as she desired him. “I understand.”
Susannah left the rest up to Will, because her grasp of intimate activities fell far short of competence, much less confidence. He eased closer, so his arousal teased at Susannah’s damp sex, and at her sanity.
“Willow, I’m not a—” Ah, God. A firm, short thrust that sent pleasure reverberating through Susannah.
“If you remind me again that some other fellow had the gall to sample your charms, then disappoint you, I will be cleaning my pistols, Susannah Haddonfield.”
Willow Dorning was a different creature without his clothes, an entirely more primal and forceful beast, and Susannah gloried in his intimate acquaintance.