A Perfect Groom (23 page)

Her gaze moved slowly up the corded column of his neck to his face. Her breath slowed to a trickle. Unbidden, her eyes traced the chiseled beauty of his features, one by one. “You’re very handsome, too,” she whispered. A tremulous smile touched her lips. “Aunt Grace even thinks so.”

His brows shot high. “Aunt Grace?” he echoed.

“Oh, yes,” she assured him. “She said she might be getting on in years, but her eyesight had yet to fail her.”

He laughed huskily, a sound that made her heart turn over. Emboldened, Arabella stretched out a hand to touch his face.

Strong fingers closed about her wrist, thwarting her in mid-reach. Arabella had the oddest sensation she’d done something wrong, but he pressed a kiss to her palm, then settled it in the center of his chest. Her hand looked very small and white and dainty amid the dense, dark fur. The sight sent a thrill all through her. Justin’s hand, meanwhile, settled on the curve of her waist, drawing her close. The other slipped beneath the fall of her hair and brought her mouth to his.

He fed on her mouth endlessly, long, languorous kisses that made her spine turn to water. Her fingers clutched at his shoulders. Beneath her fingertips, his flesh was firm and hard, warm like the sun. She sighed when he ran his tongue behind the shell of her ear. “I love it when you kiss me,” she confided breathlessly. “You kiss very well. But then, I expect you know that.”

His mouth returned to hers. “Thank you,” he said against her lips. “I don’t believe anyone has ever told me that.” She could feel him smiling. “But there’s a great deal more to kissing than just here” — he kissed each corner of her mouth — “and here…and here.” He sucked in the center of her lip.

Arabella felt suddenly reckless. “Perhaps you should show me.”

“An excellent idea.” His head ducked low. He pressed his open mouth against the slender grace of her throat, allowing his tongue to gauge the dancing rhythm of her pulse.

“Mmmm. That’s very nice, Justin.”

Nice? Justin thought in amazement. He wanted much more than.
..nice
.

Leaning back, he allowed his gaze to wander the entire sweet length of her, lingering on the fleece between her thighs, the pale, unblemished flesh of her breasts, round and delectably full, hidden beneath a screen of reddish curls. With a wicked smile, he brushed aside her hair. Those pink, peeping nipples were an enticement he could no longer ignore. Arabella blushed furiously but she didn’t retreat from either his touch or his scrutiny.

Still smiling, he bowed his head low. He loved the way her eyes widened when his mouth traced the pouting thrust of one breast. Her breathing hastened when he paused at the jutting peak.

He grazed it with his mouth, the merest caress.

Her breath sucked in.

Somehow he’d always known that beneath her prim, proper exterior was the body of a temptress. She was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Greedy now, he closed his hands around her luscious breasts. His palms filled with her jutting flesh so that her nipples were offered up to him in wanton invitation.

He kissed first one, then the other. With the last, he curled his tongue around and around the rouged center in a slow, lazy circle, leaving it wet and shiny and quiveringly erect.

She gasped aloud.

“More?” he asked silkily.

Her lips parted. Her mouth formed the word
yes
, but not the sound.

He obliged.

It excited Justin beyond bearing, knowing that she watched in dazed fascination as his mouth closed around the dark, straining peak, licking. Tugging.

Her hand slid up to cup his nape; he felt her fingers tighten, as if to trap him and hold him in place.

Arabella couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even breathe. It was bliss. Sheer bliss. She was drowning in sheer sensation. It was as if lightning flashed, there at the peaks of her breasts. Heat showered through her. And now there was an unfamiliar questing deep in her belly. Her legs shifted restlessly. There was something missing, something more…She didn’t quite know what it was…

But Justin did. His blood thundering, his rod pulsing, he caught her against him. His mouth captured hers again, a scalding, demanding kiss that sent blistering flames through every part of him. But when lean fingers traced a shattering path across the hollow of her belly, she tore her mouth away. Her hand clamped down on his.

“Wait,” she said wildly. “Wait!”

His head came up. Her stricken little cry very nearly failed to penetrate the crimson haze of desire surrounding him.

He closed his eyes, willing away the pulse of desire clamoring in his veins. “This is going too fast for you, isn’t it?”

“A little,” she admitted. She was flustered, embarrassed, suddenly uncertain. She had liked what he was doing, but…“I’m afraid, Justin. I’m afraid.”

The clamor in his head began to ease. He brushed a stray curl from her flushed cheek. Suddenly he was the one who hesitated. “I cannot promise there will be no pain. But it’s my understanding that —”

“No. It’s not that.” She was adamant.

“What, then?” Puzzled, he searched her features.

You make women fall in love with you
, she nearly blurted.
You’re making
me
fall in love with you
. “I know you’ve been with many women. I — I know that and I accept it.” An elusive hurt speared her heart, but she ruthlessly swept it aside. “From your own lips, you said that you prefer a woman of experience. And I have none. I’ve never even kissed anyone but you. I feel inadequate. Inept, to be perfectly honest. What if I’m not the passionate sort? I don’t want you to be disappointed. I don’t want you to be displeased.”

There. It was out. She held her breath and waited.

Justin was suddenly furious with himself. Christ, was there anything he hadn’t said or done that wouldn’t come back to haunt him?

He looked at her, at her quivering lips, the way her beautiful blue eyes were half-pleading, half-hurt. A swell of some powerful, possessive emotion rose like a tide inside him, even as a sizzle of outrage shot through him at the thought of Arabella kissing another man. He’d never felt possessive of a woman before — had never imagined he would — and it came as something of a shock, just as his jealousy had. Did all new husbands feel like this? And yet…he discovered he liked feeling possessive of her. He liked knowing she belonged to him.

He ran the pad of his thumb over her lips. “You worry for nothing, Arabella.”

“Do I? I — I liked what you were doing, Justin. Truly I did. But I want to please you, too.”

His finger against the center of her mouth stemmed her speech.

“You will. You do.”

“But how can you be certain?”

For a moment, a smile quirked at the corner of his lips. “Because I can feel you here, sweetheart.” Catching her hand, deliberately he guided cool fingers around his rigid arousal, keeping them there with the pressure of his for the span of a heartbeat. Her eyes widened, along with his smile.

All at once, his smile faded. His glance sheared into hers. “But most of all,” he said in a voice that made her tremble all over again, “I can feel you here.” Kissing her fingertips, he guided her other hand directly over his heart. “And I must be honest, sweetheart. That’s never happened with any woman but you.”

Tears misted her vision. “Justin,” she said, her voice catching breathlessly. “Oh, Justin.” Slender arms wound around his neck. She kissed him with all the tremulous feelings held deep in her soul.

When at last she drew back, he smoothed her hair. An odd, half-smile curled his lips.

“I have a confession to make, as well.”

“What?”

“I’m afraid, too.”

“You?” She gave a lopsided grin. “I don’t believe that.”

“Oh, but I am,” he assured her gravely. “You see, I’ve never lain with a virgin before. I want this night to be unforgettable. For both of us.”

Arabella gazed at him, mesmerized by his expression, stunned by the tenderness in his tone. She felt as if he’d reached clear into her heart and laid it bare.

“Justin,” she said shakily, some painfully sweet emotion catching in her breast. “You make me feel so special.”

“You
are
special. Unique, and — and I’ve never known a woman quite like you, my darling Arabella.”

My darling Arabella
. She loved the low, melting way he said her name.

“I like knowing you’ve never kissed another man,” he went on, a low rough timbre in his tone that thrilled her to the tip of her toes. “I like knowing you’ve never seen another man naked. I like knowing I’m the first man to lay with you.” There was a shattering pause. “And now, I do believe it’s time we took up where we left off before. Does that meet with your approval, my dear wife?”

Her eyes were shining. “Yes, my lord. Oh, yes.”

The words acted like a floodgate flung wide. Twining his fingers in her hair, he turned her mouth up to his, bringing fiery red curls tangling about the both of them. He took her lips in a soul-blistering kiss that tasted of unmistakable male hunger and unleashed her own hunger. His breath filled her mouth…as he would fill her body.

He toyed with the tips of her breasts, wringing a cry from deep in her chest. A lean hand coursed over the hollow of her belly, tangling in the soft fleece above her thighs, initiating a daring rhythm that left her utterly weak. She gasped but did not fight it. It felt too good.
He
felt too good. Instead, her thighs parted helplessly.

There was more. So much more. Daring fingers traced the cleft of her womanhood, again and again. Flames shot through her as his thumb joined the evocative play, circling a tiny nub of flesh that seemed to swell and grow and weep. It was acutely, achingly sensitive. She shivered both inside and out, her mind a tangle of pure sensation. Showering currents raced through her, centered
there
, in the place he now claimed with blatant possessiveness, taunting, circling, pressing.

She gasped as a finger slid deep inside her, a tauntingly wicked parody of the act to follow. She began to pant, writhing and twisting, searching for something…what it was she didn’t know, only that she was close. When it came, that burst of pleasure, tiny, whimpering cries tore from her throat.

Her eyes opened, smoky and dazed. Justin’s face filled her vision, her world. Imprisoned in the searing web of his gaze, riveted by the blistering hunger on his face, her heart knocked wildly as he spread her thighs with his knees and knelt before her. One hand on his rod, he leaned forward, rubbing himself against her fiery red curls. Arabella couldn’t tear her gaze from his organ. He was rigidly, stiffly erect. Even as the thought vaulted through her mind, he was inside her. Within her.

She gasped.

At the sound, Justin froze. He could feel her maidenhead now, the fragile membrane that sealed her virginity, butted up against the most sensitive part of his body, the part that needed her most. He nearly groaned, for it was tearing him apart, the need to thrust deep and hard, to lose himself in her clinging wet heat. But this was the test, the moment he dreaded. He didn’t know how to be slow and easy, he didn’t know if he could.

Though it nearly killed him, he gritted his teeth and withdrew. A shaky laugh emerged at the sight of his innocent little wife. She looked half-terrified, half-mesmerized. Justin glanced down as well and nearly groaned. The rounded spear of his sex was sleek and damp, slick with her liquid heat. Passion soared.

Bracing himself on his elbows, he kissed her lips. “Tell me if I hurt you,” he muttered, a touch of ragged harshness to his voice. He eased forward again, little by little, until he was resting again against her maidenhead. God, it felt good…too good, the walls of her cavern clinging tight to his swollen erection.

“I will,” she promised, a wisp of a smile on her lips. “Please, Justin, just take me now. Make me your wife…make me yours.”

He moaned. There was no help for it now. There was such trust in her gaze, such naked desire in her heated, shattering plea that he could hold back no longer. Blinded by passion, he thrust forward until at last he lay embedded full and tight within her.

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

Justin’s breath scraped harsh and ragged. “Do not swear.”

Yet in those words lay a world of frustration…a world of passion…a world of feeling. Burying his head against her shoulder, he calmed his racing heart and allowed her body to adjust to the feel of him embedded deep inside her heat. So acutely sensitized was he that he was just a hair away from spilling his seed.

“I cannot help it.” She gave a tiny shake of her head. “Justin, this feels so — so…”

He kissed the arch of her throat, then raised his head. His eyes found hers. “I do not hurt you?” That he could speak was a miracle.

Her smile was blindingly sweet. “No,” she breathed. “God, no…”

Her smile faded. She guided his mouth down to hers, twining her tongue around his and driving him half-wild.

Slowly he began to move. His hands slid beneath her buttocks, bringing her closer still. Unable to stop himself, he drove in to the hilt, loving the way she clutched at him, the way her nails dug into the skin of his shoulders. Her hips were churning, seeking his again and again. Faster and faster he plunged, torrid and intense, loving the way she wrapped her arms and legs around him and clung.