Ecstasy Wears Emeralds (21 page)

Her world exploded in an inner fire that transformed into crystalline ecstasy that shattered inside of her. She cried out but wasn't sure if it was her own voice calling his name as wave after wave rocked through her to finally ebb to a warm, delectable glow.

It was several long seconds before she returned to her senses and realized that Rowan was just holding her now, kissing her cheek and stroking her hair.

“Well?” he asked softly.

“You're still dressed, Dr. West.”

He laughed and kissed her before he sat up. “I can amend that, if you have the strength. But if you'd rather wait—”

Gayle sat up as quick as a cat and ignored the trembling in her thighs as a new excitement seized her. She began to unbutton his white linen shirt but lost a little momentum when the heat of his body through the thin material distracted her. It was like touching a firm, hot wall through muslin, and at the first hint of crisp dark auburn hair on his chest, she felt like swooning in anticipation.

His hands took over, making quick work of his shirt and demonstrating no regard for slowing to preserve buttons. She pushed back to watch, breathlessly taking in the sight of Rowan stripping himself out of his clothes.

Skin, muscles, and the delightful answer to her question . . . an even darker auburn swirl of chest hair across his chest only to narrow to a tantalizing line that disappeared into the linen of his breeches.

Skin, muscles, nerves, sinew, and bone made a man, but as Rowan was revealed to her, Gayle wasn't sure how anything prepared a woman for the realities of it. He was pulsing with power, rippling muscles and lean lines that were directly opposed to her soft curves, and she couldn't help but stare at the proud tower of his arousal. It jutted out from his hips from a thatch of dark curls, far thicker and longer than she'd guessed, with a swollen head the size and shape of a plum. She hesitated to consider the question of capacity.
I was insane at the use of a single finger inside of me. What will I be once I am well used with his cock?

It looked like a weapon, but also to her excited eyes, like a thing of beauty.

“I've never had a woman watch me undress before.”

“Does it . . . displease you?”

“No. I like it very much.”

“You put all the drawings in my books to shame, Rowan. I . . . It's as though I've never seen a man before. Not that I have—but Hunter's
Examination of the Physiology of Man
made me confident I had.”

He smiled. “What do you want to do, Gayle? I could sit here for a while, but I'm risking a cold.”

“I want to touch you.”

She reached out to touch his chest, enjoying the thick hair that teased her fingertips, but even more, the firm muscles and skin behind them. She wasted no time, spreading out her fingers to gain as much coverage as she could, moving her hands at will in great arcs to smooth over his body and claim every inch of him for her own pleasure.

His nipples were far smaller than hers and almost brown, but she smiled when they tightened after a pass of her palms, and she bit her lower lip in concentration as a hundred new ideas flowed into her brain.
Like me. Different enough, but his body responds just as mine did. So whatever he does to me, I should mirror it and invoke a reaction.

She explored and played, and he allowed it, as much as he could, kissing her when she gave him the chance, but she wriggled from him, unwilling to give up her quest to learn every point and junction of his physical being. His cock jerked and jumped as she leaned over his thighs and accidentally trailed her hair across his erection.

She'd straddled his thighs and was close enough to his penis so that every exhale made him grit his teeth. She dipped her finger down to touch the clear bead of silken moisture coming from its tip. “Is this your essence?” she asked with innocent curiosity, and then before he could reply her tongue darted out to sample the taste of him. “Hmm . . .”

The gesture made him forget everything. Lust swamped him at the sight of her pink tongue licking him off her finger, as if she were licking honey off after sampling a dessert.

He'd never seen anything like her natural sensuality.

He pulled her over, gently tossing her down against the mattress to spread her legs, unable to indulge in any more delays. He opened the small metal tin by the bedside and ignored the cold sensation of the French letter encasing his cock.
Warm, soon enough, boy. Warm and buried and blind, thank God!

He reached between her thighs to assure himself that she was still wet, the silken folds swollen and sensitive, and then positioned himself above her. There was one second to absorb the moment, teetering on the brink of ruin as surely as the sun would rise—and he felt no fear. The sight of her beneath him, her arms thrown back and her violet eyes glowing with desire, black curls nesting above the ripe pink of her flesh already slick with her release—here was a moment he would never forget. He fisted the length of his erection and dipped just the tip of his penis into her entrance, teasing it against the hot little bud of her clit until she was writhing beneath him, breathlessly begging him for more.

He wanted it to be as pleasurable for her, but he accepted that it was going to be all too easy to forget himself—it had been far too long since he'd had any woman in his bed and he didn't know if he could hold back.

“This . . . might . . . hurt . . . for just . . . a bit. . . .”

“I trust you.” She lifted her hips to urge him forward,

“I trust you.” She lifted her hips to urge him forward, her legs parting even wider, and Rowan gave in to a primal need to take what she offered.

He slid into her in one slow, unrelenting stroke that tore through her maidenhead and left them both gasping for air. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to lie still for a few seconds and allow her body to adjust, her muscles clenching and unclenching, her passage protesting as it stretched and burned to give him room to move.

She kissed his shoulder, a single tear falling down her cheek. “Rowan? I think I liked the kissing better.”

He smiled but groaned into the mattress at the delicious humor of her predicament. He lifted his head to cradle her face in his hands, to comfort her. “Wait. The worst is over and now it improves.” Even as he spoke, he slowly began to move, demonstrating what lay beyond.

He kissed her to ease her, and as she relaxed beneath him, Rowan felt a surge of relief. He was buried deep inside of her, but as her channel grew wetter and wetter, it allowed him to withdraw and return, teaching her the rhythm of it. Her legs wrapped around his hips, and the zeal of her kisses returned to push them both into a spiral of desire. Within seconds, they were both moving against each other, pleasure replacing all pain as she arched against his chest. His cock thickened at the sensation, and he savored each thrust, amazed at the strength of her hold on him and how quickly passion had recaptured her.

Gayle took in the paradox of conquest and submission. Her body betrayed her mind, refusing to wait for her to compose descriptions or try to understand what was happening—a new kernel of red-hot tension began to grow inside of her, and this time she knew what the culmination could be and she welcomed the fire.

There was not an inch of her that wasn't his, that wasn't in contact with him or basking in the glow of his body to hers. Gayle marveled that a woman could yield so much without thought, but the reward of passion and pleasure tipped the scales.

There was nothing elegant in the raw tangle of their limbs or the pounding of his flesh into hers, and she loved it. It wasn't refined or measured. It wasn't science or art. It was sex, and Gayle heard a woman moaning and realized that it was her own voice.

She turned her head into the pillow to scream, muffling her cries as he lifted her hips up, parting her thighs even farther, and drove himself into her again and again in a merciless onslaught of sensation. And it was heaven.

This was a transformation no book could ever have described. This was a completion that defied words, and she came again in a free fall that tore apart every illusion she'd held about what this would be—and what woman she would become.

Rowan watched her climax, felt it as her channel seized his cock in a mind-bending hold, and his own scalding orgasm spun out from his hips, shaking his frame and forcing him to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from yelling the house down.

It stretched out for endless seconds, and Rowan was grateful that she appeared to be unaware of him after her own climax—it gave him a few breaths to try to collect himself and recall how to use the English language.

He slid away, only long enough to remove the wreck of the condom and find a flannel for them both. As his breathing became normal again, he tended to her as best he could, drying off her thighs and clearing away the small amount of blood from the injury to her maidenhead. “There. All better.”

A foolish enough thing to say, but he pulled the covers over them both and held her close so that he could trace the last shimmering waves of pleasure as they faded from her skin.

Florence hadn't been in real danger. After all, men could lose a hand and still not bleed out so long as pressure was possible and the flow allowed to coagulate. It was the infection that killed them, but even that threat had been diminished by her level-headed approach to the crisis.

She'd proven herself under pressure and without guidance.

But Rowan waited for the inevitable, when that beautiful head of hers assessed the facts. He braced himself for the worst and wondered how long it would take and if he could distract her with—

“I just fell into bed with you over a few cut fingers.”

He propped himself up on one elbow to gauge her mood. “Yes.”

She bit her lower lip and then smiled. “Well, that seems a bit off, doesn't it?”

He kissed her cheek, the platonic gesture altered to suit him as his lips lingered to trace the delectable line of her cheekbone up to her temple. “I'm in no position to argue, unless you're about to accuse me of bedding you over a few cut fingers.”

She giggled, and then stopped abruptly, evidently shocked at the uncharacteristic laughter slipping past her lips. “I'm sure I should be feeling a twinge of regret. . . .”

“Are you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“What are you feeling?”

“I'm embarrassed to say it.”

“Close your eyes then and let's hear it, Miss Renshaw.” She dutifully closed her eyes, and he waited patiently, using the back of his fingers to stroke her bare shoulder and arms.

“I'm changed by the experience.”

“Yes?”

“I'm a wanton thing, Rowan. All I feel is a desire to try it again. Perhaps the books had it right, and once a woman is—”

He kissed her to stop her from finishing her thought, and her eyes fluttered open, a new warmth blazing in their depths and confirming that he had her complete attention. “All of our natures are the same, Miss Renshaw. We are physical beings and drawn to each other with a power that men have wrestled with for as long as we've been out of caves. But you—you are perfection and just as you should be. But this—this is extraordinary, Gayle, this connection between us, this fire. Science doesn't apply.”

She nestled against him, her hand splayed against his heart, innocently stoking his desire by toying with the hair on his chest. “I'm hardly perfect, Rowan.”

“No one is.” He held her close, wishing he could freeze the moment in time where she was content in his arms. “About Charlotte's death—”

“I'm not sure I want to hear about that at this very moment.” She pushed against him, sitting up and covering her breasts with the coverlet. “Rowan, I . . . I'm naked and I don't think I want to even hear her name on your lips. I realize that's not very logical, but I promise I'll listen attentively when I have at least three layers of clothing on and a better idea of where my shoes are.”

“Well, there's a new medical theory! You could prove that people's ability to listen may be tied to their clothes.”

She hit him with a pillow, playfully trumping the debate. “Talk, then!”

“Well, since one topic is unwelcome, let's try another. Every instinct I have is urging me to do the honorable thing, Gayle, and ask you to marry m—”

“Wait!” She put her fingertips up against his lips, her eyes darkening with distress. “I need time to get used to all of this! I planned—I plan so much of my life, or at least, I try to, but this? This is nothing I'd planned. Please, Rowan. Just give me time.”

“Time.” He lifted up one of her hands and kissed the soft well at the center of her palm. “Yes. I shall do my best to give you all that you need.”

“Thank you.” She leaned over to reward him with a kiss.

“Can you tell me more about yourself and your family—while you're naked?” he teased gently. “Or does that subject also require shoes?”