Hadrian (28 page)

“Admiring, not staring at.”

“Stalling.” He hoisted her over him, and she went unresisting to her fate. “That wasn’t so difficult. Now hush and kiss me, lest I run screaming after all.”

She looked like she wanted to argue, so he settled his hands on her shoulders and urged her down within kissing range. She seemed to appreciate his initiative. Her tongue was soon back in his mouth, boldly tangling with his own.

“Hadrian, when do we—”

He didn’t let her finish the question, but gave her breast a gentle squeeze—no stays!—thus reminding her that her dress had been pushed off her shoulders by some mysterious force of nature.

“Let me get my arms—” She pulled free of the sleeves and fell upon his mouth again, which suited Hadrian’s plans delightfully. While she pillaged his lips and teeth and mouth and tongue, he slid both hands up over the graceful planes of her back, through her hair, and down her arms.

“Hadrian, when—?”

“Soon.” He had to work to get his hand up under her skirts, but he wasn’t about to let matters progress without assuring himself she was ready. Kisses were one thing, but female bodies didn’t lie in the most intimate regards, and so he manually tunneled, dug, slipped and slid through billows of soft fabric until his palm met smooth, firm thigh.

She cradled his head with both hands and held him immobile for kisses that were growing voracious, then went still when he cupped his hand around her derrière.

He sucked on her bottom lip, a suggestion that she was to kiss him, and she gave him another sigh. For long moments he was content to stroke her backside, which relaxed her, turning her to a boneless heap of fragrant, kissing, warm female over him.

“You like that, Avie?”

She broke off kissing and rested her cheek against his shoulder. “Naughty.”

He patted her bottom. “I’ll show you what’s closer to naughty.” He worked his hand around under all the infernal fabric of her dress and found the seat of her pleasure, giving it a glancing caress with his thumb.

“Don’t tease, Hadrian.”

“Teasing is fun,” he countered, sifting his fingers through her curls. “A little teasing. You’ve been teasing me.”

“I have, haven’t I?” God bless her, she sounded saucy, probably for the first time in twelve years.

“Unmercifully. You’re damp, Avie.”

“Is that bad?”

“Is my being hard with wanting you bad?”

“It is not.”

“Then this,”—he eased a finger shallowly into her depths—“is not bad. It’s luscious, lovely, dear, and arousing.” Painfully arousing.

“It’s time now, isn’t it?”

“If you like.”

He stilled his hand when what he wanted was to touch and taste and explore until his ears rang.

“Tell me how to do this, Hadrian.”

He did not ask if she was sure, did not ask if it was truly want she wanted. He should have, but he didn’t—couldn’t.

“It’s the simplest thing in the world,” he said, teasing his thumb over her again, more slowly, with a hint more pressure. “You fit
me
to
you
and we join.”

“That’s it?”

“Let’s get through that much,” Hadrian said, his thumb working all the while, “and then you may interrogate me further.”

“Can you do this fitting business?”

“Not this time.” He would not be wheedled on this point. Not, at least, for the next thirty seconds.

“Oh, very well.” She reached under her skirts, easily, it seemed to Hadrian, and fished him into her hand. “You’re sure this is how it works?”

“Positive, Avie love.” Her expression was nearly a scowl of concentration, so intently was she focused on where their bodies would join. She brushed the head of his cock over the damp glory of her sex several times.

“Avis Seraphina Portmaine.” He tried to sound stern, but her name came out as a desperate plea, and she smiled and seated him against the opening in her body.

“There, I think.”

He gave a
minute
flex of his hips. “Absolutely there.”

“Now what?”

He urged her down onto his chest and wrapped his arms around her. “Now you hold on to me, and we join.”

She tucked her face into the crook of his neck, her body radiating a tension that hadn’t been present a moment earlier.

“Or not.” Hadrian let his arms fall away. “Perhaps you’d better do this.” His cock was right at her door, the dampness and heat of her enveloping him, and he wanted nothing,
not one thing in all creation,
so much as to move.

“What do I do?”

“Think of it as fitting together the sections of your flute. You don’t jam them together, though the instrument must be properly assembled if you’re to make music with it. Assemble us, Avie, by moving.” He patted her hip and waited, though God knew what daft analogy he might seize on next if the flute didn’t make his point.

A bassoon perhaps, a clarinet, an haut boy, or—

She braced herself over him on her forearms, the scowl back, as if she were assembling her flute before a command performance at Carlton House and had misplaced her music. Her hips shifted enough to glove the head of his cock.

Just that much, and Hadrian was teased with a hot, wet paradise fitted exactly for him.

“Like that?” She moved again, then again, her undulations tentative—and tantalizing.

“Just like that, easily, as a breeze rocks a boat on a calm lake.”

“It doesn’t hurt exactly,” she decided, “but this isn’t like when you pleasured me.”

“We’re only getting started.” He had to move or go mad—or he might go mad if he did move, gloriously mad. He flexed his hips shallowly, meeting her downward thrust.

“Merciful days. What was that?”

“A little resistance,” Hadrian assured her. “We fit quite snugly.” Magnificently, wonderfully, beautifully,
miraculously.

“Is that bad?’

He wanted to thrust, and thrust and thrust, but now, especially now, he denied himself that pleasure.

“It’s lovely.” He folded up and nuzzled her breast through the fabric of her bodice. He nosed aside the dress, undid bows, then undid more bows, until her breasts were exposed to the summer air and to his hungry gaze. “Move again for me, Avie.”

“I like it better when you move.”

“Contrary female.” He got his mouth on one of her nipples, and she gave up some of the tension infusing her spine. “You leave all the work to me, lazy baggage.”

And slowly, slowly, he worked his way more deeply into her heat. “Tell me if I’m—”

Her grip in his hair was firm. “You’re not. This is different.”

“From?”

“Everything.” She closed her eyes while he anchored his hands on her hips and ground his mental teeth in increasing arousal. “I like this much better, when you move, Hadrian.”

Just like that, his frustration evaporated. She was coming alive as he penetrated her sweet heat, yielding to his invasion and catching the rhythm of it.

“Shall I kiss you, Avie?”

She shook her head, found his hand, and brought it to her breast. He plied her slowly, fondling, kneading, and then just when she opened her eyes to glare at him, he gave her the slight pressure on her nipple she’d been about to demand.

All the while, he eased his cock in and out of her body, slowly, in excruciatingly small increments, until she bit his earlobe.

“More, Hadrian. Now.”

“This much more?” He drove deeper and with a hint of passion to his thrusts.

“More,” she demanded. “I won’t break, unless you insist on
dithering
and then I shall be the one to run screaming down the hill.”

He treasured her frustration, her wonderful, glorious,
perfectly normal
frustration. “How do you know I’m not doing this perfectly?”

“Because you’re not, not quite.”

She fell silent, both relief and increasing wonder stealing into her expression as he intensified his efforts. He didn’t have to ask if she preferred that, because she cuddled onto his chest and began to work her hips in a natural counterpoint to his.

“Oh…dear…Hadrian.”

“Let go,” he whispered, keeping a palm right on her backside to measure her rhythm. “Fly free, Avis. Let yourself soar.”

“Ha-dri-an.” She shook as her pleasure overcame her, and yet she let him take her higher and higher still, until she was moaning out her satisfaction right into the clear summer air, right into his own release. He tried to hold back, but Avie was coming and coming, her body gripping hard at his, forcing a pleasure on him too long missed and undeniable in its intensity.

“Holy everlasting powers,” Hadrian panted. He gathered her close and rolled them, then caged her body with his before he’d even thought what being trapped beneath him might feel like for her. “Are you all right?”

“Hush.” She patted his naked bottom, then stroked the same spot. “Give me a minute.”

Hadrian wanted to give her the entire rest of his days. He was more sure of that than of anything else ever in his life. Bless the woman, he was close to tears, he was so proud of her, of them, of what she’d managed in the last few moments.

And he was appalled too, for he’d not protected her at the final moment, and marriage wasn’t a possibility now, it was mandatory. Avie wouldn’t like that. He hadn’t planned it this way, but he simply hadn’t known how it would be.

She clung to him, as if her feelings were equally riotous.

“Tell me you enjoyed that.” Hadrian laid his cheek against hers and wanted to hold her close with all his strength. Forever.

He didn’t look too closely at that impulse, for the cheek pressed to his was damp.

“Avie?” He pulled back and confirmed to his horror that she was crying.

Don’t bungle this. Don’t bungle this worse than you already have
.

“Love?” He brushed a thumb over that damp cheek. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Her voice was firm despite the tears. “No, you did not. You
unhurt
me. I’ve never known anything as—Oh,
Hadrian
.” She held him to her, with her arms, and legs, even with her sex, and he waited, hoping she’d tell him
anything
.

“I’m,”—she eased her grip—“overwhelmed doesn’t express it, not clearly. Touched? Pleased? I did this right, didn’t I? That’s not the best word, but you know what I mean? I’m
able
.”

“You most assuredly are.” He reared back to frown at her, then realized what he’d said. “Able does not do justice to the passion and pleasure—” He fell silent a moment, for inspiration had befallen him.

“Promise me something, Avis Portmaine.” He wrapped himself over her, threading his arms behind her neck and lowering himself so her face was cradled to his chest. “Promise me, if I tell you that was the loveliest, most tender, arousing, pleasurable experience I’ve had of its kind, you won’t conclude you’re a wanton jade, beneath contempt for your passions and undeserving of respect.”

She nuzzled his nipple, and relief flooded Hadrian. Not sexual relief—he’d been wrung free of sexual tension only moments earlier—some other more profound relief, for her, for them both.

“I will not make those mistakes,” she said. “Not yet.”

He snuggled closer. “How could you be a wanton jade when you just gave me your virginity?”

“
I did what?
”

Avis had been relieved when Hadrian had tucked her face against his chest, relieved to be held so closely, and not subject to the scrutiny of his penetrating blue eyes. Now she wanted to see
him
, to see what manner of unkind, awkward jest he’d made.

“You heard me.” He ran his nose along her jaw, incongruously relaxed and pleased with himself, while Avis’s temper soared.

“Hadrian Bothwell, that is not possible.” But then she stopped an inchoate rant, because all she knew for certain was that Collins had hurt her intimately. Nothing in her memories of that day remotely resembled the intimacy she’d just shared with Hadrian Bothwell.

“I know what I felt, Avie, and we shall discuss this. In detail.”

“Not like this we aren’t.”

He’d slipped from her body, leaving Avis oddly bereft—bereft and mortified.

“Here you go.” He levered up and off her, and before Avis could grab for her modesty, Hadrian pressed a handkerchief between her legs. He held up the little square of linen and dangled it before her eyes like some token of surrender.

“See?”

The handkerchief was again pressed gently to her sex, but not before Avis had seen several faint pink streaks crossing the linen.

Hadrian was still smiling, while Avie wanted to push him into the pond.

“That little resistance?” He repositioned his handkerchief once more. “Your virginity, my dear.” He leaned down and kissed her mouth. “You gave it to me, Avie, not Collins.”

“This cannot be. That,”—she waved in the general direction of the cloth and her privy parts—“must be from something of a female nature.” Her face flamed at her own bluntness, and when she found the nerve to meet his gaze, Hadrian was regarding her curiously. He used the handkerchief on himself, then balled it up and tossed it on the grass. His manner held impatience, maybe even anger.

“Come here.” His voice was a touch peremptory as he arranged her straddling his lap, then lay back, his arms around her. “Tell me what happened the day Collins attacked you and start at the beginning. Leave nothing out, and don’t think to spare my sensibilities—or your own.”

“This isn’t necessary.”

Except it was necessary. She’d never told this story, not to a journal, not to her sister, not to anybody. She’d tried to forget what she knew of that day, and that had only made the memories more tenacious.

Then too, after today, she did not expect to see much of Hadrian Bothwell. Perhaps he was the only person she
could
relate the story to.

His hands started a soothing, wandering caress to her back, her scalp, her neck, all the parts of her nobody ever touched—all the other parts—and something in Avis gave up. Hadrian would hold her for as long as it took to gather her courage, and he would listen to her no matter how miserable a tale she had to tell.

She was silent for long, long moments as those caresses sank into her bones, her heart and her mind. Hadrian wanted the story Avis had long tried to keep from herself, the one nobody wanted her to acknowledge, ever.