Page 91 of More or Less a Countess
He’d begged her to stop, had tried to push her away, but then he’d become so aroused he could no longer think of anything but his desire, and he’d given himself over to her. He’d been hers in that moment, and even now, as he struggled with her, his hips were moving, and he was growing harder with every nudge between her legs.
He’d be hers again.
She cinched her legs around his hips and bit down gently on his earlobe. “I want you, Nick, and I know you want me. I can feel it. I can feelyou.” She dragged her nails over his chest and down his bare stomach to the waistband of his breeches. “You taught me about a man’s arousal. Do you remember?” She twisted the buttons on his falls and slid her hand under the loose fabric. “I know you want to be inside me.”
Both of them gasped when her hand slid lower and her palm brushed against the head of his cock. Nick pumped into her hand with a helpless groan, and Violet’s eyes widened at the sensation of this hot, rigid part of him pushing into her fist. She’d never touched him like this before, so intimately. His ragged breath in her ear, his swollen flesh cradled in her hand—dear God, it was heady, and her fingers tightened instinctively around him as she began to stroke him.
Another desperate groan left his lips. “Violet…ah God,yes, sweetheart…”
At his panting moans and frantic thrusts, heat rushed through Violet until she was as aroused as he was. She tugged at his breeches in a frenzy to get closer to him, and by the time she’d dragged the fabric down his hips there was no more talk of games, and no more hesitation. Nick reached down, spread her thighs apart, and slid into her—just a few inches, but it was enough to make Violet go still, amazed at the strange sensation of him moving inside her.
“Don’t want to hurt you…” Beads of sweat formed in the hollow of Nick’s throat, and he was panting with the struggle to remain still. “Can’t bear to hurt you…”
Violet’s heart melted at his tender concern, but she took his face in her hands and held him until his eyes met hers. “I need you. It hurts me not to have you.” She hitched her legs higher on his hips, and his eyes closed as he slid in another inch. “Please, Nick. I need you.”
He crushed his lips to hers as his hips snapped forward, and he surged inside her with a single, forceful thrust. Violet gasped at the sharp pain, but it was mere moments before it faded into a soft warmth, and then there was only Nick, his arms wrapped around her and his body buried deep inside hers. She scratched her nails lightly down his sweat-slicked back and turned her head to murmur in his ear. “More.”
He took her lips in another passionate kiss, and then…
Then he began to move.
Restrained, shallow thrusts at first, but faster and deeper when broken pleas began to fall from her lips. Violet writhed against him as the tight knot inside her began to unravel in waves of exquisite heat. Nick held her hips to the bed when she began to meet his thrusts, and took her harder, coaxing her toward the peak with every sinuous movement of his powerful body until she shattered beneath him. The moment he felt her release he tensed, then he buried his face in her neck with a harsh groan as his body convulsed with pleasure over hers.
He collapsed on top of her a moment later, and Violet wrapped herself around him, holding him to her as tightly as she could as their breathing quieted.
For Violet it was enough to be close to him, her fingers toying with his damp hair, his chest pressed to hers and their hearts beating in time together, but after a moment Nick stirred, then rolled away from her onto his side. He propped his head on his hand and gazed down at her, searching her eyes, and even in the muted light Violet could see doubt still haunted him—the shadows of it flickered in those gray depths, and with them a truth she couldn’t deny.
She had his body, but she still didn’t have his trust.
Without his trust, she’d never have his heart.
Despair threatened, but instead of allowing it to suck her into its dark depths, she urged Nick’s face down to hers, and soft words rushed from her lips. She hardly knew what she said, but it didn’t matter. It only mattered they were words of reassurance, and forgiveness, and love, and that every single one of them was true.
“I noticed your eyes first. Such an extraordinary silvery-gray, and with those black irises.” She laughed softly. “Every night before I fall asleep, I think about your eyes and try to decide what color they are. Gray, or silver, like a bird’s wing? But they’re clearer than that, aren’t they? Like water in sunlight.”
His eyes drifted closed, and Violet leaned toward him and pressed gentle lips to his eyelids. “No gentleman I’ve ever known smells as divine as you. You smell like amber and fresh wood. Did you know that? Your scent makes me dream of forests.”
A shudder passed through him, and his head fell back against the pillow.
But Violet didn’t give up. She lay her palm flat against his chest, over his heart. “And here, Nick. You’re good and kind, right here inside your heart.”
She stroked his hair and murmured to him for hours, until his chest began to rise and fall in slow, even breaths, and she knew he’d fallen asleep.
Violet didn’t sleep—not for a long time, and when her eyes did drift closed at last, she dreamed of clear water in sunlight, and a love as deep as the deepest forest.
And prayed it was deep enough.
* * * *
It was dark when Nick woke.
Before he even opened his eyes, he knew everything was different. Violet was next to him, curled against his side, her long lashes resting against her smooth cheeks, and he thought, as he always did when he watched her sleep, that she looked like an angel.
Like a dream.
But she was no dream—not this time. She was here, in his bed, her warm body pressed against his, her hair lying in tangled curls on his pillow.
And she was his.
