But he cut her off. “That’s not it, Olivia. Please don’t lie to me.”
Her eyes fell.
“When I am in doubt, I make a list of questions,” he said, leaning down and biting her earlobe so that she squealed.
“First question. Is darling Olivia afraid of my cock?”
He picked up her hand, curled it around his erection. Olivia gasped, delighted at its silky heat, smoothness, the way it jumped in her hand. She slid up . . . down. Took a quick glimpse and realized that Quin’s eyes were shut, head thrown back. Just the way she liked him. She tightened her grip, wondered what he might taste like.
He moved her hand away, satisfied with her silent answer to his question. “Not afraid of it,” he murmured, his voice a shade deeper, darker, than it had been.
“Second question. Is my Olivia afraid there might be pain?” He looked at her intently.
She shook her head.
“I didn’t think so,” he said with satisfaction. “Besides, I mean to make you so limp with pleasure that you’ll be begging me for more of the same.” This time his smile was pure unadulterated male.
Olivia’s heart skipped a beat.
“Third question,” he said, and he shifted onto his knees. “Could it be that foolish, foolish Olivia fears I won’t like her body?” And then, quick as a cat, while she was still considering her reply—for even though he was right, she certainly didn’t want to admit it—he reached out and ripped her chemise straight down the middle.
It was a good thing the staff had been sent away from the stables, because Olivia’s scream of outrage could likely have been heard well into the gardens.
But Quin was already ripping away the last shred of cloth. Olivia squeezed her eyes, not wanting to see his face. That damn moonlight was everywhere, illuminating every curve and wobble.
He didn’t touch her, and he didn’t say anything. Olivia felt as though time stood still, leaving her stranded in the most humiliating moment of her life.
When at last he spoke, his voice was greedy and rough. “You don’t really wish that you were a scrawny thing like your sister, do you?”
“Georgiana is not scrawny!” Olivia said, her eyes popping open.
“Like a stick of celery,” Quin said. “Legs like a grasshopper’s. A man wants this, Olivia.” His hands came gently, shaping her breasts.
“I do know that,” Olivia said, shivering as his touch sent flames licking over her body. “I like my breasts.”
His hands slid lower, over the tummy that wasn’t washboard tight, like his, or slender as a dancer’s, like Georgiana’s.
“A man wants this.” His voice was still darker, rusty with passion as his fingers bit into her curves, sank into her warmth.
They slid lower, onto her hips. “You do remember that I never lie?” he asked, his eyes fixed on his hands.
Olivia looked down too, curious, seeing honey-dark hands gripping her hips. She looked like cream in the moonlight, as if her skin were glowing with some sort of inner luminescence.
“Yes, I remember,” she managed.
“I think I love your hips and your arse most of all.” The emotion in his voice was unmistakable. “But then I remember your breasts and how much I love them. I love every bitable, lush, delicious curve, Olivia, including those you haven’t let me touch or kiss yet.”
Until this moment, Olivia had been holding her body rigid, her thighs tight, her stomach pulled in. Now, slowly, she relaxed, watching him. Quin couldn’t lie. She knew that; she had told Georgie that. She believed it.
The lust on his face, the way he was touching her, almost reverently, bending his head, now, kissing her greedily . . . That was the truth.
“Succulent,” he murmured.
“You make me sound like a roast chicken.”
“Ripe and plump and delicious. Soft.”
She shook her head. “Those are not the words a woman wants to hear from a man looking at her thighs.” But she was feeling better, and they both knew it.
“Georgie does not have grasshopper legs,” she said, poking him to make sure that he’d heard her. What he was doing now was going to make her collapse in a boneless heap, but she had to make sure he understood that one thing. “She has elegant, slender legs that any woman would love to have.”
He looked down at her, eyes predatory, those big hands holding her. “Not my woman. Not you.”
Olivia was about to defend her sister again, but he pulled her legs open and put his mouth on her, on that part of her.
She went rigid again for a second, long enough for a rough lap and a sweet lick, a finger stroking where a tongue had just been, a . . .
And then she forgot about Georgie. Forgot her own name. Forgot everything except the man who drove her further into a firestorm with every lick. She couldn’t stop twisting, or suppress the moans leaving her throat, one after another, undignified, guttural, animal.
Quin’s hands were everywhere, touching her, adoring her, sliding under her and biting into her bottom, then soothing the little pain, sliding around her thighs, making it clear that every silky inch met with his satisfaction, finally inching up, parting her folds, one finger going . . . there.
Olivia stiffened again, a broken moan coming from her lips.
“You’re so tight,” Quin muttered. “That’s it, Olivia. Now.” One last rough lick, one twist of that clever finger . . .
The part of her that was Olivia—smart, wry, wordplay-loving—was swallowed up by a wave of pleasure so acute that her body twisted, arched in a silent scream that matched the one coming from her lips.
Quin reared over her, caught her mouth in a wild kiss, pulled her into just the right position and thrust . . .
It was the tail end of that red-hot blindness, the utter rending of self, and for a moment Olivia didn’t register the intrusion.
And the next moment she did. It was huge, scalding hot. Excruciating.
Still, it was Quin above her, head thrown back, eyes closed.
“You feel so . . .” His voice was ragged, rough with passion. He couldn’t finish the sentence.
It was as instinctive as breathing. She rocked back, arched, took the last inches of him.
Changed her mind and wished she hadn’t. Desire was one thing; agonizing pain was another.
His throat worked and he let out a low noise, a growl of male possession and pleasure.
If Olivia’s mind had been fogged before, it was clear now. This hurt like . . . like . . . it helped to silently run over some curses that Georgiana would never utter aloud. He was not only huge, but he was burning her up. Who would have thought a body part could be so hot?
Suddenly his face changed and his eyes snapped open. “There’s something about you . . .”
Olivia tried, unsuccessfully, to look as if she were enjoying herself.
“You were a virgin!”
She didn’t bother responding. She was wondering whether women ever fainted during the act.
Quin dropped his body down a few inches, bringing his face closer to hers; Olivia suppressed a moan. Movement . . . not a good idea. A few silent curses that Georgiana had never even heard, let alone said aloud, drifted through her mind.
“Talk to me, sweetheart.” Quin’s voice cut through her body’s violent protest. He shifted again.
“Stop that,” she said grimly. “No moving.”
He nodded.
“Do you remember that limerick about the lady who was good with her needle?”
Another nod.
“Why couldn’t I fall in love with the man she learned her skills from? I don’t want you to ever move again, not backwards or forwards. You’re too big.”
A gleam of laughter beat back the fierce hunger in his eyes. He dropped his head and gave her a lingering kiss. “I’ll happily stay here forever,” he whispered. “I think this is my favorite place in the world.”
“They’ll have to bury us in a large coffin,” Olivia said, joking—because if she didn’t, she m
ight think too much about what a tragedy this was. They didn’t fit together. He was simply too large.
“This will not work,” she said, when Quin didn’t respond to her sally about the coffin. He was kissing her cheek and her ear. All very nice, but as every nerve in her body was concentrating on the waves of pain sweeping from between her legs, she would be happy to dispense with the kisses.
“Actually, I take it back about not moving. I think it’s probably time for you to move away,” she said, trying to be nice about it.
He made a little murmur and started kissing her eyebrows. Annoying. Very annoying. “Out!” she said, giving him a little push.
“I can’t. Someone told me not to move.”
“This is not the time to develop a sense of humor.”
He rubbed noses with her, such a startling, tender movement that she fell silent. “I wouldn’t have thrust like that if I’d known you were a virgin. And I was under the impression that you informed me of your experience.”
“You inferred such,” Olivia told him. “It wasn’t my—I couldn’t clarify.”
“But you left the duke thinking his son’s heir might be on the way?” Laughter shone in his eyes.
“It served him right,” she said, giving Quin a little bite on his chin, just because it was there, and he was beautiful. “Now, I hate to sound as though I have an appointment, but I’m sure there’s somewhere important I should be.”
“Hurts, does it?” He dropped a kiss on her lips.
“I cannot even describe how much.”
“Because you’re a lady?”
She nodded.
“If I had known you were a virgin, I would have pushed up your knees, and then entered you gently, and very slowly.”
“It would have led to the same result.” Olivia couldn’t imagine that the mechanics could change, given the fixed sizes of their respective parts.
“But would you bend your knees? Just . . . to try?”
She bent her knees, grudgingly.
“Sometimes a woman wraps her legs around her lover’s waist.”
She could just see herself doing that. Like some sort of acrobat. Why hadn’t she realized how unsuited she was for bedroom activities? She might not insist on the curtains being closed every single night, but lift her legs in such an undignified way? “Absolutely not. Never,” she added, just to make sure he understood.
His eyes were laughing at her, but that was because he didn’t understand just how much this all hurt.
“Olivia,” he said, lowering his mouth on hers again, entirely relaxed, as if he meant to stay in the same position all night, “I love you.” And then he kissed her, demanding that she open her mouth, so she did.
He plunged inside, his tongue playing a wet, hot game with hers, and Olivia understood for the first time. This kind of kissing was . . . carnal. It was outrageous.
“No wonder,” she murmured.
He pulled back a fraction of an inch, arched an eyebrow.
“No wonder they don’t allow debutantes to kiss,” she explained. “It’s just another way to make love, isn’t it?”
In answer he took her mouth again, possessive, hot, sweet. All the sides of Quin at once.
“Dear heart,” he said a while later, after his hand had drifted to her breast, “does it still hurt as much as it did?”
“Of course,” Olivia said automatically. Even though she was enjoying his caresses—and how could she not?—she was always aware of the pain and the sense that something foreign and far too large was splitting her in half.
But then she wriggled a trifle and realized that it didn’t hurt quite as much as it had before.
“It does feel a little better. I suppose you shrink when we don’t do anything for a while.”
He blinked. “Sweetheart, if you think a man who’s found his way into the sweetest, tightest place in the world would shrink . . .”
She wriggled again, thought about that blissful feeling he gave her before all of this started. It wasn’t fair to leave him without it. She wasn’t afraid of pain. Or rather, she didn’t believe in being afraid of pain.
“You should start again,” she said. In truth, she was afraid, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t courage.
He looked unconvinced.
“Now,” Olivia elaborated. “You can move back and forth now.”
Slowly he withdrew. Oddly enough, once he was gone, she felt empty. Ridiculous, really. Then he was there again, slow this time, very slow. Part of her just wanted him to go fast, get it over with. Another part was entranced by the slow invasion. It did something . . .
She found her breath hitching, and her back arching a little.
“Better?” he asked, quietly, but she could hear the gruffness in his voice.
She nodded.
“Again?”
She acquiesced.
He pushed in, slow and steady. It wasn’t comfortable. Not at all. But it was bearable. The rough sense of friction was even rather pleasant, for some strange reason.
And there was a trace of anxiety in Quin’s eyes, pinching away some of his pleasure.
“I’m starting to love this,” she said, giving him a big smile. “I could do this all night. I’ll probably—”
“Liar,” he growled, biting back the smile in his eyes. “I know this is hell for you, but Olivia, it is heaven for me. I never imagined anything could feel the way you do.”
Braced on his forearms, he looked down at her, eyes heavy-lidded, slumberous with passion.
Olivia let the gladness of it fill her heart. She arched her back, moved toward him. It was an awkward movement, but he understood.
He threw his head back, eyes closed, and thrust forward fast and hard, once, twice, again . . . Just when Olivia started to think that perhaps it wasn’t quite so horrible, Quin made a sound, a brutal, dangerous sound, and thrust into her a final time.
If he had fallen on top of Georgiana like that, like a felled tree, he might have killed her.
The good news was that because she had never taken to a lettuce diet, Quin felt exactly right falling on top of her. In fact, Olivia tightened her arms around his neck to keep him in place. The terrible burning between her legs seemed to have lessened, too. In fact, it felt rather tingly and almost comfortable down there.
It was so intimate. He was part of her. They were connected, two people, put together like a jigsaw puzzle that couldn’t be put asunder. The thought made her a little teary.
“Quin,” she said softly, turning her head, feathering kisses along his cheekbone. She wanted to share this ecstatic, perfect, most intimate moment.
He was asleep.
Olivia started laughing, and the giggles bubbling up her chest woke him. “Sorry, love,” he said, voice dark with sleep, and shifted to the side. “No place to wash,” he mumbled.
His eyes closed again. He was out.
Olivia tore a strip of her ruined chemise and cleaned herself up as well as she could. There wasn’t very much blood, which was truly surprising. From the way she felt, blood should have gushed out of her.
But no.
She reached for the second blanket, pulled it over the naked body of her first lover—her only lover—curled up against his side, and settled herself to sleep.
Her body was throbbing and tingling in an unfamiliar way that made it hard to settle down. So she started thinking again about the blasted lady with her needle.
That was a ridiculous description for something that was more like a battering ram.
But . . .
There was something overwhelming, wonderful about the experience. It made her feel—
Absurd, she told herself, curling tighter.
No human can own another. Possessiveness? No.
She must have misunderstood the look in Quin’s eyes. She wasn’t even his wife yet.
Still, she fell asleep thinking about the way he looked at her as he thrust: ferocious, hungry, possessive.
Mmmm.
Twen
ty-one
The Definition of Marriage
Quin woke very early in the morning, as he often did. But he realized immediately that nothing else about this particular awakening felt familiar. Normally he woke on a soft, pristine bed, arms curled around no one at all.
But now he lay on a rough, hard surface, arms curled around a soft, sleeping woman. What’s more, dawn light, unfiltered by draperies, bathed his face, and it sounded as if some tipsy birds were singing into his ear.
Suddenly the world—and recognition of just where he was and with whom—flooded back into his head. It was Olivia whom he had clutched all night, as if afraid she would escape. Olivia, whose laughing eyes and silly sense of humor and wry intelligence surprised him and delighted him . . . and made him mad with lust.
Olivia was his. Somehow he’d managed to find a woman who was the opposite of Evangeline.
Evangeline had played the virgin, but in truth, wasn’t.
Olivia had played an experienced woman, but in truth, wasn’t. For a moment or two he puzzled over what precisely had happened between her and the saintly Rupert, but then he let it go. She would never tell; she must have promised Montsurrey.
If only he had known . . . He had thrust into her, believing that she was used to shaking the sheets with her fiancé, thinking she was a woman long pleasured. His former wife had trained him to it. To be blunt, making love to Evangeline had been like riding the public highway.
Making love to Olivia was all different, and not just because of physical differences. Every moan and shudder she gave seemed to ring changes in his own body.
And through it all came a wild sense of possession. Olivia was his, all his. No other man had ever touched her the way he had. The ferocity of his possessiveness was astonishing—and not logical.
He lay there for some time, listening to a thrush sing, and thinking about the kind of betrayal that makes a man desperate to find a woman who loves only him. Olivia’s virginity was the most beautiful gift she could have given him.
His arms tightened even thinking of it. He had caused her physical pain, and he felt terrible for it. But knowing that he was the very first . . .