Page 20 of Midnight Rider
His arm contracted. “Neither will you be. But back to the matter of marriage. There will be a scandal, you understand.”
“Yes. I’ve just been ruined,” she agreed easily.
He glared at her. “Ruined?”
She peered up at him with a wicked little smile. “Compromised? Ravished? Seduced?”
He didn’t smile. He was registering the softness of her in his arms, the spark of joy it gave him to hold her so tightly. “Seduced?” he asked softly, and drew her closer. “What an excellent idea!”
CHAPTER FIVE
BERNADETTEWASVERYBRAVEuntil Eduardo gently eased her flat onto the bedroll and loomed over her with intent.
Her heart raced like mad, and her breathing, already dicey, was strained and audible.
He relented at once. His hand came up to brush back the wisps of blond hair that had escaped from the neat bun atop her head.
“Forgive me,” he said softly. “I only meant to tease, not to frighten you. Breathe slowly, Bernadette, slowly. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
She fought to relax, to repress the furious beating of her heart. Her hand went to her throat and rested there while she looked up at him with wide, tortured eyes.
“Shall I get up and make some more coffee?” he asked. “Will it help you to breathe more easily?”
She shook her head. “It’s not the asthma,” she whispered.
He stilled. “Then what?”
She bit her lower lip. Her eyes searched his. “It’s being so close to you,” she admitted shyly, and lowered her gaze to his mouth.
“Ah.”
Only a soft syllable, but it electrified her senses. She couldn’t contain her nervousness. Her fingers went to the front of his shirt and pressed there. Her courage seemed to desert her when she needed it most.
“It excites me, too,amada,” he said at her lips, watching them part helplessly. He leaned closer. Around them the darkness was like a blanket, the dying fire giving even more intimacy to their situation. “Kiss me,” he said on a breath.
She felt his lips touch hers, brush them. It was a tender, whispery caress, but it made her whole body go rigid with unexpected pleasure. She gasped and her small hands caught at his jacket and bit into it as she clung, trying to coax him down to her. While his mouth teased her lips, his lean fingers moved up her rib cage and paused at the thrust of her breasts. He suddenly felt her body jerk.
His thumbs edged out gently, teasing. “Will you accept my hands?” he whispered. “Or is such intimacy with me unwelcome to you?”
She couldn’t speak for the turmoil inside her. She shivered and her body arched just slightly. He understood the silent message.
He sighed as his fingers smoothed over the part of her that had known only two such caresses. But this one wasn’t repulsive. It was glorious. She relaxed into the bedroll and looked up at him with soft, dazed eyes as he touched her. He felt her nipples go hard under his hands and he smiled gently, reassuringly. “You aren’t afraid of me.”
“No,” she whispered breathlessly. She touched his face, his hard mouth, letting him see the excitement in her eyes. She gasped as his fingers became more insistent. He held the small hardness between his thumb and forefinger and tested its firmness boldly. There was a look on his dark, lean face that she’d never seen before. It was intent, sensual, totally absorbed.
“Is this what men and women do together in the darkness?” she whispered curiously.
“Yes,” he replied softly. “But without clothing,amada.”
She was embarrassed at her own frankness, much less his. But they were to be married. She had to come to grips with her nameless fears.
“And what then?” she asked.
The sound of his hands moving on the fabric of her dress was loud in the soft darkness, which was broken only by the crackling of the fire and the distant sounds of night.
“Do you know anything of true intimacy?” he asked quietly.
“Only that men are made differently from women,” she said. “One of the girls at my school had been with a man, though,” she added shyly. “She said that it was very shocking and fun, and that their bodies became part of each other. None of us understood what she meant.”