Free Irresistible by Mary Balogh

undress when they reached her bedchamber. But it was not. He unclothed her, kissing her as he did so—on the lips, on the throat, on the breasts. He touched a nipple with the tip of his tongue and she felt a sharp stab of raw desire all the way from her throat to her knees.
    She unclothed him at the same time, though she could not quite bring herself to touch his breeches. She could see, though, at a single shocked glance, that he was fully aroused.
    She was going to go to bed with him. It would still be possible to stop, she supposed, though it would be impossibly embarrassing. But she had no wish to stop. It had been so long. So very long. Years. And even then, so few times and so very disappointing. Worse than disappointing. Nightmarish.
    She almost pushed him away in panic when she remembered how it had been, but she was naked and his arms had come about her. His mouth had found hers again and he was putting his tongue into her mouth again. She would never have imagined that such a shockingly unexpected intimacy could possibly be pleasant. It was. She sucked on his tongue and he made that sound in his throat again—the one he had made downstairs before asking if she was going to slap his face.
    The sound made her feel desirable. She had never felt desirable, she realized. Never. Quite the opposite, in fact.
    “Take me to bed, Sophie,” he murmured against her lips, and she took him, folding down the bedcovers neatly, almost as if she were a maid, before lying on her back and reaching up her arms for him.
    She should be embarrassed by her own nakedness, she thought—she had never been naked with a man before and had long ago lost confidence in her own beauty. But she would not be embarrassed, though he was perfect in every way—even the scars of old wounds only seemed to contribute to his perfection. He wanted her. That was perfectly obvious. She was excited by her own desire—and by his.
    The candles were still burning, she realized as he came down directly on top of her, pressing his knees between hers until she straddled him. She did not care.
    “Come,” she said, wrapping her arms about him.
    “Sophie.” His mouth found hers again, and he whispered her name between feathered kisses. “I should take time to give you pleasure. But I want to be in you—now. Stop me if you are not ready.”
    Ready? She was bursting with readiness. She had been ready for years, or so it seemed.
    “I want you in me too,” she said, looking into his wonderful heavy-lidded eyes. “I am ready.” Even now she could scarcely believe the evidence of her own senses—that he wanted her. But he did. Ah, dear God, he did.
    He thrust almost before she stopped speaking and her mind exploded in shock. He was hot and hard. She felt stretched in every direction. Gloriously stretched.
    He was Nathaniel, she found her mind telling her foolishly. Dear God, he was Nathaniel. He was in her bed, in her body.
    She pressed into him, even though her first instinct had been to draw away lest she be hurt by his size and by him. She lifted her knees and hugged his sides tightly. She moaned.
    “You are hungry?” he asked, his voice low against her mouth. “As I am, Sophie?”
    Hungry? She was ravenous. Starved.
    “Yes,” she said. “So very hungry.”
    “Let us savor every moment, then,” he said. “Let us enjoy the feast.”
    She did not quite comprehend his meaning. All that was left now, she knew from bitter experience, was the brief convulsive jerking. She wished this moment of stillness could last forever. Why could a single moment of time not be transformed into an eternity?
    He withdrew slowly and she sighed aloud with disappointment and braced herself. But it did not matter. She would always have the memory of this moment. It would become her greatest treasure. She knew without a doubt that it would.
    He pushed in slowly again and withdrew slowly. She lay open beneath him in wonder, feeling the building of a slow rhythm, feeling the