Face to Face (The Deverell Series Book 2)

by Susan Ward

  “You had better be able to manage something, you insufferable man. I have waited in this bed for you a long time.” Merry’s eyes swallowed her face as she lifted them to him. “Show me. Show me how to love you.”

  Merry’s youth and innocence were nearly enough to stop him. She deserved so much more than this fate, but her guileless handling of this made his will drift from him, piece by piece, like sand being sucked by the surf from the shore. Varian wanted to do this right, and yet he wondered if he’d able to do it at all.

  Touching her, opening her body to share completely at last what was between them, at this moment of absolute joy held the bitter bite of obscenity. To share the perfection of Merry like this was an act that would scar her. What made him love her made him not want to do this. He was a well versed lover and, at this moment, he knew no direction to go, having not shared himself in an act of love for so long. An act of love. It was the only way he might be able to do this and not hate himself forever for having done it.

  Brushing the gossamer curls back from her face, Varian said in voice that surprised him by being unsteady, “You don’t need anyone to show you how to love, Little One. It is you who returns that to me.”

  Merry surprised him again when, with shaking hands, she began to edge apart the buttons on his shirt. It wasn’t easy for her, her fingers were clumsy and each fastening agonizingly slow to open. The slowness was torture for him, but he let her finish. When at last the neat row fell back from his chest, she dropped her hands away as he undid the cuffs on his own.

  She lowered her eyes as his hands moved to the fastening of his breeches. She was struggling not to look at him and blushing very prettily.

  She said, “It’s not fair. I know not how to do this and I suspect that part of your reputation is correct and you do know how to do this. You have the advantage in everything, always.”

  He sank down beside her on the bed, breeches over hips, only partially unfastened. Tilting up her face, he carried her hand to his body, pressing her palm to his furious heartbeat. “This is your advantage, Merry. You have been every beat of my heart since I first saw you.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips, and she slipped her tiny fingers on the sides of his waist, clasping for support, to nuzzle her cheek where he’d put her hand. Then she put a delicate kiss there. He took in a sharp breath, the touch of her lips nearly shredding the restraint he was trying to maintain.

  “Merry,” he whispered, seeking her cheek with an unsteady hand, his fingers lacing through her hair in little wandering circles. “Every part of you is a treasure to me. I will only be gentle with you.”

  New to this as she was, she needed time. So keeping her carefully bound by blankets, he curled her onto his lap. Murmuring his desire for her, he let his hands glide the bare length of her arms, his face nestled into the foamy cloud of her curls, touching in a light kiss.

  They sat like that a long time, sharing a glass of wine between them in a gentle intimacy of touching and kissing that hopefully would carry them both through this. By the time the sharpened edge of her tension was gone, his need for her was running like flame-tipped swords through his flesh.

  Stroking her cheeks with the backs of his fingers, he said, “I am going to douse the candle and finish undressing.”

  Setting her from him, she pressed her pearly cheek, dappled of pink mist, against her knees. She made little darts with her eyes, watching him as he moved about the cabin, though unmistakably trying not to watch. She made him almost crazy from the love in his heart for her.

  He came down beside her in the bed and slowly drew her up against him, carefully, without full touch of their bodies. Breathing tender words against her flesh, his caresses roamed her in an unhurried glide. Each slope, the line of her neck and collar bone, the swell above her breast, soothing her until the tautness of her muscles moved to supple yielding.

  His face dipped to the underside of her breast, feeling her jerk sharply. His fingers spanned their lush roundness, with tips gently coaxing, and she slowly relaxed into his touch and mouth as his soft kisses learned each inch of their fullness.

  Merry looked down at the tanned fingers. It was a shock to see his darker flesh against her pale skin and his strong male hands running the contours of her legs. Her body trembled in want from the gentle caresses, while a flutter of fear danced in her stomach. He was so strong. Even the gentleness of his touch couldn't completely mask his strength and did nothing to camouflage his size. She felt tiny against him, like a dainty collection of bone and tissue, and it was all supposed to blend with that powerfully muscled man.

  She had never lay with a man before, had never been with one like this. Could he understand what that meant to her? She knew the basics of the act, but that was all. Both his kisses and caresses became more thorough. Her flesh tingled, wanting him more, but she made no move. She didn’t know how to meet the knowing caresses of her flesh.

  As his experienced fingers trailed downward on her throat, her eyes rounded and she breathed thickly, “I know nothing of what to do to satisfy you.”

  He stroked her chin with a lazy finger as his lips kissed her once on each eyelid. Those angel bright blue eyes were anxious with uncertainty, but that was not all he saw there. She hadn’t said that she was afraid, but fear was there, a dark lacing in her eyes.

  His husky whisper came, “Whatever you do with me will satisfy me. I won’t hurt you with my body.” Her muscles ached from the tenderness of his touch. “I will just touch you... as long as you want.” His hand glided the slope of her hip and she relaxed into him. “Nothing more.” His erotically light kisses traced beneath her ear. “If you don’t like what I do, you must tell me and I will change it. I won’t do anything you’re unwilling to have me do. I would never want to hurt you in this.”

  Merry felt his breath against her shoulder, and then the palms of his hands, running slowly up her arms. His hands were drifting over her, gently exploring. His caresses were sure and potently stirring. A surprised moan swept from her mouth, as his lips closed over one hardened nipple, teasing her there as his hand moved from the smooth contours of her back to the sensitive slope of her buttocks and lifted her into him.

  Her body followed of its own demand, closer and closer, until she touched him full length, arching into him as her arms slipped over his shoulders to entwine behind his neck. She leaned forward, skimming her lips across the sculptured surface of his chest. The brush of his hair there against her chin sent vibrations downward along the nerve-tips of her limbs.

  At first she touched him lightly, hesitantly, and then more boldly as her body screamed for heightened contact. Clumsy and anxious, she twisted into him, feeling the turn of her body onto her back, his body at a half angle over her, and then the parting of her legs as his mouth devoured her breast.

  She jerked with a sharp intake of breath as his hands slipped to the inside of her thighs, cupping her center, then stroking there. As his finger opened her dainty flesh, the air trapped in her lungs left in little spurts as her muscles unrolled with it. His fingers moved in a brushing rhythm that flooded her body with aching dampness, as his mouth moved across the rising heat of her flesh. He traced upward from her breast, to the line of her neck and under jaw, to capture her mouth. The dance of his tongue shot currents through her body as she pushed upward into his fingers there, eager and seeking.

  “Varian...” she murmured weakly as he roamed her throat with his mouth. She was breathless and weak. She whispered his name over and over until she could whisper nothing.

  It was as if she were floating as he guided her beneath him. It felt so wonderful, with his male body pressed fully to her, that the thought of stopping this never entered her mind as he lay there stretched across her, ravishing her lips. She let her body melt, molding into him like a perfectly formed single puzzle. They were so close. But it wasn’t enough. The ache in her body was wild and demanding. She was desperate for him. As overwhelming as his hands touching her everywhere ha
d been—in her most intimate spots and places not intimate at all—it was nowhere near enough for her. She wanted more. Her desire for him was a spinning web, wrapping around her, drawing her to him.

  His hands brought every inch of her body to wakefulness. There was no part of her that missed his attention. Every inch was stroked into eager want. When at last he entered her body, she was eager to receive him, it was right and necessary.

  He joined them with careful restraint, in delicious slow degrees, letting her body yield to his invasion. Not even the pain when he was at last buried himself deeply within her, the vague awareness of the forever loss of her innocence, diminished the pleasure she felt in sharing herself with him in that first moment they became one. Every kiss, every touch, every move was slow, patient, and tender.

  His body filling her made her anxious for more. Her hands and her answering kisses became bolder and she began to move with more demanding frenzy against him, even as his hands tried to gentle her.

  “Slowly, Merry, slowly. Don’t touch me right now, Little One. Just let me love you,” he whispered against her lips, easing that part of him with sensual slowness within her. “You are new to passion, and we must go very gently or I will hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you, Little One, and if you touch me, I won’t be able to go about this as gently as I need to.”

  Flailing into submission the ruthless demand of his body and groaning into her mouth in the effort of his restraint, Varian held her hips in steadying fingers, knowing Merry didn’t understand the effort of maintaining this tightly controlled exchange. He kissed her cheeks with gentling touch, moving back and forth within her with care, fighting the demands of his own flesh in an effort not to hurt her. Even as cautious as each thrust was, it was exaltation to glide into her.

  He had never felt such a fierce blending of passion and tenderness all at once. She was so dewy moist, so tight around him, this beautiful girl with soft hands that caressed with artless love, who kissed with soft lips that drank and fed. He was desperate to savor each measure of the rapturous gratification he was finding in her young, untried flesh.

  She had brought to his bed something she could only give to a man once, her innocence, and he wanted to savor it in the perfection it was. But he wanted her to savor it as well, so she would never regret having shared herself with him.

  He was kissing her again, and she met the play of his lips and his tongue. His thrusts grew deeper within her, more powerful, harder with expert stirring. She met each glorious move, some unknown need pulsing inside of her, making her greedy to accept him and to drive the pace even more furiously.

  She was on fire. Whatever was in her, was running through her blood madly. Mingled with her soft pants and cries were whispered pleas that brought instant reaction in him, an expertly building tempo that intensified her desire. She traced the ridge of his muscles, offering her lips and her flesh, wanting to give more and wanting more from him.

  She had stopped thinking, not by choice, but because the explosion of her senses made anything other than physical awareness impossible. Arching her back, pushing into him, the eruption that spread through her limbs carried her into a brilliant surrender.

  Still arched against him, Merry tightly squeezed her eyes closed. She knew he felt what happened to her, felt each shimmer as it occurred. His body seemed to tense and heighten in its fury with the upward swirl of her senses. She could feel the touch of his lips against her face as he continued in the glorious pulsing moves of their bodies.

  She realized wherever he’d taken her, he hadn’t gone there with her. His flesh had not tightened and softened as hers had. He was still fully aroused and searching. Her flesh thrilled in his heated possession, as she moved with him without restraint in this dizzying cadence.

  Hot tears swam in her lashes, her love for him expanding her heart into painfulness. The pleasure received and the pleasure she was giving was unlike anything she had known. She could feel the tang of her tears, as they dribbled down her cheeks and nose, and a wayward trickle or two brushed her lips. His kisses came to her mouth, absorbing the moisture, taking in the warm breath that escaped her parted lips with the frantic rhythm of her heart.

  He held her face, kissing her cheeks and lips, smoothing the damp, fine black curls from her face, his fingertips a tingling flutter against her skin. He was wild and on fire and she reveled in it, each deep and thorough thrust, and each one more shuddering waves to her body.

  His mouth covering hers, he stroked her satiny under cheeks as he molded her lush curves into a tight clutch against him. Each of his thrusts within her was met with an exalted press of herself up into him. Held in the wrap of her beautiful legs, his own need surged upward. His mouth glided over the moist surface of her face and lips.

  It took him a moment to realize the salty wash that touched his kisses were tears. In his passion dulled mind rose the damning awareness he’d been raging within her dainty flesh. He tempered the demands of his body at once, catching her writhing hips in a gentle grip.

  “Why are you crying, Merry?” His voice was a ragged whisper, more breath than sound, as he anxiously searched her face. “Am I hurting you? If I am hurting you, you must tell me. I want for you to know only pleasure in this.”

  It took a moment to come together in her dazed mind, what he had said. As she tried to rally voice through her unsteady breathing, she wondered how he could even imagine he was hurting her. She shook her head, pressing her body into him as she slipped her arms tightly around him urging him onward with feverish kisses.

  The matching glides of their bodies resumed, but his possession of her came carefully again, so gently that it gave her a vague awareness he was holding back in himself out of concern for her. It made her eyes flutter wide and round beneath him.

  Whispering, Merry said, “You are not hurting me. Not for a flicker has there been pain. I am not made of glass. I don’t know what you did to my body, but my tears are from the beauty of what you are doing, not from pain. I want to know the joy of giving that to you. I want to know when you feel as you made me feel. Will I know? Does it feel the same for you? Do you find the same pleasure with my body? I want to give you the same pleasure with my body.”

  Varian’s gaze found hers and he was lost in the expression in her eyes. The fierce need of his body unleashed within her. There was no thought after that. It was blinding passion and fiery need and want of fulfillment. He had meant to hold back, she was new to this, but there was no way after those preciously urging words, her eagerly offered legs and arms wrapped around him. She left him no way to hold back. The aching demand to consume what she offered stripped restraint from his flesh. She answered him wildly as they moved higher and higher toward his release, until he could contain himself no longer.

  Somehow, as desperately as he ached to finish in her, he was still able to remind himself of how young she was, of the caution she hadn’t thought to ask for from him. In a thrust that told him he could not endure another, he pulled from her body, keeping his flesh buried in the soft bed of her thighs as exploded with an intensity of climax richly complete in spite of where he had done it.

  Collecting her body, he turned them so she was a luscious drape across him. An act of love shared in love. Varian had forgotten the completeness of that, though he had never known it with the richness he was feeling now with Merry. All his senses floated in bliss, fully fed, at one with her, hungering of nothing and at peace.

  Merry’s passion-lax limbs tingled as Varian’s tanned finger glided up the pale skin of her back. He was always gentle in his touch of her. It made her feel fragile and cherished and delicate like glass, the deliciously tender glides across her. At times the warmth it flooded her with made her want to weep. Then laughing, she realized when he did not touch her like glass it made her fiery with passion and to want to weep as well. However he touched her, it was as though they were one being when he did it.

  She sank her fingers in his hair and brought his mouth to hers.
One, but both of us incomplete. She understood what he had meant now. Through her kisses floated her airy little laughs of happy wonder.

  His mouth widened with the spreading of hers, and his arms tightened as he absorbed whatever spirit was whispering through him from her kiss. Then her back pressed up against the tangle of his arms, and he eased his hold as she lifted her face.

  The smile Merry gave him he would remember for a lifetime. The glorious patchwork of love, cheerful surprise, contentment of her own pleasure, satisfied comprehension of having pleased him. Somehow she managed all that on two delicately formed lips to be dazzlingly unveiled before him. It was humbling.

  Breathless, Merry settled her cheek against his warm chest, luxuriating in the rise and fall of his body beneath her. On a soft voice, she asked, “Why did she not simply tell me it was wonderful? She described in such dreadful sounding terms all the basics of the act, and finished it with the pronouncement that it was painful, my duty, and I must submit with dignity. They all make it sound dreadful so you never want to do it. Why do they do that? You weren’t dreadful at all, you insufferable man.”

  Varian laughed, enchanted, burying his lips in the sweet gossamer cloud of hair. “I am relieved I wasn’t dreadful. With such high expectations, I can’t imagine why you ever climbed into my bed. Who is she, Little One? Who are they?”

  She blushed as her eyes darted to him, then she hid her face in a charming tuck against his chest. The vibrations of her laughter against his skin stirred his senses.

  A minute passed. Then, her voice came to him, a singing melody, as she explained, “All the married women who explain this to unmarried girls, you insufferable man. They whisper at you little bits of this and that and make it sound dreadful so you never want to do it, which was why I was afraid when you started. I was not afraid of you.” Those doe eyes peeked up at him then, sparkling and impish. “My Grandmamma was very grim in her effort of explaining this to me and my cousin. I must speak with Kate when I go home.”