“I don’t…that is to say, I am not certain…” Penny bit her lip as she did her best not to look at Harry’s rather enormous erection which was standing straight and proud between his legs.
A slow smile spread across his face and his grin turned wolfish. “Are you wondering if we will…fit?”
She chewed her lip again, the passion inside of her quickly cooling. “Something like that.”
“And why do I have the feeling you have never seen a naked man before, sweetheart?” He was still smiling, but in an understanding way rather than a mocking one.
“You are the first,” she admitted. It was hardly as if she could lie about something so important.
Harry took a step toward her in the flickering light cast by the branch of candles he had brought with them into the room. His tanned skin seemed to glow as it had back in the summerhouse and he seemed almost more than human. Penny watched the light play across his muscles and that taut planes of his stomach. The strength and power she had felt each time she took his arm were plainly visible now in the corded muscles of his arms. He was the exquisite one. Not her.
And once more, she felt her passion being to rise again.
“Then look all you like, my darling. Touch me as you like. I am yours, my sweet, sweet Penny. Do with me what you will.” Harry stood before her and spread his arms wide, allowing the muscles of his chest to flex, his muscle, sinew and bone to move beneath his skin in a way that said he was a man comfortable in his own skin. More than comfortable.
He was, in fact, downright sensual. And she had no choice but to respond in kind.
This time it was Penny’s turn to take a step forward. She ran her fingertips over the curves of Harry’s muscles and down over his chest. She trailed her touch lower, allowing herself to be daring enough to skim his hip bones.
But no lower.
“You can touch me there if you like.” Harry’s lips twitched in a wry grin. “It’s called a cock, Penny, and all men have them.”
Even the man your uncle has selected for you.
Harry didn’t say that, but he didn’t need to. The statement was implied. Still, Penny pushed it from her mind. She didn’t want to think about another man now. All she wanted to think about was Harry.
“You are larger than I expected,” she finally admitted, ashamed at her ignorance. “I thought…”
“We all looked like Greek statues?” he asked in a teasing tone. “No, sweetheart, flesh and blood men are rather a bit different. And there’s no shame in not knowing such a thing. I wouldn’t expect you to. Not since you are an innocent.” He chuckled darkly. “That’s not to say we can’t be small. We can be, at least when we are not aroused. But when we are aroused, as I am now simply by looking at you? We…swell.”
Meaning he was aroused now. Meaning that she, Penny Marshwood, aroused him. That was heady and powerful knowledge indeed. It also gave her the courage to press on.
“May I touch you?” Her words were halting but she had no other way to give voice to her question. And she needed to know if she could. Because she wanted to so very badly. Even though he had already given her his permission. Still, she needed to hear it again. Just to be certain.
Thankfully, Harry nodded his affirmation. “You can, but I warn you, sweetheart, that I have wanted you for so long that I am not certain how long I can endure your curiosity. It won’t hurt me, but it will push me to the edge of my self-restraint, I assure you.” Suddenly, his voice turned dark and husky. “I need you that damn much, Penny. God above, how I need you!”
Once more, a thrill of power shot through Penny, and she found she rather liked the idea of being able to control this man with nothing more than her touch.
Slowly, Penny sank to her knees in front of Harry. She had heard stories of whores who took men’s cocks in their mouths and suckled them, but given that this was the first time she had ever seen a naked man, she thought that might be a bit beyond her. Still, she found the courage to reach out and caress him, amazed when his tip began to leak a few clear drops of liquid.
Though she was an innocent, Penny was no fool and she knew that Harry was so aroused he was leaking his seed. Glancing up, she could see him grimace.
“Am I doing something wrong?” Lud, she hoped not.
“No, you are doing something right. Too right.” He sounded as if he was in pain.
However, he did not stop her explorations and allowed Penny to continue to stroke him from his base to his tip, which created an answering wetness within her own body. Yet she pressed on, delighted by the riot of sensations now rising with her. And him too, she hoped.
Harry’s cock felt like silk in her hands and yet, there was a hardness beneath that made her shiver. Especially when she realized that he meant to be inside of her with this…this…this cock.
“No more, sweetheart,” Harry finally ground out when Penny decided that perhaps tasting him might not be such a bad idea and moved to take him into her mouth, licking her lips in anticipation as she did so. “Pleasurable as you tasting me would be, I don’t think I could last quite long enough to suit either of us.” Another wicked grin. “And when I come the first time with you, my precious Penny, I want it to be inside of that delectable body of yours.”
“Oh.” Penny watched as Harry’s normally vivid blue eyes darkened to a midnight hue as he drew her to her feet before he began slowly walking her backward toward his bed, his thighs brushing against hers and making her shiver. Heat to heat. Flesh to flesh. “I…I think I want that too.”
“If you don’t, you can tell me.” Harry gently guided her down to the bed and Penny lay back into the soft coverlet, feeling utterly safe and protected for the first time in her life despite the fact that she was completely nude. Bared to his heat gaze and ready to be devoured by him. “I will stop. Somehow.” He sounded rather pained just then.
In the softly glowing light, Penny could see the shadows play across Harry’s face again, occasionally hiding the depth of his gaze from her eyes but not his heated and hungry expression. He wanted her. He wanted to bed her. But if she told him to stop? He would. She needed to trust in that. Trust in him.
Once more, Penny shook her head. “I don’t want you to. I want you to make me feel, Harry. I want to feel everything in return. All of you.”
“As the lady likes.” Slowly, Harry eased down beside her on the bed, his body sliding against hers, but that was the last thing he did slowly.
Once he had settled in next to her, he began what amounted to an assault on her senses. He touched her everywhere, learning the curves of her body with his lips, tongue, fingers, and any bit of himself that he could bring in contact with her quickly overheated skin. He skimmed his hands over her hips and traced the length of her spine. He learned the contours of her arms and traced the planes of her stomach. Finally, when he used his large, firm hands to part her thighs, she responded to him by arching up and opening herself to him, almost begging him to touch her.
“Eager, are you?” Harry teased, though he had to admit he was eager himself. When Penny had stroked his cock earlier, he thought he might embarrass himself like a randy schoolboy. Thankfully, he had somehow managed to keep control of himself, but just barely. Now, with ever new liberty that Penny allowed, Harry found himself pushing his restraint to new heights. He wanted to be inside of her – now! But she wasn’t ready. Not yet.
Penny moaned, a low and throaty sound that wound its way deep into Harry’s soul. “Oh, Harry, I’ve never felt like this.” She shifted restlessly next to him and he could smell the faint muskiness of her arousal. She wanted him. There was no doubt in his mind. “I ache from the inside out and I feel as if something is clawing at me. I want this peculiar sensation to end and yet I also want it to go on forever.”
“That is arousal, sweetheart.” Harry tilted her head up to his so that she would meet his gaze. She would not hide from him. Not with something as important as this – the first time that he took Penny for his own. “This is your body desiring mine.
But you’re not ready. Not yet.”
Without giving her a chance to respond, Harry claimed Penny’s mouth again, this time parting the seam of her lips with his tongue so that he could delve inside and taste her again. She answered him eagerly, her mouth seeking greater access to his until he could no longer tell where he ended and she began. There were just two tongues dancing and mating, mimicking the act that he wished to indulge in with her soon.
Though he didn’t want to rush her, Harry felt the same answering need pounding in his veins and his cock ached so badly that he knew he had to find release soon or suffer the consequences.
Shifting again, Harry reached down and cupped Penny intimately. She moaned again, but he drank in the sound and her breath as he kissed her, taking that same breath into his body and giving it right back again. She arched and writhed beneath him, her hips bucking a little as he reached between her slick folds and stroked her.
She was wet. So wet and all for him. He nearly lost control once more, but somehow, Harry held himself back. But he was shaking and his control was slipping. He needed to be inside of her and feel her tight, wet heat surrounding him. Those inner muscles pulling him inside of her. Sheathing him in her softness. He needed to possess this woman and soon.
“So perfect,” Harry breathed when he finally pulled back, still teasing Penny’s hidden pearl with the tip of his finger, pressing lightly and then swirling it around to increase her arousal so that she bucked beneath his hand. “But I need you to come for me, Penny. Let yourself go.”
“I can’t,” she whimpered as she clutched at him, her nails digging into his shoulders. “I don’t know how.”
“Then I will show you, my darling. But you must trust me.”
Harry hoped she did trust him, for slowly, he slid down her body and sank between her legs, opening her most secret of areas to his still-questing tongue. At the first touch of his tongue to that hidden pearl of pleasure, Penny arched up and cried out. But she didn’t break.
Her hands fisted in the bedclothes and her hips twisted in a pleasurable pain but she didn’t give in. But she would. Harry would make certain of it.
With the second sweep of his tongue across her nub, Penny’s cries were throatier and more ragged, but still, she clung to that tight hold she had on herself and her emotions. But when Harry slid first one finger, then two, and then finally three inside of her, before he tasted her intimately again, Penny’s tightly held self-control began to crumble.
She bucked and thrashed as Harry touched her. She cried out his name over and over again, her legs trembling and her arms clutching his shoulders so tightly as her legs spread wide that he knew her fingernails would leave marks in his skin.
But Harry didn’t care. He had the woman he desired most in the world in his bed and she was making him ache with a need he hadn’t known he could feel. She was in him and around him and above him. She filled his senses with her cries of delight and her moans of pleasure. And finally, when her resistance eventually broke with a keening cry, Harry was pushed to the edge of reason and sanity. Pushed farther than he had ever come with another woman.
Pushed to his limit – before he simply tumbled off the edge.
Before Penny could change her mind, Harry withdrew his hands and his tongue and instead settled his hips between her thighs and slid himself inside of her in one hard, piercing thrust. He felt her tense as he penetrated her maidenhead, but she was so slick, the thin barrier became nothing more than a trifle.
Harry swore his eyes all but rolled back in his head as her tight sheath pulled him in just as he had imagined, and Penny cried out his name in pure pleasure. He had planned to be gentle, but at the moment, that word had no place in his vocabulary. Nor was it in Penny’s because she arched into him again and wrapped her legs around his waist, silently begging for more. When he withdrew from her tight sheath slightly, she whimpered once more before sighing in bliss when he thrust hard back inside of her again.
They didn’t speak but instead allowed the language of their bodies to guide them. Penny followed Harry in the eternal dance of mating, arching up when he withdrew and then sinking back down when he slid back inside of her until they were almost as one person, the push and pull of mating making each of them spiral higher and higher with pleasure until finally, that pleasure broke and they both came with keening cries that echoed through the empty house.
It was sometime later when Harry came back to himself and found Penny staring at him with soft, warm eyes. His lioness had been tamed – for the moment.
“That was more than I could have ever imagined,” she whispered as she reached out and tentatively stroked his cheek. “Is it always like that?”
Harry shook his head and pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Not always, sweetheart. What we just shared? I have never known the like.”
He could see she wanted to ask how many women he had lain with, but she didn’t ask. Instead, she nodded and sighed in what sounded like utter contentment. “I am not certain I could find that sort of pleasure again. Actually, I’m afraid I can’t.”
More than anything, Harry wanted to tell Penny she would find that kind of powerful passion with another man, but he didn’t. Mostly because it would be a lie. He had experience, or at least far more than she did, and he had never known a coupling so perfect. He didn’t want to lead her on, but he also knew that, as they could not remain like this forever, he needed to give her hope that she might find some measure of pleasure in the arms of another man. Even if doing so made him feel as if he was ripping out his own heart.
“It is rare to find something as delightful as we did together this evening,” he finally offered. “But I suppose it might happen for you again. Someday.”
Penny traced his lips with her fingertips and he nipped playfully at her fingers, bringing another smile to her face. The candles were dying down now, lengthening the shadows and dimming the glow of the room. Perfect. This moment was perfect. If only it could last.
“I don’t want it to happen with anyone else,” she whispered as she reached to cradle his face in her hand. “I want this to be just between us.”
Harry could tell Penny wanted promises of forever, but also knew she could not ask. Like him, she seemed to long for something more than just this one night. He wanted the same thing, but it would be wrong to offer her that, no matter how much he might wish to do so. Now was simply not the time. Neither of them was free to offer themselves to the other beyond this singular moment.
So, instead, Harry would offer Penny what he could.
“Then why don’t we keep doing this?” he asked, pulling her closer to him and snuggling her against him. He wasn’t surprised to discover that she fit perfectly in his arms.
“Fucking?” She shocked him with her use of that word.
“Yes. Fucking.” Well, if she could use such language at a moment like this, then so could he, even if he didn’t normally do so around a lady. “I want you, Penny. You want me. What we shared tonight is beyond my wildest dreams. So why must we stop? We don’t have to, you know. We can go on as we are until you find…” He could not bring himself to say the rest – until she found the man her uncle was targeting. Meaning Phin.
For a moment, Penny looked doubtful though there was a flicker of hope shining in her eyes. “You mean you want to do this again? With me?”
He placed a quick kiss on her lips and pulled her closer. “Yes, sweetheart. With you. Again. Because this is only the beginning. There is so much more I can teach you.”
“There is?”
“There is.”
“Like what?”
Taking a chance, Harry took Penny’s hand and guided it to his cock. “Well, to begin with, sweetheart, you could taste me, if you like.” When she cast him a dubious look, he grinned, elated when she grinned back for a brief moment. “I saw you earlier when you were on your knees before me, looking every inch the erotic goddess that you are. I saw the way you looked at my cock, the way you brought i
t to your mouth. I know you wanted to taste me, Penny, and, if you like, I could show you how.” He paused before whispering, “I could show you what I like.”
Harry could see the indecision warring inside of her. He could tell she was on the verge of refusing. Then, suddenly, she wasn’t uncertain any longer and, from the look in her eyes, she seemed to know exactly what she wanted.
“Then teach me, Harry,” Penny sighed as she reached out and stroked his cock, bringing his partially erect member to full attention.
“Oh, I will, Penny,” he promised as he rose up and pulled her with him so that she could straddle his lap. “I will teach you all you wish to know and more. Starting right now.”
And so, for the rest of the night, Harry did just that, and it was, indeed, the sort of night from which dreams were made. If only they could last.
Chapter Sixteen
When the first rays of sun touched the window of Harry’s bedchamber the next morning, Penny awoke with a start, a wave of fear immediately washing over her. She hadn’t returned home at all last night. When Janie came to rouse her this morning, her bed would still be empty.
This was awful! This was truly awful! She would be ruined for certain now! Uncle Charles would be certain to ship her off to Upper Canada! Or perhaps even Persia! Or the Orient!
While the maid might keep Penny’s secret, there were others on staff who wouldn’t, most notably Harris. Though spending the night in Harry’s arms had been a dream come true for Penny, it also didn’t change anything. Her uncle still controlled her life and Harry was not hers to keep.
Where there had been heated passion only a few hours ago, now there was nothing but cold, bleak fear.
“Come back to bed, sweetheart.” Penny felt Harry’s large, warm hand on her back. “It is early yet. Most people will not be up for hours.”
“But my rented servants will be, and they will talk. Especially to my uncle.” She hopped out of bed, though her feet tangled briefly in the sheet she had somehow managed to pull free and wrap around herself. In the harsh light of day, she was not nearly as comfortable being naked with Harry as she had been last night when the shadows had hidden large parts of her from his view.
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