Charity

by Deneane Clark

  Charity frowned, as if she were trying to imagine how that would take place, but she didn’t interrupt.

  “Another reason is symbolic, indicating that a man and his wife are of one mind, with no barriers between them.” Her expression didn’t change, so he continued. “For some couples it ends right there. But not for us.”

  “Why not for us?” Charity’s eyes were huge, glowing in the dim lighting. Lachlan felt as though he were drowning in them. She still had the covers pulled up under her pert little nose, but she no longer looked frightened or wary. Instead she looked intrigued, hopeful, and a little bit vulnerable.

  “Because,” he began, but his voice caught. He cleared his throat and tried once more. “Because every time I touch you, it feels like magic. Every . . . single . . . time.”

  Charity’s grip on the blanket loosened a bit.

  “When I kiss you, the world stops. When I hold your hand in mine and feel how small it is, all I want to do for the rest of my life is protect you and keep you close to me, where I know you’re safe and happy.”

  Charity turned on her side to face him, the sheet slipping down slightly to drape across her chest, offering him a tantalizing glimpse of the shadowy valley between her breasts. “It’s the same for me,” she whispered shyly. “I didn’t understand why or what it is.”

  “It’s rare, kitten.” His gray eyes found hers again, drew her in. She stared back. “And so, for us, I can only imagine that the more intimately we touch, the more amazing it will become.”

  Her last fears melting away at his words, Charity tilted her face up to his for another kiss. “Teach me.”

  It was all Lachlan needed to hear. Almost before the words left her mouth, while they still trembled in the air between them, he kissed her. Gone was the tender, tentative lover. This time he kissed her with all the pent-up passion and ardor that had been building from the first moment his lips touched hers.

  Charity followed his lead. She didn’t notice when the sheet slipped from her upper body to drape across her hips. She kissed him back, her hands cupping his face. When his lips left her mouth to rain kisses over her chin and down her throat, she tilted her head back, offering him unlimited access to that slender column, his name slipping off her tongue in a whispered sigh.

  Lachlan felt as though he were drowning. Her scent assailed him, intoxicated him with its sweetness. He trailed a hand down her side, lightly brushing along her rib cage, leaving her skin tingling. It settled softly on her hip before drifting back over the gentle curve to settle into the indention of her waistline.

  “So soft,” he murmured, and then cupped the soft fullness of her breast in his palm. He raised passion-drunk eyes to hers, not to seek permission but to ensure that she was still with him.

  He dipped his head again and drew her dusky pink nipple into his mouth. Tiny jolts of pleasure curled outward from her breast. Charity arched her back and cried out, her hands sliding into his thick dark hair, clenching into fists when the sensation swirled through her midsection to heat her most secret, sensitive place. Lachlan laved her sensitive nipple with long, flat strokes of his tongue, then closed his mouth and suckled until she writhed beneath him. He growled low in his throat and pushed her fully onto her back, his mouth never leaving her breast.

  She tasted sweet and fresh and distinctly feminine, and Lachlan drank in his wife’s responsiveness like the headiest of wines. He felt her fingers uncurl and then tighten again, digging slightly into his scalp as she pressed herself upward against his mouth as if she wanted to be closer still. Still suckling, he cupped her other breast, catching her nipple between his first two fingers and squeezing slightly, applying pressure until her moan became a gasp. When he heard that, he released her nipple and moved swiftly to give her other breast equal attention.

  Charity thought she would go mad—mad from what he was doing to her with his hands, mad from what he was doing to her with his mouth, mad from her inability to reciprocate. Her hands and mouth felt oddly empty, a feeling which warred with the aching heat that was making her feel slick and full at her core. Driven by need, she slid her hands from his hair down the sides of his face and onto his upper back, and then dug her heels into the bed to slide further beneath him. Her unexpected movement tugged her nipple from his mouth. She kissed him before he could protest.

  Surprised, Lachlan laughed against her mouth and playfully nipped at her lower lip. “Kitten wants to play, hmm?”

  Charity didn’t answer, just pressed herself against him. She ran her tongue along the crease between his lips. Her wriggling and kissing was almost too much for Lachlan, and when she wrapped her slender legs around one of his, he abruptly lost control.

  “Charity,” he said, his voice urgent. “Look at me.”

  She kept kissing him. “Mmhmm?” she purred, and he knew she wasn’t listening, that she was lost in the haze of passion that was overwhelming them both. He gave up trying to slow her down and with deliberate intent moved the leg she had caught between hers until it pressed against her heated center.

  That got her attention. “Oh,” she breathed.

  “Yes,” he returned. One hand found the plump flesh of her buttocks, cupped it and then pulled her toward him, causing her to rub herself along his thigh.

  “Lachlan!” Her husband’s name ended in a moan. Her eyes fluttered closed and she buried her face in his chest. She’d never done anything so wanton and uninhibited, and, God help her, she wanted more.

  Lachlan held perfectly still, held even his breath, and waited. But then, on a surrendering outward breath she caught one of his hardened nipples between her lips and began suckling him as he had her, flexed her hips so that she moved against him exactly the way he’d just taught her, driving herself toward something she surely felt she needed but could not identify.

  “God, Charity, yes.” He caught his wife’s face in his hands and forced her to meet his eyes. “You’re driving me insane. Listen to me.” He knew he wouldn’t be able to wait much longer, and he wanted to make sure she was ready.

  Charity stopped moving and blinked slowly, trying to focus on what her husband was saying. Her body was languid, saturated with desire, and she’d never felt quite so alive.

  He kissed her. “In a few moments, I’m going to make love to you, kitten. It might hurt a little at first.” He kissed her again, as if to lessen any fears she might have.

  “How?” The single word was soft, hesitant.

  Lachlan took her hand in his and brought it to his chest. “I can hear your heart pounding, love. Can you feel mine?”

  She nodded, wordless, her eyes huge.

  “We make each other feel this way, make each other feel things. Strong, beautiful things, and we are fortunate that we are able to enjoy those feelings. Our bodies are made for expressing this beauty in the most intimate way, and the things we have been doing—kissing, touching, tasting—prepares us for lovemaking.” He drew her hand down his chest and then across her abdomen while he spoke. When he continued lower, she gasped in shock and tried to pull away.

  “Don’t, love. Please don’t,” he said in an aching voice. “Please trust me.”

  Charity remembered the words of the note Grace had sent from London. Trust him, trust yourself. She stared into his eyes for a long moment, as if seeking an answer to an unspoken question. Finding what she sought in their molten silver depths, she nodded, bit her lip, and relaxed her hand.

  Lachlan’s heart swelled with love at her bravery, and he continued. He brought her hand between her legs and covered it with his own. “There is no shame, love, in knowing our bodies.” Charity blushed despite his words when she felt her own moist heat on her fingers, but she did not pull free this time. “You are slick here, darling, because your body is preparing itself to join with mine.”

  His voice was hypnotic, soothing, and she nodded, caught in the spell he was weaving around them. He parted her cupped fingers, slid one of his own between them, hesitated a moment, his eyes on hers, an
d then began slowly easing it inside her. As he did, Charity gasped and arched her back.

  “Lachlan,” she whimpered, her voice caught somewhere between a choke and a sigh. Waves of pleasure streaked outward from that slowly invading finger, and she closed her eyes, giving herself over to his caresses.

  “That’s right, love . . . let it happen.” He stroked her, his finger moving in timeless rhythm until her eyes flew open and her mouth formed a silent O of surprise. Swiftly he took her mouth in a kiss, matching the thrusts of his tongue with the strokes of his hand until she cried out into his mouth and convulsed around him.

  Lachlan propped himself on an elbow and watched his wife slowly return to awareness. She lay quietly within his arms, her breathing slowly becoming even again. When her eyes fluttered open, he kissed the tip of her nose.

  “W-what . . . what was that?” Her voice was thick with residual warmth of her completion.

  “That, my beautiful girl, is the gift of which I spoke.”

  “You felt it, too?” She placed her hand on his chest and turned more completely into his arms, snuggling against him as a tingling glow began to steal across her skin. She giggled.

  “Not yet, kitten,” he answered. “Why are you laughing?”

  “It tickles,” she said, a small smile playing about her lips. “All over. It is more lovely, even, than champagne.”

  Wonder filled Lachlan, and he caught her up against him, stroking a hand tenderly down her side. He had been right about her from the first when he’d sensed the depths of her passion after their first kiss. She was a natural seductress, charming and sensual, beautifully responsive to his touch.

  She traced a finger around the flat male nipple that had so recently been in her mouth. “Lachlan?”

  “Mm?”

  “What did you mean when you said ‘not yet’?”

  Her sweetness was intoxicating. “I’m being patient, love. When I feel the way we discussed, my body will be deep inside yours.” He stroked the hair from her forehead and then kissed the spot he had exposed.

  “How?” she persisted. “Should I touch you the way you touched me?”

  Her question was so innocent and yet so unbelievably provocative. Lachlan found himself momentarily unable to answer. He swallowed hard, nodded once and then groaned when he felt her hand touch the taut plane of his stomach and then hesitantly begin to slide lower. “Charity,” he finally breathed, and caught her wrist in his hand.

  “Am I doing it wrong?” Her eyes were huge in the semi-darkness.

  “God, no,” he said. “There is no wrong way for you to touch me. You’re doing everything right. I just didn’t want you to be . . . startled.” He released her wrist and watched her closely. When her fingers found him, her eyes widened, though not with fear. With wonder.

  She closed her fingers around him, sudden understanding. “This part of you will . . .” She stopped and blushed, unable to bring herself to actually say what she imagined.

  Lachlan covered her hand with his. “This part of me was made to fit inside you.” His voice was thick with need and with the effort to keep from spilling himself into her hand; he couldn’t wait much longer. Gently he eased her onto her back, kissed her softly, and nudged her legs apart with one of his. He knelt there between them, poised at her entrance, and looked down at the woman he was about to make his in every way.

  What he saw made his breath catch in awe. Charity was looking up at him with eyes filled with love, tenderness, and the promise of forever, and he thought he might drown in them. Her hair was tossed in artful disarray on the white linens, her skin a dusky pale peach in the near darkness.

  “You are unbelievably beautiful, Lady Asheburton,” he said, his voice hoarse with passion. “Charity.”

  She smiled tremulously, reached up and cupped his cheek in her hand. He caught a fingertip in his mouth and then released it. Charity’s eyes drifted lower, past the muscles of his abdomen, delving into that shadowy place where his body would join hers. Swiftly, she looked up and met his eyes again.

  Lachlan leaned forward, laced his fingers with hers and braced their interlocked hands on the bed. Slowly, he began easing himself into her tight, slick passage. Charity held her breath in wonder at the sensation of being filled for the first time. Heat blossomed from her core, and she wriggled her hips a little, following an instinct to push back against him.

  “God—don’t. Charity.”

  She stopped instantly, her eyes locked on his face.

  He held perfectly still, just barely inside her. He had hoped it would be easy, but that hope died when he nudged up against the barrier that proclaimed her innocence. When she began wriggling, it took every ounce of his self-control not to push forward and make her completely his. He closed his eyes and waited, silently willing her to do the same.

  After a moment, he gave a tiny new push but stopped when her eyes widened in surprise. He leaned forward, his fingers still laced with hers. “Kiss me, kitten,” he whispered against her lips, and when she complied, he surged into her, breaking the barrier, taking her small cry of pain into his mouth. He held still once again, buried deep within her moist heat, fighting the urge to move until she stirred beneath him.

  Charity shifted her hips slightly, the pain already subsiding, replaced by the most curious stretching sensation. She broke off the kiss and buried her face in Lachlan’s neck. Slowly he pulled back. Thinking he was stopping because he’d hurt her, Charity wrapped her legs around him to keep him there. “No! Don’t go, please. I-I’m okay.”

  Lachlan half groaned, half chuckled. “I couldn’t go anywhere if I wanted to. Trust me on this. Follow my lead. Your body knows what to do,” he whispered, and began moving within her again.

  Charity watched his face, awed by the expression of sublime pleasure on his handsome features, but a moment later she was ensnared by the sensual web he wove and closed her eyes. He began to pick up the rhythm. She caught her breath and then began moving against him, trying to imitate what he was doing, trying to help, timing the motions of her hips to meet his thrusts.

  “Yes, love, that’s it.” His voice was taut, strained with the effort he was exerting to hold back his own pleasure until she found hers. “Let it come to you,” he added. And then the world spun away and there was nothing but his body and her body and their quickening heartbeats.

  Charity’s hands roved her husband’s flesh, touching him anywhere they could reach, drinking in the feel of his muscles through her palms and fingertips, the fine sheen of perspiration making her hands glide without effort over the rippling valleys and planes. Lachlan sighed and whispered in the shell of her ear, words that weren’t words, words that somehow made perfect sense, and she responded with moans and mews, her body and eyes begging him to take her to a place she could not name. And then, at last, she crested that peak, threw her head back, and cried out her completion.

  When her body contracted around him, Lachlan scooped Charity up from the bed and pulled her into him, her back arched over his forearms as she rode the crest of her pleasure. He drove into her again and again, and she writhed, her hips clearly moving of their own accord, her thighs gripping his hips, until at last he cried out her name, thrust one final time and fell forward, carrying her with him, spilling himself deep within her womb.

  They lay there, legs tangled, bodies connected for some time while their heartbeats slowed, neither wanting to break the spell with words. Lachlan opened his eyes and pushed himself up on one arm. The exquisite girl in his arms stirred, too, but her eyes remained closed. Her russet lashes lay like dark fans on her pale cheeks, and while he watched, a single tear slipped from beneath one eyelid. It rolled slowly down her cheek.

  Lachlan caught it with his tongue. “Charity,” he said. “Look at me.” She opened her eyes and he caught his breath. All the love in the world was right there in those cerulean depths.

  Charity smiled, but the words she wanted to say to her husband got caught in her throat, lodged there in the
thick swell of emotion that engulfed her. There was no need to say them, though. Lachlan knew. “I love you, too,” he whispered, then rolled onto his back, Charity held securely in his arms.

  He settled her astride his hips, and then began teaching her all the ways they could learn to please each other.

  Twenty-six

  Good morning, my lord.”

  At the sound of his younger brother’s voice, Lachlan looked up in surprise from saddling Apollo. Typically he was the only member of the family out and about this early in the day.

  “Good morning, Lewiston,” he replied with a smile. “So formal. Since when did you start ‘my lording’ your big brother?”

  Lewiston grinned. “Mother hates it. I think it’s good to occasionally remind her that you’re not the only one who can push back.” He tilted his head toward the horse. “Resuming your rituals, I see.”

  Lachlan nodded. “Yes. I find I’ve missed my morning rides more than I realized.”

  “So much that you left the bed of your charming bride so soon?”

  Lachlan raised a brow but did not stop preparing his mount. “Charity was sound asleep when I left and will likely remain so for hours.”

  They had been up most of the night, laughing and talking and making love. Charity had finally fallen asleep in his arms near dawn. With all the events of the past few days crowding his mind, Lachlan had found it impossible to sleep. When the sun began to paint the morning sky with the pinks and oranges that heralded a new day, he gave up, kissed the top of his wife’s curly head and slipped from the bed. Quietly he’d dressed in riding clothes, pulled the drapes closed so she wouldn’t be awakened by the morning sun, and left the room. The hills were calling him.

  He finished saddling Apollo and led him out into the paddock. Lewiston followed.

  “Speaking of mother,” the young man began, but then he stopped with a grimace.

  “She’s unhappy. I know. She is always unhappy with me. I wasn’t suffering under the delusion that she would feel any differently about my marriage.” Lachlan gave his brother an assessing look. “Why? What has she said?”