Beth half-opened her eyes and then shut them again hurriedly. Jon was removing his tight riding breeches. In a moment, he would be completely naked. In a moment, he would be stretched out beside her. The tension grew, first in her neck and shoulders, and then spread down through her torso to her stomach.
‘Beth.’ He was beside her again. She could feel his warm breath fluttering across her cheek. ‘Beth, open your eyes. Please.’
She could not resist that pleading note. And when she looked, she saw his face above her, half in shadow, and half glowing red in the firelight. Yet, in spite of the glow, his eyes seemed to be completely black, like fathomless pools. She longed to drown in them.
‘Beth. My beautiful Beth. Will you permit me to remove your chemise so that I may see you? All of you?’ When she hesitated, he continued hurriedly, ‘I know you are shy. I ask too much. Forgive me.’ He stroked his hand down the side of her body, smoothing the chemise into place as if he were trying to restore, rather than remove it.
But that was not at all what Beth wanted. She understood that, even while his fingers slithered over her hip bone and started down her thigh. She wanted him to smooth his hands over her skin. Without the intrusion of petticoats. She laid her hands on his cheeks and ran them gently down over the line of his jaw, his neck, and the taut muscles of his chest. She could go no further, for his body was resting on the bed beside her. She pushed against him with the flat of her hands. ‘I…I want to see you.’ Her whisper was barely audible, even to her own ears. ‘And for you to see me.’
He took a deep breath and touched his mouth to the side of her neck, below her ear. ‘It shall be exactly as you wish,’ he whispered against her flesh, the words vibrating through her whole being. He kissed his way up to her ear lobe and began to nuzzle there. At the same moment, with featherlight touches, he was untying the ribbons of her chemise and pushing it carefully from her body. Soon, she was completely naked, apart from her stockings. A gentle hand lifted away the chemise and began to stroke up the side of her calf, teasing at the weave of her stocking and sending shivers through the flesh beneath.
Beth groaned out his name. He responded with a sound, low in his throat. She had never heard the like before, but she recognised it as male satisfaction, and anticipation. And then his questing fingers reached the naked flesh above her garter. That single touch was electrifying. He stroked his hand round to her inner thigh and let it rest there, while his lips nuzzled a path across her cheek to find her mouth.
‘Oh, Beth. You are so very desirable.’
Her own desire for him was becoming almost impossible to endure.
He kissed her, deeply, on the mouth and then continued to kiss his way across her cheek and along her jaw, down her neck to the little indentation at the base. He paused there to flick her skin with the tip of his tongue. Then on, down, to the valley between her breasts. He took one breast in each hand, weighing them reverently, rubbing his thumbs back and forth across her aching nipples until they rose, hard and proud against his touch.
‘Mmm.’ Beth felt the low rumble against her flesh. Then he was rolling one nipple between his thumb and forefinger while he sucked the other with such force that she felt the pull all the way down to her womb. She gasped aloud at the strange, elusive pleasure of it.
Jon raised his head from her breast and murmured something she could not catch, before transferring his mouth to her other breast. This time the sensation was even stronger, as if her womb was contracting in response to his sucking mouth. Was this what it was to be loved by a man? It was almost more than she could bear.
Then Jon was kissing his way down her body, from the crevice between her breasts to her navel, and on, and on. She thought she cried out, but he hushed her and returned his wicked fingers to her breasts, pushing and rolling the nipples until they rose even more.
‘Ah! Jon!’ He had pushed himself down her body until his head was resting between her legs. She could feel the beginnings of his stubble against the tender skin of her inner thighs. And then… Heavens! He was kissing her. There! Oh! It was too much. Building, building, in great waves of feeling that she could not control. It was going to overpower her. She let out a long scream and tumbled into darkness.
Jon dropped one last kiss on her damp curls and pulled himself up to cover Beth’s motionless body with his own. He settled himself into the cradle of her hips, making sure he was taking his weight on his elbows so as not to crush her slight form. He found himself gazing anxiously down at her flushed skin, luminous in the firelight. At the moment of ecstasy, she had fainted away. That was almost proof enough that she was still a virgin. Almost, but not quite. Beth herself would never accept it.
For one fleeting second after she had lost consciousness, Jon had been about to take her, to spare her the pain of first penetration. But he had not done it. He could not. He had to allow Beth the chance to refuse him, even now. Anything else would be a violation.
He bent to kiss her parted lips and then the purplish shadows on her closed eyelids. His taut flesh was straining towards the hot, moist entrance to her body, but he would not yield to its clamouring. There would be no union between them unless Beth herself decreed it should be so. No matter what it cost him. He kissed her mouth again and ran the tip of his tongue along the length of her lower lip. ‘Beth. Come back to me, little one.’
It was like a fairy charm. Her eyes opened. She stared up at him, unfocused at first, and then all too knowing. ‘Was that…?’
‘No. No, my sweet Beth. That was ecstasy for you alone.’
‘Not for you?’
‘No, my dear. That was for you, to let you feel what lovemaking can become.’
‘But it proved my virginity?’
He shook his head and touched a finger to her cheek. ‘I wish- No, Beth. It was not proof.’
‘But-’ She was trying to shake her head. ‘Jon, that was not our bargain.’
‘You still wish that?’
‘Yes.’
He took her mouth then, plunging deep, and insistently, until her response became more and more frenzied, and as feverish as when he had taken her, all alone, to the heights. Only then was he sure that she was ready for him.
‘Beth.’ He pulled his lips from hers and raised his head. ‘Look at me, Beth.’ She opened her eyes in response. ‘Do you trust me?’
She gazed up at him, wide-eyed. ‘Yes.’ A whisper, but determined.
Jon drove into her with one long, powerful stroke. It was exactly as he had known it would be. The barrier of her virginity broke before his thrust. A sob rose in her throat and her face contorted in pain. Shocked, in spite of himself, he held himself very still within her, waiting, wishing he could absorb her suffering.
At last, her anguished face relaxed enough for her to look up at him. Even in the dim light, he could see that her eyes were sheened with tears.
‘Oh, my poor Beth.’
‘No. It is done. It is proved. And the pain will never come again, I know. Kiss me, Jon.’
He obeyed her, gladly. But as his lips and tongue moved on her mouth, so the rest of his body moved too, driven by ungovernable desire. It was impossible to prevent it, and yet he did not want to hurt her again. He should withdraw. He must.
But it seemed that Beth had other ideas. She wrapped her stocking-clad legs around him and began to kiss him even more passionately. It was too much. His driving thrusts became stronger, until they were both gasping for breath and Beth was bucking against him.
He could not. Oh, God, he must not! In a moment, it would be too late. With his last ounce of conscious control, he pulled himself from her embrace.
One moment, she had been soaring. The next, she had plummeted back to earth. Her body felt like an overwound watch spring, brittle enough to snap at a touch. ‘Jon? I…I don’t understand. Why-?’
He took a long shuddering breath, rolled on to the bed alongside her and drew her into his embrace. She felt his hand on her breast and his lips on hers. Skilful fingers trailed down her belly and began to stroke the innermost folds of her hot flesh. She groaned aloud. In an instant, she was soaring again. Soaring. She could see a bright light. Distant. But coming closer.
And then it exploded.
