The forewarning of ecstasy she’d experienced before, when he touched her breasts, returned tenfold. She wanted it to come, desperately, and yet she wanted this feeling to last forever. For she knew, at the core of her being, that there wouldn’t be another after Hartley Shaw.
Blindly she reached down for him and laced her fingers in his hair. He looked up, licking the moisture from his lips.
“Now,” she said, holding his gaze with all the discipline she had left. “Now, Hartley.”
“Is that a command, your ladyship?” he asked softly.
She hated him, then, as much as she loved him. “Do you want me, Hartley Shaw?”
His answer was everything she could have wished.
With a haste that betrayed his ardor, he stripped off his shirt and unbuttoned his trousers. She was granted her first full look at his maleness and knew there must be very few like him. Certainly Spencer had not even come close.
But her body would take that magnificent instrument, every inch of it, with gladness. She gazed at his sleek, strong muscles, the power of arms that she had seen before and the thighs that she had not. His stomach was flat and ridged, without an ounce of fat. The coarseness of a laborer was nowhere to be seen, nor a single scar or imperfection of flesh, form, or bearing.
She reached for him, and he came down over her. He kissed her, and below she felt his hard length stroke her inner thigh in search of admittance.
“I have waited for this, Eden,” he said. “Look into my eyes. I want to see yours when I take you.”
His brazenness only excited her more. She clutched his shoulders and lifted her hips. His first thrust was true, deep, and potent, but she felt only a slight discomfort that was gone in an instant. Then came the withdrawal, and a second thrust, and the steady rhythm that began the ascent to paradise. She wrapped her legs around his waist to draw him deeper still.
And he looked into her eyes. If he blinked, she did not see it. The deep green of the forest, of growing things, swallowed up the black of his pupils. Pleasure, satisfaction—she could only guess what lay behind them.
She knew what her own eyes might all too easily reveal. She drew her emotions inward, hoping he wouldn’t see.
He cupped her buttocks and watched her face as he drove his full length into her. She let her head fall back, panting in time to each thrust. She was nearly there, nearly at the top of the mountain. He need only guide her the last few steps.
One. Two. Three. For the second time in her life, she felt what it was to burst free of her body and soar skyward without wings, higher than any bird that came to Hartley’s call.
She was not alone at the summit. Hartley shuddered, his hips moving faster and faster, and then his weight settled on her, damp and heavy. He remained there for a span of minutes, breathing deeply, while she put her arms about him and nuzzled his damp skin. His muscles clenched, and with a groan he lifted himself on his arms and rolled off.
So suddenly it was over. Eden lay very still while the pulsing of her body quieted and the rapture faded. Gradually she remembered that her breasts were bare and her skirts around her waist. She tugged her clothing into some semblance of modesty and turned her head toward Hartley.
He lay on his back with his arm flung over his eyes. He looked cold, bereft, when all either of them should feel was joy and completion.
“Hartley?”
He said nothing for a long, long time. Her happiness shriveled, sinking into the pit of her stomach like sour wine. Why would he not even look at her? Was he ashamed? Had she proven so great a disappointment to him?
Or was he disgusted that he’d had his way so easily with his employer, and now had no further use for her?
That thought was too painful to bear. Eden sat up, trying without success to fasten her stays and gown. Suddenly Hartley was beside her again, and her clothing fell into place at his lightest touch. He was, she thought bitterly, very adept with women’s garments.