He was content.

It was strange, to find a woman who could make him happy just with her mere presence. He didn’t even have to see her,  or hear her voice, or even smell her scent. He just had to know that she was there.

If that wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was.

He stared down at her, trying to prolong the moment, to hold on to these few moments of complete perfection. Something softened in her eyes, and the color seemed to melt right then and there, from a shiny, glowing emerald to a soft and lilting  moss. Her lips parted and softened, and he knew that he had to kiss her. Not that he wanted to, that he had to.

He needed her next to him, below him, on top of him.

He needed her in him, around him, a part of him.

He needed her the way he needed air.

And, he thought in that last rational moment before his lips found hers, he needed her right now.

Chapter 17

This Author has it on the finest authority that two days ago, whilst taking tea at Gunter’s, Lady Penwood  was hit on the side of her head with a flying biscuit.

This Author is unable to determine who threw the biscuit, but all suspicions point to the establishment’s  youngest patrons, Miss Felicity Featherington and Miss Hyacinth Bridgerton.

LADY WHISTLEDCWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 21 MAY 1817

Sophie had been kissed before—she had been kissed by Benedict before—but nothing, not a single moment of a single kiss, prepared her for this.

It wasn’t a kiss. It was heaven.

He kissed her with an intensity she could barely comprehend, his lips teasing hers, stroking, nibbling, caressing. He stoked a  fire within her, a desire to be loved, a need to love in return. And God help her, when he kissed her, all she wanted to do  was kiss him back.

She heard him murmuring her name, but it barely registered over the roaring in her ears. This was desire. This was need.  How foolish of her ever to think that she could deny this. How self-important to think that she could be stronger than passion.

“Sophie, Sophie,” he said, over and over, his lips on her cheek, her neck, her ear. He said her name so many times it seemed  to soak into her skin.

She felt his hands on the buttons of her dress, could feel the fabric loosening as each slipped through its buttonhole. This was everything she’d always sworn she would never do, and yet when her bodice tumbled to her waist, leaving her shamelessly exposed, she groaned his name and arched her back, offering herself to him like some sort of forbidden fruit.

Benedict stopped breathing when he saw her. He’d pictured this moment in his mind so many times—every night as he lay in bed, and in every dream when he actually slept. But this—reality—was far sweeter than a dream, and far more erotic.

His hand, which had been stroking the warm skin on her back, slowly slid over her rib cage. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, knowing that the words were hopelessly inadequate. As if mere words could describe what he felt. And then,  when his trembling fingers finished their journey and cupped her breast, he let out a shuddering groan. Words were impossible now. His need for her was so intense, so primitive. It robbed him of his ability to speak. Hell, he could barely think.

He wasn’t certain how this woman had come to mean so much to him. It seemed that one day she was a stranger, and the  next she was as indispensable as air. And yet it hadn’t happened in a blinding flash. It had been a slow, sneaky process,  quietly coloring his emotions until he realized that without her, his life lacked all meaning.

He touched her chin, lifting her face until he could peer into her eyes. They seemed to glow from within, glistening with unshed tears. Her lips were trembling, too, and he knew that she was as affected by the moment as he.

He leaned forward... slowly, slowly. He wanted to give her the chance to say no. It would kill him if she did, but it would  be far worse to listen to her regrets in the proverbial morning.

But she didn’t say no, and when he was but a few inches away, her eyes closed and her head tilted slightly to the side, silently inviting him to kiss her.

It was remarkable, but every time he kissed her, her lips seemed to grow sweeter, her scent more beguiling. And his need grew, too. His blood was racing with desire, and it was taking his every last shred of restraint not to push her back onto the sofa and tear her clothes from her body.

That would come later, he thought with a secret smile. But this—surely her first time—would be slow and tender and  everything a young girl dreamed.

Well, maybe not. His smile turned into an outright grin. Half the things he was going to do to her, she wouldn’t have even thought to dream about. “What are you smiling about?” she asked. He drew back a few inches, cupping her face with both hands. “How did you know I was smiling?” “I could feel it on my lips.”

He brought a finger to those lips, tracing the outline, then running the edge of his fingernail along the plump skin. “You make  me smile,” he whispered. “When you don’t make me want to scream, you make me smile.”

Her lips trembled, and her breath was hot and moist against his finger. He took her hand and brought it to his mouth, rubbing one finger against his lips in much the same way he had done with hers. But as he watched her eyes widen, he dipped her  finger into his mouth, softly sucking at the fingertip, tickling her skin with his teeth and tongue.

She gasped, and the sound was sweet and erotic at the same time.

There were a thousand things that Benedict wanted to ask her— How did she feel? What did she feel? But he was so  damned afraid that she’d change her mind if he gave her the opportunity to put any of her thoughts into words. And so  instead of questions, he gave her kisses, returning his lips to hers in a searing, barely controlled dance of desire.