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Her brow creases. “You can’t know that.”
I study her mouth. “I already know you’re going to be magnificent. Hallie, just having you in my arms is amazing. Just having your m-mouth beneath mine… and the thought of sliding my hands and mouth across your skin…” I shiver. “I want you so b-badly. It’s all I’ve been able to think about since you told me your relationship had ended. True lovemaking isn’t about t-technique or performing or doing the right thing. It’s about sharing yourself with someone. I want to share myself with you. Do you want to share yourself with me?”
She nods enthusiastically.
I smile. “Then there’s nothing else to worry about. Just promise me one thing.”
“Okay.”
“Talk to me. Tell me when you like something, or if you want me to do something, or not to do it. That’s all I ask.”
She nods again, shyly. “All right.”
I brush my thumb across her bottom lip. Her big brown eyes stare up at me, filled with wonder and hope.
I take a step closer to her, so our bodies are flush. And then I lower my lips to hers.
Chapter Ten
Hallie
My heart is hammering, but even though I want to run around the room like a headless chicken, I make myself stand still as Fraser kisses me.
Mmm… he’s so gentle. I love the way he kisses me as if he has all the time in the world. The world around us slowly fades away, and the only thing that exists is Fraser, with his big, strong hands and his firm, warm lips.
I feel like a precious artifact in his hands. He handles me like a fragile carving or an ancient piece of jewelry, the way I imagine Basil Brown handled the Anglo-Saxon belt buckle that came out of the Sutton Hoo ship burial. I’m sure he studied it with a similar reverent look, and the same awe, and his fingers stroked across the gold and garnets with the care and affection that Fraser shows as he brushes his thumbs over my cheekbones.
He slides his hands into my hair, tilting his head a little to the right, changing the angle of the kiss, and I part my lips to allow him to slide his tongue against mine. He sighs, which turns into a groan deep in his throat, and my heart bangs against my ribs. He really wants me. I’m not misreading the signs. He wants to go to bed with me. I feel dizzy and euphoric, the way an athlete must do when she stands on the podium after winning a gold at the Olympics.
But with the joy and excitement also comes fear. I don’t want to disappoint him. The need to be with him is so strong it’s making me tearful, but I don’t know what to do about it. How can I have been with a guy for nearly ten years and be so inexperienced? So unsure of myself? I’m afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing, and of him reacting the way Ian did—frowning, pulling back, and looking at me as if I’ve done something distasteful. Of insinuating that a nice girl wouldn’t do things like that. It happened so often that, in the end, I became passive and let him initiate sex and direct the action, and I know that’s why he commented that I was bad in bed. Talk about mixed signals. I don’t know what the guy actually wanted. Hopefully someone else will fulfill his needs better than I could. To my surprise, I discover that I’m not jealous at the thought of him being with someone else.
Fraser lifts his head, and I blink, panic swelling inside at the thought that my mind has been wandering, and he’s able to sense it, and he’s going to berate me for it.
But all he says is, “Can I take your hair down?”
“Oh… sure.”
He releases the claw clip, takes the spiral of hair, and unfurls it, bringing it down over my shoulder. It mirrors what he’s doing to me. Unfurling me. Unraveling me.
“It’s beautiful,” he murmurs. “So silky and shiny.” He lifts it to his nose and sniffs it. “And it smells of mint, all clean and fresh.” He throws these compliments around easily, as if they’re tennis balls he’s juggling effortlessly in the air. “You don’t believe me,” he says, releasing my hair and cupping my face again.
“You say such nice things… it flummoxes me.”
His lips twist. “That’s a great word. Flummox. I wonder where that comes from?”
“It was first used in a Dickens novel in 1837. Flummock means to make untidy or to confuse.”
He laughs, which he doesn’t do very often. He has beautiful teeth. “I j-just adore you,” he says.
My heart swells at his stutter. He’s not faking that. He really does like me.
He strokes his thumbs across my cheeks. “I worship the ground you walk on, Hallie Woodford. You’re beautiful and spirited, and I like that you’re sh-shy, but I want you to feel confident with me. I want to give you p-pleasure. I want to hear you cry out my name as you come.”
I blink, flushing, because I could never be vocal like that.
“Yes you can,” he says.
“I didn’t say anything.”