A Most Unladylike Adventure by Elizabeth Beacon Page A

made for him alone. Not since he was a hasty boy with his first eager, just a little bit more experienced girl had he needed to fight his body quite so hard for mastery. Not with his mistresses and certainly not with his wife, but then, Ariadne hadn’t been virgin any more than any of his other lovers had been, until now. Louisa Alstone was the first woman who’d ever allowed him to be first and he must guard himself against the privilege and wonder of that marvel, when he was rational again. For now he luxuriated in it as he felt her move with him, begin to breathe more deeply, to clench even more exquisitely about his manhood and, at last, he knew she was ready for more.
    Breathing hard to keep that more from releasing him before time into his own selfish pleasure, he occupied himself with meeting her deepest of blue eyes in the darkness, althoughhe could see only the quick shine of them in this almost-blackness as she opened her eyes in wonder and lure at the feel of him moving within her. Next time he’d make sure they had their eyes to add to the other four senses, so they could drive each other even more insane with how they were together. He blotted out the thought that there would be no next time by stroking harder and deeper into her as he felt her begin to spasm, felt the bow of her body even before he heard a deep heavy breath fill her straining lungs as she let it out, on a long wondering moan of delight. At last he could slip his tethers and he plunged headlong into the greatest, most satisfying completion he’d ever experienced.
    Hugh felt his whole being spasm in ecstasy as she plunged into the unknown, then flew under him and their individual peaks of utter delight were as dangerous as they were giving. As he drifted into absolute release, complete satisfaction for what felt like the first time in his life, a part of him exulted and worshipped her, even as another woke up and groaned in disbelief. At their destination for a lovely, peaceful moment it felt generous, shared, too much to let go. Then let go he did and finally descended from absolute delight into almostcomplete horror when he realised exactly what he’d done by taking up her invitation to seduce her so eagerly, then failing to draw out of her before he climaxed and damned them both for a pair of over-lusty fools.
    Coming back to her workaday self at last, Louisa allowed herself a delighted little wriggle and let herself be pleased he was still inside her, even after she knew that he’d experienced the ultimate release with her. He sank against her pleasured torso for a sweet moment and she let her arms come up to grasp him, then fall to her sides as he groaned as if in agony. Horrified that he wasn’t as warmly delighted with life and his lover as she was with her only one, she suddenly felt chilled and all too distant again. He regretted what they’d just done and she wanted to cry so badly she had to clench her fists until she felt her nails bite into her tender palms. She’d grown too soft for this sort of disappointment; she fought not to expect anything of him other than what she’d already had and did her best to reassemble the Ice Diamond, before he could voice his misgivings. Suddenly she hated that brilliant, heartless creature with a passion even he might not be able to match, but it wasan old familiar shield from a hurtful world and, at the moment, all she had.
    ‘Thank you,’ she made herself say, as if the most significant-seeming minutes of her life so far didn’t matter all that much after all.
    ‘Thank you?’ the contrary monster echoed as if she’d spat poison at him.
    ‘Yes. I shall never marry, you see, so you relieved me of a burden of curiosity I had no wish to carry for the rest of my life.’
    ‘How useful of me,’ he replied as if the words nauseated him.
    ‘Yes,’ she made herself say blandly, ‘it was, very useful.’
    Suddenly she felt so utterly vulnerable lying here, stretched under him like a