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He is a fool.
Colin had been the one to ask Penelope to dance at this ball. Mostly because the idea of not touching her for one more second, after so much time apart, was unbearable.
But it is on the dance floor, with butterflies fluttering all around them, with Penelope’s small hand in his as he leads her through the steps of the dance, that Colin realises that what he really wants to do is leave this ball, get her back to their home as quickly as possible, and touch her for real.
How had he survived these past weeks without her? He has no bloody idea. There had been reasons for it that had felt important at the time. But those reasons seem distant and irrelevant to him now that he has her in his arms again. Touching Penelope is as vital to him as breathing. She gazes up at him, and at the rapturous expression on her face any recriminations that might have lingered vanish like mist at dawn.
Now, Penelope is the only thing he can see.
His wife.
God , he wants her.
Penelope is magnificent tonight. But then, she has always been magnificent. He had been blind not to see it in his youth; he has been worse than a fool not to see it these past few terrible weeks. He will spend the rest of his life making certain she knows just how incredible she is, in every word he speaks to her and in every breath he takes.
“I love you,” he murmurs, one hand at the small of her back, his mouth close to her ear. She shivers as his breath stirs the fine hairs at her nape. He wants to spin a pretty poem for her, right here, in front of all these people. He wants to tell her she shines brighter than any starburst. But the next steps of the dance require him to twirl her away from him — who came up with this infernal dance, anyway? — and he loses his chance.
When her body is once again flush against his, the intent in her gaze makes Colin forget every word he has ever known.
“I love you, too,” Penelope tells him, her voice shaky. They cannot seem to stop saying it to each other tonight. He will never tire of hearing it. She runs the tip of one manicured finger down the length of his arm and, oh God, he can feel the heat of her touch all the way through the layers of his clothing and down to his skin. He wants to rush her out of this ball, right now, and take her home. He wishes to lay her down upon their marriage bed, to strip her bare and worship every inch of her beautiful body with his mouth until she screams his name.
Their first and only joining had been beautiful, but he had been so excited it was over far too quickly. Tonight, Colin will be methodical and careful with her, making it last, drawing it out. He will memorise each line and curve of her body with the breadth of his hands before entering her. Never again will she forget that she is his, as he is hers.
But none of what he wants can happen yet, because they are still here, at her sisters’ ball. Dancing with Penelope is wonderful, of course… but…
Damn it.
Penelope leans in so close that surely she must feel the press of his growing desire for her from inside his breeches. Colin tries to angle his lower half away from her so that he does not shame himself in public. But she stills his movements with one gentle hand upon his arm, and he is powerless to resist.
“Kiss me?” she asks, her voice still tentative despite the incredible bravery she’d shown tonight. Her upturned face is ethereal, her eyes like pools of sunlight as she searches his face.
He swallows thickly. “I cannot kiss you,” he says, with more self-control than he thought he had, because he wants nothing more in this world than to kiss her. At the crestfallen look on her face he hastens to add, “Or rather, I cannot kiss you here . We are still at the ball. People will see us.”
He cannot tear his gaze from her beautiful mouth. Her lips. He closes his eyes for just a heartbeat to get a better handle on himself, but it is long enough for an image to flash unbidden behind his eyelids. He sees Penelope, on her knees, dressed in nothing but an opened nightdress, her breasts exposed, those lush lips of hers wrapped around his cock. It is a fantasy he’s had many times before, one that kept him company during those wretched nights on that damned settee — but in spite of how wildly inappropriate it is for him to be thinking of that , here , at a ball, suddenly he needs to make that fantasy a reality more than he needs air.
“If you cannot kiss me here,” Penelope is saying, “then take me home.”
His eyes fly open, bringing him back to the present. “Now?”
“Yes.” The blazing look in her eyes threatens to unmake him. “ Now . Colin, I have waited long enough.”
Later, he will think of excuses to give his mother for why they left the Dankworth-Finch ball early. But now, all that matters is the way Penelope’s fingers twine through his as he all but hauls her off the dance floor.
Tonight, they will finally be husband and wife.
Their carriage cannot come to collect them soon enough.
________________
No sooner does the carriage door close behind them than Penelope’s hands are tangling in his hair.
It is so reminiscent of the last time they were intimate inside a carriage that it snaps something inside Colin. Her delicate fingers tug on his locks, caress his arms, his chest, and God , it’s like every nerve ending in his body is located wherever she is touching him.
He cannot wait another moment to kiss her. To taste her. With a harsh groan, he pins her back against the seat, then trails a line of open-mouthed kisses down the pale column of her throat. She tastes of strawberries and silk, and he cannot get enough. Penelope seems to want this as badly as he does, and makes no protest as he traces the tip of his tongue along the seam of her lips. When she twines her arms around his neck and kisses him back like the world is ending he nearly spills himself then and there.
He wants to consume her. Wants to be consumed. He wants to bury himself inside of her, let her take all of him in, until there is nothing left of him that isn’t hers.
But he holds himself in check. After all, his wife has been waiting patiently for their wedding night. She deserves romance tonight. And actual furniture.
After what feels like mere seconds, the carriage comes to a stop in front of their home. Somehow — God only knows how — Colin manages to pull away from his wife long enough to stumble out of the carriage, then help her down from it as well.
“Is this really happening?” Penelope’s words are dazed as he guides her to their house, as though she cannot quite tell whether this is real or simply a dream.
Her blue eyes are fever-bright when he turns to face her.
“It is really happening,” Colin rasps. He cannot seem to stop touching her. He does not want to. But he forces himself to pause when they are steps from their bedroom. They have only done this the one time, and though he has been touching himself to thoughts of her every night since, he does not know whether her desire for him comes anywhere close to his need for her.
“If you do not wish for me to continue,” he forces himself to say, in an echo of what he said to her that first time, “You must tell me.”
“You are all I can think about,” she says. “Every night we have spent apart has been a torment. I could not bear it if you stopped now.”
“Yes,” he breathes, unable to say anything else. The last shred of his self-control dissolves at the pleading look she is giving him, and he pounces, crowding her up against the wall to their bedroom.
“ Mine ,” he breathes against the sensitive skin of her throat. He says it again as his hand travels up her body to cup her breast. She is so big in his hands, overspilling his palm, and he groans again at the soft whimper she makes when he squeezes.
When he told her he would be perfectly fulfilled to spend the rest of his life devoted to nothing but loving her, he had meant every word.
Penelope cannot believe this is real.
Colin is kissing her the way a man on the verge of drowning breathes: desperately, and like he cannot get enough. No sooner does Penelope finish catching her breath than his lips are on hers again, devouring her mouth in a way that leaves her breathless and gasping.
His kisses have none of the gentleness he showed her the first time they were intimate. But Penelope does not want her husband gentle tonight. She wants him feral for her. Unleashed. His lips press so urgently to her neck it feels bruising, and Penelope relishes the pleasure-pain.
She twines her arms around his broad shoulders, fingers reaching up to tangle in his hair again. This man makes her reckless in a way she hadn’t even the words for before. She wants him inside of her, pressing her down into the mattress, joining their bodies and their souls.
She tugs feebly at the bodice of her dress with useless fingers. “Off,” she mumbles against his lips, rendered monosyllabic with desire. “I need — ”
Before she can finish the thought, Colins tears at the bodice of her gown, rending the fabric. Penelope slides her hands down the planes of his broad chest, and then lower still, reveling in his sharp intake of breath when the tips of her fingers reach the edge of his breeches. Her touch seems to unleash something within him, and a few swift movements later she is bare.
Colin kisses her again with a sharp groan a moment before he picks her up and carries her to their bed.
How many times has Penelope dreamed of lying in bed with Colin, just like this, during her years of loving him? A hundred times? A thousand? None of her most intricate fantasies hold a candle to this reality. Colin is everywhere, all at once, his mouth on her cheek, her jaw, along her collarbone. She feels seconds away from bursting out of her skin, writhing beneath him as he kisses his way down her body. She wants to tell him she wants more, wants all of him, but she cannot make her mouth form words. Not when his hands are sliding down her body, too impatient to be gentle with her.
“Do you know how many times I have dreamed of this?” he asks, mirroring her own thoughts. He gives her thigh a firm, possessive squeeze. Mine, it says. It feels so good Penelope nearly moans.
“Tell me,” she gasps. She doesn’t know where her bravery is coming from. “ Please .”
He answers with an excruciatingly slow swipe of his tongue along the sweet, sensitive spot where her neck meets her shoulder. His touch is wildfire, and she keens, every nerve in her body alight with anticipation as he mouths at her.
“I have lost count,” he mumbles against her neck. His words are gentle vibrations against her heated flesh that she can feel down to her toes. “At our engagement party. At Featherington house, when I gave you your ring and your mother was pretending not to eavesdrop. Every night, as I lay awake on that damned settee.” He raises up on one elbow and gives her a wicked grin. “At our wedding breakfast.”
Her eyes go wide with shock. “Our wedding breakfast ?”
“Mm,” he confirms. “Every time you touched my hand, or looked at me, or brushed up against me in your lovely dress…” He smiles at her, almost shy. “Had the queen not shown up when she did I likely would have grabbed you and taken you right there in front of the cake table, the presence of both our families be damned.”
She bursts out laughing at his shocking words, then swats playfully at his arm. “ Colin Bridgerton ,” she chides, still laughing. “Just when I thought nothing about you could surprise me. You are terrible.”
“I am terrible,” he agrees, grinning. “You have no idea.”
On impulse, Penelope places her hand flat on his chest. His heart beats wildly beneath her palm.
The mood between them shifts, then. Slowly, carefully, Colin rolls her onto her back. He squeezes her hand gently, his bright blue eyes full of an unspoken question.
Are you sure?
“Yes,” she answers out loud. She wants this. She is ready. “ Please .”
His hands slide down her body again, gripping her thighs. He holds her tight, tighter. He smells incredible—like laundry soap, cool male skin, and Colin . She moans quietly against the pleasure already rising inside her.
“I’m going to make you feel so good tonight,” he promises. “Can I tell you what I plan to do?”
There is a hint of more wickedness in his voice, and she melts against him.
“Yes.” Her hands slide into his hair again, tugging hard on the strands. He groans. He likes it when she pulls his hair, she realizes. She makes a mental note to do it again and again. “Tell me.“
With her hands still in his hair, it takes Colin a moment to regain composure enough to respond.
“On second thought, let me show you.” It is dark in their bedroom — they had not taken the time to light any candles — but there is enough moonlight streaming in from their bedroom window that she sees him clearly enough. His broad shoulders are silhouetted against the darkness, and in that moment Penelope thinks she has never seen anything so beautiful.
She closes her eyes, expecting to feel the delicious weight of him pressing her down into the mattress. Instead, she hears the creak of floorboards as he gets out of bed and kneels down beside it.
A moment later, his hands wrap around her bare ankles.
“What — ?”she begins. Then she yelps as he tugs her towards the edge of their bed.
“I want to see you let go,” he rasps, hands sliding up her bare legs to grip her hips again. His eyes bore into hers, pupils blown wide with desire. “I need to see you let go. And I want it to be because of me. I want you to fall apart on my tongue, and feel your legs quivering beside my ears as you shout my name.”
“Colin,” she whimpers. What is he doing ? She has no idea, but she trusts him. Implicitly, and with everything she has.
He leans in close, until his face is just a hair's breadth away from her sex. “I want to taste you,” he breathes. “Everywhere. So very badly.”
She has no words as he tugs her legs up over his shoulders, tilts her hips up with his large, gentle hands. She is splayed open for him, naked and vulnerable. Her heart thunders so loudly in her chest he can surely hear it.
“ Colin ,” she whimpers again, not sure what will happen next. All she knows is that she can feel each shaky exhalation of Colin’s breath against her core, and it is the most exquisite torture she has ever known.
She looks down, to where his face is between her spread legs. His beautiful, expressive blue eyes meet hers. “You want this. Don’t you.” He rubs his cheek against the inside of her thigh. The delicious scratch of his stubble pulls a groan from her before she realises it has happened.
She whines as he teases her, wriggling in his grasp. “Colin, please .” She can tell he needs her to say she wants to be with him like this. But if he does not put that wicked mouth on her right now she is going to lose her mind. “Yes. I want this. I want you. Please.”
His mouth quirks up into a half smile. His eyes darken. “As my lady commands.”
Then his mouth is right there , electric, flooding Penelope with sensations she has never felt before and cannot name. Colin is relentless as he devours her, sucking that sensitive bundle of nerves into his mouth a moment before laving it with the achingly soft flat of his tongue. Penelope tries to cry out but cannot, made mindless by pleasure and pure desperate need as she lies helplessly on the bed before him, held together only by the determined way he is working her and the tight grip he now has on her thighs. Her breathing has gone quick and shallow, her blood roaring in her ears as Colin’s tongue slicks up one side of her nub and back down the other, teasing and drawing out her pleasure.
“Please,” she begs, desperate, not even knowing what she is begging for. For him to stop. For him to never stop. The peak they reached together last time is shimmering before her, just out of reach, and she keens for it. She wants him to feel it again, too, so that he will never forget the imprint of her body on his. “Colin, please .”
Her pleas seem to spur him on. Colin redoubles his efforts, his grip on her hips tightening as he hauls her up even closer to his mouth. She tries to buck up against his face, his clever tongue, desperate for more friction, for release. But his hold on her is too strong. He pins her in place, keeping her right where he wants her, preventing her from moving at all as he drives her higher, and higher, and higher.
And then—
He pushes one finger into her, and then another, so tight , the delicious intrusion forcing every sentient thought from her head. She needs this—him—all of it. She needs it now .
“ Pen ,” he moans against her flesh. “I cannot wait to be inside you again.”
His filthy words, muttered right there , are all Penelope needs to hurtle headlong into orgasm. She scrabbles at the sheets, at Colin’s hair, clinging to anything she can to anchor her as the waves of bliss come again, and again, and again. Colin coaxes her through it with his lips and tongue, his grip on her backside tightening as he urges her body to keep going. She moans his name, mindless, back arched like a bow above the bedsheets, locked in pleasure that stretches forever.
When she collapses to the bed, boneless, he is on her in an instant.
“You are incredible .” Colin’s voice is like gravel on stone. “The way you looked when you came apart — God. I nearly came too, just from that. I just—” He is tearing at his clothes in his haste to get them off, quickly losing patience with the buttons of his trousers. They skitter to the floor as he tugs them down his legs. He fights with the sleeves of his shirt for two seconds before he has that off, too. Penelope is too wrung out to help him. He doesn’t seem to care. Nothing is going to get in the way of what he wants.
He never breaks eye contact with her, keeping his gaze trained on her face even as she lets her eyes roam over his body.
“Do you like what you see?” He says it with a smirk, but his wavering tone and the intensity of his expression make clear just how much he wants his body to please her.
And oh , it does.
Now that the barriers of their clothing are lying in a heap beside the bed, it is like a fresh dam of want has broken inside of her. Penelope moves to touch him, not even bothering to fight the impulse to do it. She loves his solid build, his broad chest covered with a smattering of light brown hair she can never seem to resist trailing her fingers through. His breath hitches as she experiments with touching him, tracing the defined lines of his pectoral muscles with her fingertips, stroking down along his abdomen, and then further down still, until his stomach muscles tense in anticipation.
Mine.
Is Colin’s body much changed from what it was before he left for his most recent travels? Penelope casts the thought aside. It doesn’t matter what his body was like before he was hers. Because it is this Colin who is gently pulling her hands away from his body and laying her down on the mattress again. It is this Colin who is kissing her so urgently and with such tenderness it feels like her heart is breaking.
And it is this Colin who is levering himself over her until they are pressed together once more, flesh to flesh. This man is so ridiculous she never knows whether she wants to hit him or to laugh. He is disarmingly kind, and funny, and so thoughtful it makes her head spin. And she realises once again‚ with a sudden, all-encompassing jolt of awareness—that he is hers.
Entirely hers.
Forever.
“Penelope.” Colin hovers over her, his arms shaking with the effort to hold as still as possible. Then he shifts, until his tip nudges at the entrance to her sex. His eyes meet hers, boring into her soul.
He wants to be sure she wants this as badly as he does.
She nods, and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him down into another blinding kiss.
He enters her with a single hard thrust of his hips and a loud exhalation of pleasure. It doesn’t hurt — at least, not like it did the first time — but her breath stutters all the same, her body struggling against the delicious intrusion of his body into hers.
He is just so big , and they have only done this once. The stretch of it, the completeness with which Colin fills her, pushes the breath from her lungs and threatens to pull her under again before they’ve even begun. Her hands scrabble down his back, nails lightly scoring his flesh as she seeks to anchor herself against the pleasure that is already mounting again. Colin seems to like that a lot, a very lot, hissing at the pinpricks of pleasure-pain‚ and then groaning as she drags her nails down his back a second time, except harder, and more forcefully.
“Penelope,” he says again, voice hoarse with his fraying restraint. He still isn’t moving, is still letting her body adjust to all this newness. But his arms are shaking badly now, and she can see in the rigid set of his jaw and his stuttering breath how much he wants to let go.
“You don’t need to hold back,” Penelope assures him. She cranes her neck a little, lifts her chin so she can press her lips to his. “I love you, Colin. I want this.”
His groans at her endearment, his eyes drifting closed. “I will never hurt you. Not on purpose, I promise. But towards the end, I might—” He pauses. Licks his lips. “I fear it will be difficult for me to hold on to control, at the end. I just want you–this–so badly. Tell me to stop if it gets to be too much.”
His hands fist the pillow on either side of her head so hard his knuckles are white. Penelope tugs on his hair, lifting his head until he is looking directly into her eyes. The vulnerability she sees in his nearly takes her breath away.
“I won’t need you to stop,” she assures him. “But if I do, I’ll tell you. Right away. I promise.”
He stares into her eyes another long moment, as if trying to find the truth of her words. Then he closes his eyes. Nods.
And he begins to move.
“ Oh .” The sound is all but pushed out of her at his first real thrust. Too late, she begins to worry—irrationally, probably—that maybe she is not good at this after all. Colin had told her last time that nothing compared to what they shared together, but things between them had been so much simpler then. What if he had not been honest with her in order to spare her feelings?
“Pen,” he whimpers, his mouth at her ear. “You are so —” His hips are already picking up speed, his body pistoning into hers so insistently, so needfully, it shatters any lingering self-doubt. He grabs both of her hands in one of his, forcefully pinning them above her head, and stares transfixed at the way her breasts bounce with his movements. The way he is looking at her—and the way it feels , her sex clenching around him as he thrusts into her again, and again, and again—
His hands drop down to grip her backside, lifting her hips a little and changing the angle of their joining. Something about the new positioning opens her up to him even further, allows him to go deeper, harder, to brush up against parts of her he had never touched before.
“Colin,” she gasps. “Oh, Colin. ” Something… something about this time is different. Penelope cries out again, helpless in the face of the delicious pleasure, at the ecstatic sort of pressure at the base of her spine that is already threatening to pull her under. She feels intoxicated, wild, and burning hot, her body already racing towards another sharp crescendo as her hips speed up reflexively to match Colin’s movements.
And then without thinking about it, she pushes on Colin’s chest, flipping them both over until he is lying on his back and she is sitting astride him.
His hips stutter to a stop, even as he remains fully seated within. His face is wrecked with desire as he looks up at her, like she is a goddess and he her humble supplicant.
“Penelope,” he breathes, panting hard, his chest heaving. His eyes flit between her face, her bare breasts, her parted lips. “Do you… do you want it like this?”
His hands come to rest on her hips, fingertips digging into her soft flesh. He has stopped all movements within her, waiting for her answer.
In this moment, she understands that he will do whatever she wishes of him.
It is nearly enough to pull her under.
She nods, incapable of speech.
His hips start moving again, more gently this time. Rocking up, up, up . His body is taut as a bowstring beneath her, and she knows he wants her to rock her hips too. But he is so deep inside her at this angle, and she is so stunned that she is in this position, at the power she now holds over him, that it is all she can do to hold his gaze.
She slides her hands down his torso. He watches helplessly, transfixed. Words of praise and garbled bits of nonsense fall from his lips as he pleads with her to move against him.
“Penelope.” Her name on his lips is a broken sound. A prayer. A plea. And so she moves with him, riding with him into ecstasy once more. It races down her spine, straight to her sex, amplifying her need unbearably. When her next orgasm crashes over her she runs straight into the blissful release, the waves of pleasure wiping her mind clean of everything but him.
When she returns to herself Colin flips them over again, and he is thrusting into her so hard and so forcefully she will have trouble walking for a week. “So beautiful, so sweet,” he moans. He is nearing his breaking point. Penelope can feel it in the way his thrusts are becoming chaotic, frantic. She can hear it in the fevered pitch of his words. “The way you come. The way you make love to me. I knew it. Knew you’d taste so good, I never want to leave you, want you, I— forever, I just—”
Penelope feels, more than hears, the sound Colin makes when he comes. His hips stutter up hard once, and again, and then his body goes rigid and taut above her, his back bent in an exaggerated arc as he spills himself deep inside. She looks into his eyes, but his own eyes are unseeing, glassy with pleasure. Penelope has never seen anything more beautiful in her life.
His body feels like two hundred pounds of dead weight when he collapses on top of her a moment later, heavy and immovable as lead. He sighs, then laughs a little, his cool breath tickling the little hairs at the nape of her neck.
“Darling Pen,” he murmurs into her ear, after what feels like an eternity. “I hope that felt even half as good for you as it did for me.” He rolls off her, wincing a little as he withdraws from her body, but remains close to her side.
She wants to answer him with words. To tell him how incredible that just was. But words seem inadequate to describe the beauty of what they just shared.
So she only presses a kiss to the center of his chest when he gathers her into his arms, and hopes all the joy she is feeling in her heart is reflected back to him in her smile.
It is the middle of the night when Penelope — his love, his wife — rouses Colin from the best sleep he has had in weeks.
“Colin?”
He tugs her closer to him, eyes still closed. “Mm?”
She presses a sweet kiss to his cheek. His darling Pen. “Remind me to tell you about the heir race my sisters and I are in when we wake in the morning, okay?”
Heir race ? Colin understands what those words mean individually, of course. But together?
He sighs, and pulls Penelope even closer, sleep already threatening to pull him back under.
Yes. In the morning. They’ll discuss whatever she wants to discuss in the morning.
“Definitely,” Colin breathes, a moment before tumbling headlong into a blissful, dreamless sleep, his beautiful wife in his arms.