Love on a Midsummer Night (Shakespeare in Love #2) by Christy English

him.
    He did not move to touch her even then.
    Arabella leaned close, reaching for him. He caught her hand in his, his great paw closing around her fingers and palm so that they disappeared. Surrounded by his warmth, her hand began to tingle. She leaned closer to him still and took in the scent of cinnamon, the inexplicable sweetness his skin always seemed to bear. Arabella would never have had the courage to do such a thing in waking life, but she knew even as she drew closer to Pembroke that she still dreamed.
    She pressed her free hand against his cheek. Beneath her fingertips, his skin was rough where his fair beard had begun to grow back in. She could not see the flush of color come into his face, but she could feel the warmth of it. She scooted closer still and pressed her lips to that same cheek.
    His arms came around her then, very carefully, as if she were made of spun glass. He did not jostle or startle her but drew her against his chest, so that she could hear the soft beating of his heart. The heavy feel of his arms around her, of his weight against her, was nothing like her elderly husband’s thin arms and spindly frame. Though she was no longer a maid and had not been a maid for ten years, she felt as if she were a virgin once more, sitting tucked safe in Pembroke’s arms on those soft white sheets.
    Though she felt lost and at sea, she was not afraid as she had been on her real wedding night. She was safe, and she knew it, for Pembroke was with her.
    “I would like to kiss you, if you will permit me.”
    Arabella laughed a little under her breath. He had never sounded so formal in her life, but this was a dream, and she did not want to wake. She savored the feel of his body against hers, warmth beginning to rise between her thighs.
    She had never felt such a thing before, not even when she was a girl and happy. Pembroke had only kissed her once that summer, the same afternoon he had given her his mother’s ring. She had been transported by the feel of his lips on hers. It had been so long ago that she could not now remember what it felt like to be kissed by a man she loved, by a man she had chosen.
    “Yes,” she said.
    Pembroke leaned down then, holding her effortlessly, his strength cradling her as if she were an egg that might crack. His bright blue eyes were on hers, watching her face steadily, in case she might change her mind. She did not move to touch him but waited quietly as his lips descended on hers.
    She closed her eyes and felt their feather touch, as light as down, and as soft. She sighed, opening her mouth beneath his, and he pressed his lips against hers, harder this time, as if he might devour her. She gasped at the onslaught, and he drew back a little, as if afraid that he had offended her.
    “No,” she said. She took hold of his shoulders and drew him down to her once more. This time it was her lips on his, her mouth that moved beneath him, clumsily but with enthusiasm. Her husband had kissed her only rarely and never well. She had never truly learned for she and Pembroke had been engaged only for one night.
    He smiled against her mouth and leaned down again to kiss her in earnest. Pembroke was still careful to draw her out slowly, but his lips moved over hers with such lazy experience, with such sensuous skill that she found almost at once that she had lost her breath.
    He instructed her with the motion of his lips until she followed suit and kissed him as he had been kissing her. Then he ran his tongue along the edge of her mouth, sucking on her lower lip until she opened up to him. He plundered her mouth then, and for the first time she felt the ragged edge of his control. The sense of it did not frighten her but made the warmth in her body tighten, its languid heat turning into hunger. She was not certain what she was hungry for, but she knew that Pembroke would sate it.
    Arabella gasped, coming fully awake as she heard the maid dropping coal into the grate. She listened as the