more daring, didn’t you?”
Yes. Yes, she had. Audrey could do this. She could go through with this. Perhaps they wouldn’t ever do such a thing again. She had to know if she would enjoy it, if she allowed herself. Pinching her eyes closed, she sat up and set to work on unfastening the buttons along the back of her gown.
Before half the tiny pearl buttons were undone, Lodge had his coat, waistcoat, and shirt all off, draped over an armchair by the window. Dappled, golden sunlight poured in, washing him in a glow that highlighted all of the muscles on his chest and back. Facing the window, he undid the flap of his breeches and Audrey couldn’t look away if she tried.
As he lowered his pants and smallclothes to the ground in a single motion, his taut backside kept her entranced. How was it possible to have etched muscles there? Was it from all of his horse riding? Her breath caught as she imagined tracing the contours of his bottom with her fingertips. She’d never allowed herself to think about touching him before, not anywhere but his strong arms and upper chest. They seemed safe places to touch. Proper. Touching his buttocks could hardly qualify as proper.
Lodge turned, then, and caught her staring. Drat, she hated herself for looking as she had been. She hated herself even more now, because she was staring at the apex of his thighs and the member standing at attention nestled there.
His hand came over it, gripping it and sliding along its length a time or two. His staff seemed to grow before her eyes. Good gracious. “Never, in all this time, have you looked at what’s been inside you.”
Spontaneously, she wet her lips with her tongue as she watched his movements.
He moved closer to her, standing beside the bed, his hand still moving slowly over his engorged blade in the same manner as he moved within her. With his other hand, he drew down the top of her gown, freeing her breasts to his inspection in the waning afternoon sun.
His heated gaze bored through her. She wanted to cover herself, to hide from the intensity of his eyes. Almost of their own volition, Audrey’s hands lifted to do just that.
Lodge let out an almost inhuman moan. “Yes, my love. Touch yourself for me.”
Fire pounded through her veins. Touch herself?
With tentative fingers, she trailed a path over the curve of her breasts, avoiding the hardened peaks of her nipples at all costs. It was bad enough she was touching the fleshy part. She couldn’t bear to stroke the sensitive tips beneath his scrutiny.
The entire time she touched herself, she watched his reaction. A flash of hunger flickered through his green eyes when her fingertips moved close to her tightened nubs, then ebbed when she slid them away. His hand never left his member-never reached out to touch her.
After a few minutes, he ground out, “Stop teasing me, Audrey. Touch your teats.”
She pressed her eyes closed and did as he asked, gasping with shock at the touch. A flood of heated yearning pooled at her center. With pinches and prods, she copied the pattern Lodge often followed when he was inside her until her breath came out in sharp pants and an ache built inside her secret place.
“ Harder,” he whispered.
She was powerless to deny him anything just then. Squeezing tighter, Audrey couldn’t suppress the moan that came from her lips as her head lolled back.
Lodge leaned forward and kissed her, his tongue plundering inside and warring with hers. Holding her head in place with one hand, he used the other to pry her fingers free from her breast and wrap them around his smooth heat.
She should remove her hand from him. Touching him like this had to be sinful and wrong, but it felt so very right. When he moved his hips back and forth, sliding his shaft through her grip, she couldn’t imagine ever letting him go.
All too soon, he pulled away from her, moving to his armoire. Lodge opened a drawer and pulled something out, then returned to the foot of the bed. “Come down here, sweeting. It’s time to become adventurous.”
FOUR
Audrey looked across at him with an expression so full of reserve, yet so coy at the same time, he wondered if he was pushing things too far again. Making love to her in the light of day, touching each other intimately while they could see, that might be as far as she was willing to go at this juncture.
But he had to try for more, while she was still open and willing.
In a painstakingly slow fashion, she stood and walked over to him, careful to keep an arm pressed against her waist so her gown wouldn’t fall the rest of the way to the floor. When she was standing before him, between him and the bed, Lodge tilted her chin so she looked up at him, and then drew her hand away from the garment. As her eyes widened, it pooled at her feet along with the loosened chemise, leaving her in nothing but her drawers. Blissfully, she refrained from trying to cover herself.
He worked to undo the ties of her drawers and then pulled them free, until she stood before him with nothing but a blush. Exquisite.
“ You’re certain you wish to be daring, my love?” he coaxed.
She nodded, a brisk and curt movement.
He lifted a brow.
Releasing the pent-up breath she’d been holding, Audrey murmured, “Yes. I asked you to teach me.”
Lodge chuckled. “So you did. And now I’ll ask you to trust me.” His eyes were locked on the rise and fall of her pert breasts with each short, little breath she took. He couldn’t resist moving the pad of his forefinger over the swell of her breast and feeling it quiver beneath him. “Will you do that?”
She met his gaze. “I trust you.”
With a wink for reassurance, he nodded. “Then sit here with your bum on the edge of the bed, and then lie back.”
Audrey followed his instructions, hanging her knees over the edge of the bed and keeping them locked together as though they were held that way by a vise. When she stilled, Lodge hooked his hands in the crook of her knees and tugged, until her bum was almost falling off the edge of the bed.
“ Stay very still,” he said as he lifted one petite ankle. Her wide, blue eyes followed his every movement and her lips parted just enough for her to dart her tongue out and wet them. Christ, he loved when she did that. Lodge drew her leg to the side, stretching it up and out until her ankle met the post at the foot of the bed.
The rise and fall of her breasts quickened. “What are you doing?” she asked as he straightened one of the cravats he’d pulled out of his armoire.
He grinned back down at her and winked. “Giving you a bit of adventure.”
Audrey’s jaw hung open, but she didn’t move a muscle as he secured her ankle to the post. He’d dreamed of doing such things with her countless times-Lodge’s tastes had always bordered on the more risque before their marriage, and he’d frequented the lesser known hovels in order to sate his needs-but he’d never imagined she would allow him to take such liberties. Yet here she was, pliant in his hands, letting him do as he wished.
When he finished tying the cravat, he gave her ankle a slight tug. Perfectly immobile. “Is this too tight?” he asked.
She shook her head, but remained silent.
He trailed a hand along the inside of her leg, slowly tracing the contours of each curve and inching his way closer to her masterpiece. As he brushed over her thighs, her flesh twitched beneath his touch. Lodge let his hand hover just over her sex-close enough she could feel his heat and he could feel her wetness, but not enough to give her any relief. “Touch your tits for me again.”
Audrey brought hesitant, faltering hands to her breasts and molded against them, gradually increasing in intensity as he moved his hand closer to her cunny until he was touching her with the lightest of touches.
Ever so slightly, she ground her hips down to connect more fully with his hand, and her eyes widened in shock over her own boldness. Before he lost himself to her newfound bravery, Lodge lifted her other ankle, following the same procedure as before with the opposite bedpost, until she was stretched wide before him with her honeypot open to his view.
