He let out a ragged breath. At hearing her speak the vulgarity, the appendage in question doubled in size, or at least felt as if it did. As if sensing his reaction, her hand tightened on him as best it could, separated from his pulsing flesh by the hide of his breeches. “Perhaps your cock and I, together, can persuade you to our way of thinking.”
They already had, but he wasn’t going to tell her so.
She leaned over his torso and kissed him, her lips and breath warming his mouth. Warmth from her body and the oil’s complex floral scent emanated from beneath her gown. He felt dizzied. Intoxicated. Yet he enforced control over himself. While he did not reject the kiss, he did not respond with discernible passion.
“Still unmoved, I see,” she surmised, a scant inch from his face. A determined gleam lit her eyes.
With a feminine little sigh of pleasure, her lips traveled down his neck to his chest, where with her hands she parted his shirt. Traveling lower, she lifted the linen, shoving the fabric against his skin. Her tongue touched the sensitive skin of his abdomen, awakening the flames he sought to keep confined. Vane almost seized her and dragged her beneath him, but he was enjoying her efforts too much to rush things.
Then, blessedly, her hand returned to the juncture of his thighs and the fastenings of his breeches, where she made fast business of the laces. He closed his eyes, feeling the invasion of cool air on his heated member. With bold precision, her fingertip traced his bare length before she gently eased him free and gripped him at the base.
Damn. Yes. He rose onto his elbows.
“Are all men as large as you?” she whispered, staring at the rigid monument in her hand.
“Of course not,” he grunted, watching her.
“I was always too shy to look before,” she said. She looked like a beautiful mermaid with her tail tucked round her, as she hovered over him, her breasts half-exposed. “I don’t know why, because you’re beautiful, like a watermelon ice from Gunter’s, but hot. I think I’d like to taste him.”
He exhaled raggedly, like a man in the throes of death.
Indeed, he could die now. He had just experienced the single-most sensual moment of his life. He would never forget those words for as long as he lived.
He watched, unable to breathe, as with a tilt of her head, she pushed the dark cascade of her hair back over her shoulders and slowly bent over him. “May I…taste him?”
Every ounce of his willpower collapsed.
“Don’t let me stop you,” he rasped.
Her small tongue darted out to lick his swollen head and the pearl of liquid that glistened there. His hands seized in the coverlet, grabbing fistfuls. Any timidity on her part quickly fell away, and she licked and tasted him more thoroughly.
He hissed a curse.
“I take it that if you’re cursing that means you like what I’m doing?” she queried from behind the curtain of her silken hair, which had again fallen to pool against his abdomen.
“Yes.”
Her hair rippled as she lowered her head farther. Warm, wet heat enveloped his crown. Every muscle in his body clenched and flared alive. His control, which he’d kept so tightly coiled, shattered, and with a groan, his head fell backward—but only for the briefest moment because, bloody hell, he had to watch. With each slow bob of her head, a new wave of pleasure crashed over him. Involuntarily, his hips bucked, but her jaw widened, and she accepted more of his length, the flat of her tongue sliding against his shaft.
She pulled up, lips glistening with moisture, her eyes glazed and bright.
“I don’t want to waste the tiniest bit.” She pushed his shoulders, easing him back on the pillow.
“How did you know to do that?” he asked hoarsely.
“I found those books in your library—”
“The books.”
“So many interesting illustrations.” With his help, she eased his breeches lower. “Like this one—”
He didn’t even get them or his boots off before she straddled him. “Yes.”
He’d been reduced to one-word syllables, like a Neanderthal.
“Show me how.” Candlelight from the bedside lamp gleamed off her thighs and her face.
He shoved her gown up, bunching the flannel over her waist. The dark shadow of her mons hovered above his arousal. Sophia. His wife. His every fantasy come to life.
“Take me inside you,” he commanded in a guttural tone.
“Yes.” She gripped him again, directing him until his cock probed her warmth. The sight of their bodies joined proved too much. Impatiently, he thrust up, evoking a ragged cry from her lips and his own. His wife was as tight as a virgin. She adjusted her position and grasped his shoulders, gasping as her body stretched to accept him, inch by blessed inch, while he met her from beneath. When at last she’d taken all of him, he fisted his hand in her gown and dragged the flannel from her shoulders, baring her shoulders, breasts, and torso to his hungry gaze.
She bent low, pressing her mouth to his and staving her hands, fingers outstretched, across the plane of his chest. Through pink and swollen lips, she whispered, “This isn’t about obligation. Certainly now you must know that.”
He wanted to believe her. But did he dare? In this moment with their bodies so intimately joined, he knew only one certainty—that they would give each other pleasure.
His heart beating wildly, he kissed her back. Yet she pushed away, rocking back on her hips until her face tilted toward the canopy. The motion impaled her more deeply on his shaft.
“Sophia.” He seized her breasts in his hands, dragging his thumbs across her nipples.
“Claxton, yes.” Her inner muscles clenched him tightly.
She covered his hands with hers and with a flex of her thighs lifted herself up a few inches to sink down on him again. Gripping her hips, he encouraged her to ride him and they found a rhythm that pleased them both—one that started slow and sweet, but that soon had the bed creaking and swaying with the intensity of their efforts.
“Ah—” he groaned from deep in his throat. He wouldn’t last another—
“Now,” she cried.
Like the sudden strike of a flint against the frizzen, he exploded, his body reverberating with one earth- shattering report after another. She collapsed onto his chest, her hair strewn across his shoulder.
Afterward as they lay tangled in the sheets and each other’s limbs, he silently prayed she would be as open with her heart and mind in the bright light of morning as she had been with her body in the shadowed privacy of their bed.
Sophia awakened to near darkness and the pleasure of a strong male body twined around hers. Just when she’d finally grown accustomed to sleeping alone, her husband had returned to her bed. She liked the feel of him behind her in the dark. The steady rise and fall of his chest against her back. His muscled thigh aligned with hers. His arm banded tightly over her body, as if he’d never let her go. In this moment, everything felt perfect. She felt protected and cherished. As if their marriage was meant to be. Yet like a dirty secret, the list seemed to whisper at her from its hiding place. She ought to get up from the bed right now and burn the hateful thing…only she didn’t. The idea of leaving all this luxurious warmth made her snuggle closer to him, savoring Vane’s even warmer body…
Only to feel the sudden press of something long and thick against her bottom. And hot.
“You’re not asleep, are you?” she whispered.
“What gave me away?” He chuckled low in his throat. His chest vibrated against her back. He shifted, and with a hand to her hip, gently settled her flat on her back. His eyes, black in the night, peered down at her intently. “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking…”
“About what?” she asked softly.
She hoped he wouldn’t press her about the future. Yes, things were changing between them, and so quickly. There were decisions to be made. Though she knew Vane wanted her and even cared for her, she realized he also sought to put his ducal house in order. Their lives as duke and duchess were very much scrutinized by all who surrounded them—peers, servants, and the public. There were details to discuss. Social appearances. Sleeping
