by Anne Gracie
She stood stiffly while he slowly unhooked her, his breath warm on her neck. By the time he’d undone half a dozen of the hooks that ran down the back of her dress she’d had enough. “No, stop!” She turned around.
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“You need to kiss me first.” It came out a little high, almost squeaky. “I’m ridiculously nervous and I don’t know why, because it’s not that I don’t want to do this—I do, I really do—but I’m just, I don’t know, stupidly skittish and I know I have no reason to be, but if you kiss me, I’m sure it will be better, because when you kiss me—” She stopped abruptly.
“Yes? When I kiss you . . . ?” His voice was deep, knowing.
She smacked him lightly on the arm. “Oh, don’t look so smug. You know perfectly well what I’m trying to say.”
“I do indeed,” and he kissed her.
This time there was no hesitation, no light brushing of mouth against mouth, no teasing of the lips. It was neither gentle nor tentative—a bold possession—and her blood sang as she opened to him. The dark, familiar male taste of him flooded her senses.
This, this is what she craved. It was as if there was some deep ravening hunger in her that needed to be fed, and only he could feed it.
She pressed herself against him, twining her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer, all doubts, all hesitation gone. He pulled her hard against him, deepening the kiss, drawing a response from her she hadn’t known was possible.
She ran her palms along his jaw, enjoying the faint abrasion of his bristles, and all the time kissing and being kissed, not knowing where she began and he ended. Intoxication.
The edge of the bed pressed against the back of her legs and she let herself sink onto the thick mattress. She needed him closer. She hooked a leg around him.
“Easy there,” he murmured. “Almost there.”
Almost where? She opened her eyes to ask him, and felt a cold draft on her upper body.
“Sit up a moment,” he said.
She sat up and her dress fell down around her hips. “You unhooked me while we were kissing?” She wasn’t sure whether she approved. She hadn’t been able to think of a single thing while he was kissing her, but he apparently had been able to unhook a dress and kiss her senseless.
“Lift up,” he said, and when she did, he slipped the dress out from under her. “I’m very fond of that dress, don’t want to ruin it.” He draped it carefully over the rail on the end of the bed. “Now, where were we?” He turned back to her and sighed. “I suppose your stays are laced.”
She nodded, impatient to have him back in her arms, but quite enjoying his frustration.
His eyes devoured her. “Pink silk drawers, George? Very dashing.”
She blushed a little. They were presents from Rose and Lily—along with a couple of even more dashing nightdresses. “I always wear drawers. It’s too drafty the old-fashioned way.”
“I was rather fond of the old naked-under-the-skirt fashion, but I won’t complain. This is like unwrapping a most enticing parcel.”
“I’m not a parcel,” George said.
“I know you’re not: you’re a gift.” He turned her around and began to unlace her stays, kissing down her spine as his fingers flew to release her. Then she felt a tugging, and he swore. “Blast!”
He turned her to face him. “I can’t undo it. The wretched thing is knotted.” He bent and kissed her breasts. “Let’s try—aha!” He reached into the stays with his long clever fingers, drew out the busk and tossed it aside. “Now . . .” He peeled the top of her stays down, taking her chemise with it, baring her breasts to the air.
“So pretty.” He cupped them in his hands, and she shivered with the sensation. He teased the nipples with his thumbs, and she closed her eyes as tiny shudders began deep within her body. He laved one breast with his tongue, then placed his mouth over it and sucked. George almost came off the bed as a shaft of pleasure/pain speared through her.
His mouth and hands roved over her, the shudders grew stronger and stronger and she vaguely realized that her body was no longer under her control. Some ancient, irresistible force had taken over. Her legs trembled and fell apart and following some vague instinct, she lifted them to wrap them around his waist.
“One moment; first we need to get rid of—there.” He pulled off her drawers and tossed them aside, then, to her shock, he buried his face in the fur between her legs and inhaled.
“I’m sorry, George. I can’t wait any longer.” His mouth came back to devour hers; she felt a warm, blunt object pushing at her entrance and then a sharp pain. She gasped, suddenly drawn back to awareness. Her body felt stretched, full, as if she might burst.
He checked for a moment and eased out of her, though not all the way. He slipped his hand between her thighs and stroked her with his fingers, and after a moment the shivers started again.
“Better?”
She managed a nod, and wriggled a little. It felt better, so she wriggled again. He groaned. “Lord, George, don’t—I can’t—” With an apologetic grimace he surged into her, and thrust again and again.
And suddenly her body found the rhythm and she moved with him. It felt right, this thing she had been craving for so long. He reached a climax and with a loud groan shuddered into her and collapsed.
They lay there, the duke lying on top of her, breathing heavily, for what seemed like a long time. George lay quietly, savoring the whole extraordinary experience, and quite enjoying the feeling of his weight pressing her into the mattress. Eventually he eased himself out of her and raised himself up on one elbow.
“I’m sorry, George. I should have— I lost control.”
“You lost control?” She wasn’t sure what that meant. Everything had happened more or less as she’d imagined it would. She just hadn’t imagined the rawness of it, the power, the almost animalistic instinct that had taken over her body, moving and reacting without conscious volition. Though it made sense to her. Humans were animals too, she’d always maintained.
He nodded. “I should have waited, should have made it better for you. I have no excuse. You drive me wild with desire. I’ve been aching for you ever since that first kiss.”
Wild with desire? For her? Then she wasn’t the only one who’d been feeling tense and a little out of control? Had he also had wild, erotic dreams?
Pleased, she reached up and stroked his cheek. “It’s all right.”
“It’s not.” He kissed her again, caressed her half-exposed breast, then groaned. “I didn’t even let you get fully undressed, and as for me . . .” He was almost fully dressed. Apart from removing his cravat, he’d unfastened the fall of his breeches and pushed them down over his backside, but that was all.
“Well, we can certainly do something about that.” George sat up and reached for the buttons on his waistcoat.
“I can do it,” he said and started to undo them himself.
She slapped his hands away. “You got to unwrap your parcel, this is mine.” She swiftly denuded him of coat and waistcoat, pulled his shirt over his head, removed his shoes and stockings and pulled his breeches and drawers off. In minutes he was naked.
She stared at him, breathless. She’d seen men without shirts before, and viewed paintings and marble statues of naked men, but never a flesh-and-blood naked man. He was fascinating, beautiful. Strong and sculptured.
And his manhood. She’d expected something much smaller after seeing the paintings and statues.
At first he didn’t seem to mind her inspection of him, but after a few minutes he stood up. “You’re still half dressed,” he pointed out, and bent to remove her shoes and stockings. “As for this—” He walked into his dressing room and came out with a small knife. “I’m going to remove those wretched stays.” He did so. The stays fell away and he pulled off her chemise.
His eyes devoured
her. “You are the most beautiful . . .” He pulled her against him, and kissed her deeply, then flipped back the bedclothes and lifted her in. He got in beside her and pulled up the bedclothes.
He surely wasn’t going to sleep, was he?
George flipped back the bedclothes. “I’m not finished looking at you,” she informed him. She stroked his chest, fingering the tiny flat male nipples and wondering if they were as sensitive as her nipples had proved to be. She experimented and when he shivered and arched slightly under her hand, she smiled. Sauce for the goose . . .
She slipped her hand lower, caressing his flat, hard stomach in slow, tantalizing circles.
“Ah, so you begin to honor your wedding vows.”
“What?” She frowned at him, puzzled. “My wedding vows?”
“Tsk-tsk, forgotten them already? You promised to rub, cherish and olé me.” He lay back, like a big lazy cat. “Where do you propose to rub next?”
Chapter Nineteen
If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.
—JANE AUSTEN, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
George woke at dawn. She hadn’t had much sleep—they’d spent half the night exploring each other’s bodies—but she was in the habit of waking early.
She lay in bed, reflecting on the last few days. She was married. It still didn’t feel real, even though her body told her she was well and truly married. She was a little bit sore, but her body also felt looser and very satisfied.
She lay watching the dawn appear behind the curtains, and listened to the duke’s rhythmic breathing. His hand lay loosely splayed on her belly, warm and oddly heavy. Was this how she’d awaken in future, in a big richly furnished bed with her naked husband beside her?
No, of course not. She recalled the agreements they’d made. There would be a honeymoon and then she would live in her own house and he would make conjugal visits to ensure she gave him an heir.
The thought was strangely depressing, even though it had been exactly what she’d wanted before. She hadn’t known him then.
She still didn’t really know him, but she didn’t feel the same about him as she had. It wasn’t just the marriage consummation, either, though that had engendered a certain intimacy, a feeling of closeness between them.
It wasn’t just a physical connection she felt, though.
Even before the wedding night, the way he’d behaved toward her since the betrothal became real, his reaction to his discovery of his mother’s deception, the unspoken but public support he’d given her, his reaction in church to her scarlet dress, the rubies—there was more to him than she’d ever imagined.
Her bladder urged her out of bed. She found what she needed through his dressing room exit, and on the way back, feeling self-conscious to be walking around stark naked, she borrowed a richly masculine embroidered silk robe that was hanging on a hook. On her return she found him awake. “Morning.” She felt herself blushing.
“Good morning,” he murmured. “You look very fetching in that robe. How do you feel?”
“Fine. Very . . . relaxed.” She stood uncertainly, his robe clutched around her, her bare toes digging into the deep luxurious pile of his Persian carpet.
He got out of bed, and apparently quite unembarrassed by his nakedness or the semi-aroused state of his manhood, he kissed her briefly, then headed for the dressing room. He returned a short time later, belting a tie around another robe. “You’ve woken very early. I didn’t let you sleep much last night—you don’t want to sleep in?”
She shook her head. He pulled the curtains open, and the morning sun streamed in.
“I don’t sleep in very often,” she explained. “We—my family and I—usually go for an early ride, especially in summer.” She wondered if they were riding out now.
His green-gray eyes glinted. “I would show you another kind of dawn ride, except I suspect you’re a bit sore.”
Her sleepy body leapt to life at his words. She swallowed, and said diffidently, hoping she didn’t sound too eager. “I’m not really.”
He took two strides toward her and slipped his hands between the folds of her robe. His warm hands caressed her, slipping down over her hips, cupping her buttocks, then sliding up her body in slow tantalizing sweeps coming to rest just beneath her breasts. “Are you sure? Because you were indeed a virgin, and—”
“I’m fine. So if you want to . . . I don’t mind.” Not mind? She was already aroused.
He cupped her breasts and swept his thumbs over her hardened nipples. She gasped and arched toward him. Slipping her own hands under his robe, she reached down to grasp him.
He pulled back. “No, don’t touch me. Not yet. This time is for you.” He walked her backward and pushed her gently onto the bed. He flipped the robe open and sighed. “You are so lovely.”
In response, she pulled his robe off him and ran her hands over his magnificent shoulders. He was beautiful too, though if she told him that he’d probably think she was trying to flatter him. He was too used to flattery. The knowledge inhibited her.
He ravished her with mouth and hands, exploring her body, licking, kissing, nibbling, surprising and exciting her with small nips—like a stallion did with a mare, only more gentle. Her body was afire.
His mouth closed over her breast, laving and sucking at her nipple and she gasped with pleasure as hot spears of sensation spiraled through her. Vaguely she realized his hand was between her legs. His fingers moved in slow, tantalizing, rhythmic circles, and she wriggled and thrust her body against them, trembling and shuddering, her legs shaking. Not long now, she thought.
She ached for him to enter her. He was hard and erect and ready, but every time she reached for him, he stopped her with his hands. “Not yet.”
The tension spiraled higher. She was frantic with need. “Now, Hart, now!”
He pushed her legs apart, and she waited for him to enter her, but instead she felt his hot breath, there. He parted her with his fingers and—oh, God!—he was licking and nibbling and sucking and . . .
She couldn’t . . . she couldn’t . . . She was going to . . .
She gripped his hair and screamed. And shattered around him in an explosion of ecstasy . . .
She might have slept for a while, she wasn’t sure, though someone had covered her up. But when she finally gathered her scattered senses enough to think, only two thoughts came to mind. The first was that it was no wonder that Lily and Rose often arrived late for their morning ride. She stretched luxuriously. If this was married life, she liked it very much.
The second thought came a few moments later: he hadn’t entered her at all.
She sat up. He was lying on his side, his head propped on his elbow, contemplating her. “Did you like that?”
She couldn’t keep the smile from her face. “Yes, but—”
“But? After all that, there is a but?” he said, pretending indignation.
She laughed. “You know there isn’t. But you didn’t . . . um.” She blushed.
“I didn’t ‘um’ because I ‘ummed’ several times last night, whereas you hadn’t ‘ummed’ at all. It will get better with practice, and we will both ‘umm’ together, but in the meantime, you needed to find out what ‘umming’ was all about.” He leaned forward and kissed her nose and got out of bed. “Now, I’m off to bathe and shave, and you, my duchess, will have a bath. I’ve ordered hot water to be brought up in twenty minutes.”
George lay back against the pillows. Then her eyes flew open. “The servants are back?”
“Of course. We need bathing and shaving water and breakfast, don’t we? And your luggage and maidservant will have arrived. I told her not to come until this morning.”
George looked at him in dismay. “But if the servants were here this morning”—she pressed her hands against cheeks grown suddenly hot—“they will have heard.” She distinctly
remembered someone screaming, and it wasn’t the duke. Her face was hot with embarrassment.
His expression was half smug, half amused. “Then they’d better get used to it.” He picked up his robe and, naked, walked from the room.
* * *
* * *
At breakfast the butler brought in the morning mail. The duke glanced through it quickly, sorting it into piles, then frowned over one particular letter. “Blast. I was hoping we could set off on our honeymoon today.” He glanced at the letter again and then up at her. “I’m afraid Venice will have to wait.”
She didn’t mind that at all. The only time she’d ever been on a boat, she’d been horribly seasick. “Why, what’s the matter?”
“There’s a child—my ward, my late cousin’s son—and he’s disappeared.”
“A child? How old is he?”
“Seven. He was orphaned last year and his father left him and the estate in my hands. I’m to be trustee until the boy turns twenty-one.”
“When did he go missing? Do they have any idea of what might have happened?”
He glanced at the letter. “He was first missed three days ago. They suspect kidnapping, but no ransom note has been received.”
“Three days? And they’ve only just notified you?”
He rolled his eyes. “It will no doubt turn out to be a storm in a teacup, but I’ll have to go there—the boy is my responsibility.”
A storm in a teacup? “Aren’t you worried about him?”
“The boy is probably playing a trick on the servants and is hiding somewhere.”
“For three days? What if he’s unhappy and has run away?”