Chapter Twenty
There was nothing but darkness outside Finn’s bedchamber window when Iris untangled herself from his warm embrace, crept across the room and began to gather her clothing.
It proved to be a daunting task.
Coats, shirts, stockings, and cravats were scattered from one end to the room to the other. She stumbled about in the dark, stifling a hiss of pain when she tripped over Finn’s boots and hit her shin against the bedframe. She found her petticoat twisted in her riding skirt in a heap under the bed, and her shirt and cravat were hanging over the wash basin on the other side of the room.
Dear God. It looked as if they’d fallen on each other in a wild frenzy and torn each other’s clothes off as soon as the bedchamber door closed behind them.
Iris’s cheeks heated. In other words, it looked like precisely what it was.
She glanced at the bed and a yearning sigh escaped her. Finn was asleep on his back, his long limbs flung in every direction. The sheets rode low on his hips, and his powerful chest and taut stomach were on display, along with acres of smooth, bronzed skin.
And she’d thought his chin dimple was mesmerizing.
He looked sleepy and warm and utterly delicious, and every feminine instinct urged her to slide back under the covers and wake him by pressing kisses to every inch of that delectable skin, but she couldn’t dally here all morning.
Could she?
No, no, of course she couldn’t. There’d be no end to the uproar if anyone discovered she hadn’t slept in her bed, especially if that person should happen to be Violet, who’d worm the truth out of her before Iris managed to struggle back into her corset.
Where was her corset?
Perhaps she’d left it by the bed. She’d just have a quick look, and while she was there it wouldn’t hurt to take one last peek at Finn while he slept, and in any case, she couldn’t leave him, ah…exposed like that. He’d take a chill. She’d just pull the blanket over him, and perhaps smooth the hair away from his face, and then she’d scurry off to her bedchamber.
Iris padded back across the room in her bare feet, her clothes in a bundle under her arm. She stood by the bed gazing down at his peaceful face for long moments, her heart both full and yet aching with a strange melancholy at once. He looked younger when he was asleep, almost boyish, the stern lines of his face softer in repose, and his golden-brown hair lying in disheveled waves across his forehead.
She reached out to trace his firm lips with one gentle finger. Just the lightest touch, so as not to wake him—
His hand snaked out and grabbed hold of her wrist. “Sneaking away in the dark, are you?”
A sound that was embarrassingly like a squeak left Iris’s lips, and she dropped her clothes to the floor. “No! I never sneak. But I need to get back to my bedchamber before someone discovers I’m missing.”
He raised himself up on one elbow and gazed at her with sleepy hazel eyes, his full lips curving in a lazy smile as he slowly shook his head. “Oh, no. I don’t think so, sweet.”
“If Violet finds us out, I’ll be…Finn!”
Finn caught her in his arms, tossed her onto the bed, and came down on top of her in a tangle of warm limbs. “Now, what were you were saying?”
His lips hovered over hers, so close, a mere breath away. “I, ah…” What had she been saying? “Oh, that Violet will catch me out, and then you’ll have to explain to Captain West a debaucher lurks under your gentlemanly exterior.”
“Yes, but I only let him loose when I want something.” He touched his thumb to her mouth, his eyes darkening when her lips parted for him. “And I want you, Iris.”
“I see. Do you always get what you want, Lord Huntington?” She bit down gently on the tip of his thumb, making him moan.
“Always.” He slid one long, muscular leg between hers and stroked a large hand over her belly, inching closer to the curls between her legs with each caress.
Iris caught her breath as wet warmth flooded her core. She was tempted to spread her legs and let him pleasure her as he had last night, but as delicious as that would be, there was one small matter she hadn’t worked through.
How did he use the silk scarves?
“Tell me about these dark desires of yours.”
Finn went still, and his body tensed. He was silent for a long moment, then he blew out a breath and flopped over onto his back, covering his eyes with one arm. “There’s nothing so dark about them.”
Iris propped herself on her side beside him and balanced her head in her hand. “I’m not asking you to explain yourself to me, Finn. I’m simply curious. My books described all manner of scandalous things, but Philander never blindfolded Octavia with a cravat.”
She was only teasing him, but he didn’t smile. “I would never hurt you, Iris. You know that, don’t you?”
Iris’s smiled faded. Did he truly believe she was afraid of him? She pulled his arm away from his eyes and turned his face toward her. “Of course you wouldn’t hurt me. I never for a moment thought you would. That’s not why I asked. It’s just… I want to know you, and…” Her face heated. “Give you what you need in the bedchamber.”
“I don’t need it,” he said, too quickly. “Not from you.”
“If not from me, then who?” Iris winced at the jealousy in her voice, but blast the man, if he was going to bind anyone, it was going to be her.
“No, I didn’t mean that. I meant I’ll do without, sweet.”
Iris might be a novice in the bedchamber, but it didn’t take unusual perception to see there was a part of Finn who needed to take command, to dominate. “You like the control of it.”
His jaw ticked. “It’s complicated.”
She ran her fingers over his raspy chin, then leaned forward to kiss away the tension in his jaw. “Explain it to me.”
He ran a rough hand through his hair. “It’s not just about control. That is, it does excite me to be in control of your pleasure, but it’s also about taking care of you, and protecting you, even. It’s difficult to explain.”
Iris thought about that for a moment, then she got out of bed and sifted through the piles of clothes on the floor. When she found what she wanted, she crawled back into bed beside him and held up two cravats. “Show me.”
He stared at her, horrified. “No, Iris.”
“Finn—”
“No. You’re an innocent—for God’s sake, last night you were a virgin, and you’ve only recently decided I’m not a liar. Even if I were to agree to it at some point, it wouldn’t be now. Not when trust is still so fragile between us.”
Iris ran the long length of his cravat between her fingers. He was right. She wasn’t quite ready for that kind of adventure, but perhaps there was another way.
“Do you trust me?”
“It doesn’t work like that, Iris. I do trust you, but I don’t permit my lovers to bind me.”
“Have you ever had a lover you trusted, or have they all been like Lady Beaumont? Mistresses, or courtesans?”
He didn’t reply, but his silence was her answer.
Iris placed her hand on his chest, over his heart. “Have you ever taken someone you love to your bed, Finn? Someone who…who loved you in return?”
He’d been staring at the ceiling, his lips tight, but now he turned to her, his eyes soft. “No.” His voice was choked. “I haven’t.”
She leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to his lips. “Until now.”
But Iris tossed the cravats aside. She didn’t want to push him on this. He knew he could come to her if he changed his mind, and for now, that was enough.
She lay down beside him with her head on his chest, and Finn wrapped his arm around her. After a while his breathing became slow and even, and Iris thought he’d fallen asleep, but then he stirred against her, and his low voice rumbled against her ear. “Lay the cravat over my eyes, but don’t tie it.”
She rose up next to him, startled. “We don’t have to, Finn—”
“I want to.”
The first fingers of dawn had crept through the window now, and she studied his expression in the dim light. His jaw was still tense, but there wasn’t a trace of doubt in his eyes.
Iris reached behind her and picked up a cravat. “Like this?” She laid the long strip of cloth over his eyes but left it loose, as he’d asked her to do.
“Yes. Now the other.” He raised his arms over his head and crossed them at the wrists. “Bind my wrists, but loosely, so I can pull free if I need to.”
Iris bit her lip as a wave of doubt assailed her. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. Bind my hands.”
Iris grabbed the remaining cravat and looped it around his wrists. “I’ve left the ends untied, so if you need to get loose, you can easily slide it off.”
“Well, then. I’m at your mercy.”
That was when the reality of the situation hit Iris. He was at her mercy, laid out in front of her with every beautiful inch of him on display. His lips, that bronze skin, his hard chest, and that distracting line of hair low on his belly that led straight down to his—
“What are you waiting for, sweet? I thought you wanted to touch me.”
“Oh, I do. I’m just, ah…well, I’m not sure where to begin.”
Finn let out a soft laugh, and moved his hips. “I have a suggestion, if you like.”
Iris glanced down the length of his body. The sheet still covered him from his waist down, but the thin white cloth was already rising over his hard length.
And all at once, Iris knew just what she wanted to do.
She pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the center of his chest. “That day, in Lady Fairchild’s garden.” She slid her hand from his chest over his stomach and felt his muscles tense under the caress. “I was peeking through the rose arbor at you and Lady Beaumont, and I saw something I didn’t quite understand at the time, but now…”
I still don’t quite understand.
But she did have a much clearer idea of the ultimate goal, and the rest of it, well…she’d work it out as she went along.
She stroked a finger over his nipple, surprised when he tensed, and the tiny nub hardened under her touch. “You like it when I touch you there, just as I do.” She stroked him again, then leaned over his chest to trace it with her tongue.
The muscles in his stomach jumped at the caress. “I do like it. Do it again.”
Iris smiled. He was terribly bossy for someone whose wrists were bound, but she had no intention of denying him. She nibbled at him and dragged her teeth over his nipple, then soothed the abrasion with gentle licks of her tongue.
He let out a strangled moan and threw his head back against the pillow. “Jesus, your tongue is so hot.”
Heat built between Iris’s legs at his panting breaths and the way he writhed under her hands. He didn’t seem to even know what he was saying, and the idea she could make him lose control was so arousing, she wanted more of it.
“I saw Lady Beaumont sink to her knees in front of you that day.” She inched the sheet down his body, a whimper of pure lust tearing from her throat when he thrust his hips against the cloth as it dragged over his length. “I couldn’t see clearly, but I think she lowered your falls. Did she?”
“Yes,” Finn moaned. “Touch me, sweet.”
Iris squirmed closer to him so she could rub her hard nipples against his chest. “Oh, I will. In a moment. But first, tell me what she did to you after she lowered your falls.”
“She took…” He tried to catch his breath. “Took out my cock.”
“Like this?” She slid her palm down his stomach and wrapped her fingers around him, amazed at the way he pulsed in her hand. He was fully erect, his tip slippery from the bead of fluid welling there, and flushed a deep red.
“Yes.” His hips lifted off the bed so he could thrust into her hand. “Harder.”
“Not yet.” Iris kept on with her slow, gentle strokes, biting her lips at his tortured moan. “After she released you from your falls, you pushed her away.”
“Yes.” He thrust against her hand again, then growled in frustration when she drew back to keep him from getting the friction he needed.
Iris shimmied down his body so she was close enough he could feel her breath on his straining shaft. “What would she have done if you hadn’t?”
“Ah, God. She…” He trailed off with a groan.
The ache between Iris’s legs had grown unbearable. She was desperate for him to take her, to fill her with his hard length until she shattered around him, but she wanted this first, and she wanted him to ask her for it.
She tightened her fingers around his shaft and stroked faster to encourage him. “I saw her lower her head toward your lap. What was she going to do?”
“Suck,” Finn gasped. “She was going to take me in her mouth and suck me.”
“Do you want that now?” Her mouth hovered over his swollen tip. “Do you want me to take you into my mouth?”
He struggled with himself as she continued to stroke him, but he was moaning and thrusting his hips toward her mouth, and Iris knew his battle was over before it even began. The honorable marquess who was never far from the surface was no match for such wild, fierce arousal. “God, yes, sweet. Please. Suck me.”
Iris wrapped her hand around the base of his shaft and slid her lips hesitantly over his swollen head. She hadn’t any clear idea what to do, but he didn’t seem to notice. He arched off the bed with a harsh groan. “Don’t stop. So good. Your mouth is—”
She never found out what her mouth was, because whatever he was going to say was lost in another moan as she licked and teased, drunk on his clean, musky scent and the taste of him— soap, with a faint hint of salt. She sucked harder, amazed at the way his soft, thin skin slid so smoothly over the hard shaft underneath.
A guttural moan tore from his chest and his cock surged against her lips, as if it were begging for more of her mouth. So she took him deeper, and his hips jerked hard, as if to push deeper still, but despite his body’s desperation, he was pleading for something, his words nearly incoherent between his breathless gasps. “I don’t want to…ah, God, not yet, Iris. Don’t make me come.”
Iris released his shaft from her mouth with a wet plop, but she didn’t stop. She pressed her lips to his thick base and slid her fingers over his slick tip, playing with the moisture there as she nibbled at him.
“Iris.” It was a plea, and a warning.
She might have continued to play with him, despite his command—after all, he was supposed to be at her mercy—but then she felt his strong hands sink into her hair, and realized he’d torn loose from the cravat binding his wrists.
“Inside you. Now.” He wrapped her hair around his fist and eased her up the bed until she was sprawled on top of him. “Straddle me, with your legs beside my hips.” He kept one hand in her hair, but pressed the fingers of the other into her hip to help her into position. “Take me inside you.” His lips were pulled back from his teeth, his face nearly savage with stark desire.
I’m at his mercy now.
He hissed as she shifted to grasp him and her damp core brushed against his cock. “Spread your legs wider. Yes.” He nudged against her entrance and sucked in a breath when his tip slipped inside her. “Jesus, you’re so slick and hot. Did it make you wet to bind and tease me?”
Iris’s head began to fall back at the exquisite sensation of him slowly filling her, but Finn gave her hair a sharp tug. “No. Answer me. Why are you so wet, sweet?” He grasped her by the waist and raised her over him, then pulled her down onto his cock, a smile of pure masculine satisfaction curving his lips when she cried out.
But then he froze, his hazel eyes burning into hers. “You liked having me at your mercy, didn’t you? Would you have sucked me to release if I hadn’t stopped you?”
She whimpered and squirmed on top of him to try and make him move, but he let out a dark laugh and held her hips still. “No. Not until you tell me. Maybe this will loosen that busy tongue of yours.”
He leaned forward and took one of her nipples into his hot mouth and sucked, devouring her, and any thought she’d had of resisting him fled as he nipped and teased her. “Yes!” She grasped his head to hold him to her breasts. “I wanted to keep going, to keep you in my mouth until you—”
“Came.” He thrust his hips up, driving his cock into her once, and then, before she could catch her breath, he jerked his hips hard again, this thrust so powerful she nearly toppled off him.
Iris gasped, and her hands flew to his chest to steady herself as Finn, wild from her teasing, surged into her again and again, his hands guiding her hips down onto him with each upward stroke. He bit her earlobe, his whispers lost in his ragged breath as he begged her to come, to come for him…
Her release was hard and sudden, crashing over her like a wave and then sucking her deeper and deeper into the undertow, so deep she was gasping for breath and clinging to Finn as he toppled into his own release with a shout, his body going rigid for a long, heart-stopping moment before it let him loose at last.
Their skin was flushed and damp and they were both still breathless when he collapsed onto his side and tucked her against his chest, murmuring broken words of desire and love to her as she succumbed to a dreamless sleep.
When she woke again, weak morning sunlight was filtering through Finn’s window. It was early still, just past dawn, but Iris shrugged off her delicious languor, tossed the covers aside, and struggled to a sitting position.
Finn wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back against him. “No.”
“I have to, before Violet comes in search of me.” She gently unwound his arm from her waist and slid from the bed.
“She won’t be up for hours.” Finn flopped over onto his back with a grumble, then shoved a pillow against the headboard and leaned back against it, watching her as she scrambled to find her clothes.
Iris tugged her petticoat over her hips and struggled into her skirt. “She rises early, and if she sees even the least sign a debauchery has taken place, she’ll guess everything. I’d rather not be wearing a wrinkled riding habit when she finds me.”
“Wrinkled, and inside out.” Finn grinned and waved a hand at her. “The skirt, anyway. I’m not sure about the petticoat, but if you’ll come over here and climb into bed, I’d be happy to examine it.”
Iris scooped her shirt off the floor. “No, indeed, for you’ll have it off me in a trice, and…where in the world is my corset? Have you seen—” She slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes going wide. “Oh, dear God. We’ve left it in Charlotte’s sitting room!”
Finn yawned and shoved his hands behind his neck. “You’ll be all right without it. Your bedchamber is just on the other side of the stairwell, and no one will be in the hallways at this hour.”
She bit her lip, her brows drawn with worry. “But what if someone should find it in the sitting room? They’ll know at once what we’ve been up to! No lady happens to just leave her corset lying about in a sitting room, unless she’s been up to something she shouldn’t!”
“It’s all right, love. I’ll fetch it. Though if someone did find it, it wouldn’t be so terribly shocking. We’ll be married by the end of the week, after all.”
Iris was struggling to tuck the ends of her shirt into her skirt, but her head jerked up at his words. “What?”
He looked taken aback at her incredulous tone. “I spoke to Captain West about it yesterday. We’ll marry here, at Hadley House, before the end of the house party. We need to be wed before we return to London, Iris, to dispel any lingering rumors about you jilting me. I won’t have every half-wit in London gossiping about my wife. Captain West and I discussed it, and we both agree its best this way.”
“I see.” Iris crossed her arms over chest. “And are you marrying Captain West?”
“No, I’m marrying you.” Finn stared at her for a moment, then his eyes narrowed. “You look as if you’re contemplating jilting me. Again. For the third time. I swear to you, Iris, if the words ‘we don’t suit’ cross your lips right now—”
“Oh, hush. Of course I’m going to marry you. Do you think I would have permitted you to…” Her cheeks heated, and she tilted her chin at the bed. “To do that to me if I wasn’t?”
“As I recall, you did that to me, as well.” He gave her an inviting smile and pulled back the covers. “Now, come back to bed and do it again.”
“I most certainly will not.” She pressed her lips into a prim line. “You’re incorrigible. What happened to the honorable, proper Marquess of Huntington?”
“I’ll wear my cravat, if you like.” His eyes gleamed with playful humor.
Iris fought back a smile, and gave him a stern look. “I’m simply saying I would have preferred you discuss wedding plans with me, rather than with Captain West. You’ll keep that in mind with any future staggeringly important, life-changing events, won’t you?”
“If you insist. I meant to discuss it with you last night, but I became distracted.” His gazed roved over her, lingering on her unrestrained breasts. “I’m still distracted. I expect I’ll be distracted for many years to come. I may never let you leave the house once we’re wed.”
Iris flushed with pleasure, and this time she didn’t bother to hide her smile. “Go back to sleep, Lord Huntington. I’ll fetch the corset myself.”