Chapter Thirty-Two
Undressed for the night and exhausted from the day’s activities, John dismissed his valet but did not climb into his bed. He stared at it instead. He had begun to hate the thing. It was a luxuriously large and soft chamber of tortures. It was the cold, empty scene of sleepless nights and unsatisfied lust. His wife’s similarly soft, significantly more interesting bed was just steps away. Besides, he reasoned, enjoying the benefits of his marital status was not only a right but a duty for a duke such as himself. How did one go about producing heirs if one did not bed one’s wife?
It was a lot of bollocks, that. John didn’t give a damn about an heir at that moment. He wasn’t even with Emma and he was already fully aroused. Denying himself had been a wasted effort. He certainly hadn’t prevented distraction. He was more randy now than he could ever remember being in his damned life. And at every ridiculously inappropriate moment. She’d been delectable in that red dress, and he’d been dangerously close to taking her right there in the drawing room where anyone could have seen them.
That was it. He swung a dressing gown over his shoulders and charged toward the door that led to his wife’s chamber.
Emma was not alone. She was still in her own dressing room, on the far side of the chamber, seated at her dressing table. Her long hair was unbound and her maid stood behind her, brushing through the chestnut tresses with long, steady strokes.
Though her back was to him, Emma met his eyes in the mirror as he approached and smiled warmly. He smiled languorously back at her reflection and, taking the brush from the maid’s hands, sent the girl from the room.
John continued the task himself, pulling the brush through the full length of his wife’s thick fall of hair. He followed the brush with the palm of his hand, smoothing the silken locks after each stroke. He watched Emma’s face in the mirror as he continued, watched her eyelids flutter closed and her head fall farther back in surrender to his ministrations. Her lips parted with a faint sigh, and he felt the stab of lust as sharply as though her hot hands had closed around him.
He wanted her hands there…wanted to put his hands on her, but he continued brushing and smoothing her hair with long, deliberate motions. He had no need to rush. He intended to do the opposite, in fact. He had plans to slowly revisit all the places on his wife’s body that warranted attention, and he could think of several. As he inventoried them in his mind, he watched the rhythm of her breathing change, her chest rising and falling as though his every thought had been whispered aloud to her and heightened her arousal.
When his need to touch her became too great, he gently lay the brush on the table and brought both hands to her shoulders, kneading with his thumb along her neck and driving his fingers into her mass of hair.
She released a ragged sigh and leaned back against him in full surrender. He reached forward with one hand and untied the tidy bow at the neckline of her nightgown. The collar thus freed, he pushed the garment down, baring her shoulders, and moved his massage outward. He kneaded her shoulders and upper arms, pushing the gown lower as he went until it was barely draped across the upturned, tightened peaks of her breasts.
Unable to resist any longer, he slid his hands forward to cup both, while leaning in to trace his lips across her collarbone and along her neck. He kneaded and teased and watched in the mirror as her lips parted farther and her breath became more labored. When she opened her eyes, he was gratified to see the cloud of desire that reflected back at him.
Their eyes held for a moment while he touched her then she rose and turned to face him. As she did, he pushed the thin nightgown all the way to her waist, leaving her top bare. She reached for the tie to his dressing gown, pulled it undone, and slid her hands inside, pressing herself against him so her bare breasts teased his chest. He could feel her heat against his arousal, despite the thin fabric barrier that remained.
She lifted her face to his and he captured her mouth. He probed with his tongue while she clung to him and slid his hand down her backside until the nightgown finally fell away, then he cupped her buttocks and pressed her tightly against his arousal, this time flesh to flesh.
She groaned. At least he thought it was her. He couldn’t be certain, because it was so good, this hot desire that rippled between them as his hands slid and grabbed with a will of their own, and his mouth plundered hers with bruising kisses. With one arm around her back, he slid his other hand between them to tease her sex. He slid one finger inside her and felt her quiver, felt her lean more heavily on his supporting arm. Eyes closed, her head lolled backward, lips open, and John thought nothing could be more arousing than watching his wife surrender to the ecstasy of his touch.
Then she lifted her head, opened her eyes, and locked her gaze on his just as her warm hand reached forward and closed around his erection, forcing John to amend his prior judgment.
No longer able to trust himself on his own two feet, John interrupted their exploration to lead his wife to her bed and lay her sideways across it. With complete lack of inhibition, she opened herself to him. He could bury himself inside her right then, but no. He had given in to his baser need, thrown all his fears and better judgment away. He was going to take his time and make every moment of this worth the wait and the self-sacrifice he had forced them both to endure.
Hovering over her, he trailed a single finger upward along the pale satin skin of her inner thigh, brushing ever so lightly past the apex between her legs and watching her tense and quiver as he approached. Then he trailed the finger just as slowly down the other side. Cupping her mound with one hand, he bent his head and traced his lips along the line his finger had drawn. When he had finished teasing her with both his hands and his lips, he used his fingers to spread her folds and lowered his mouth to kiss her.
She lifted her head. “John…I don’t…is that…”
“Shhh.” He reassuringly massaged the inside of one creamy thigh. “Trust me.” He bent his head again and licked her, eliciting a shiver that seemed to course through them both. She was beautiful and she was his and he was going to savor every last part of her. He’d been wanting to do just this for so damned long. “Trust me,” he repeated, then set himself to the task of making love to her with his lips and his tongue.
She tensed at first, then relaxed, clutching the bed linens at her side as he brought her to the brink this way she’d never experienced. Then he slid a finger inside her and she strained against him—against his mouth.
“Holy God.” She barely whispered it.
He felt her muscles contract around his finger, felt her body succumb to climax. He kissed her through it. He placed a soft, slow kiss on her inside of her thigh as she fell from the precipice.
“John,” she said hesitantly, “I didn’t know…”
“Now you know,” he said, rising to sit back on his heels. “I should have shown you sooner.”
She looked at him through passion-clouded eyes. “But you haven’t…” He eyes dipped meaningfully.
“Not yet.”
“But we can still…”
He smiled wickedly at her. “Most definitely.”
She eyed his nakedness with unabashed curiosity. “Could I… do that…to you?”
Her hesitantly eager question was nearly his undoing. Bloody hell, he wasn’t sure if he could survive it if she did. He knew for certain he didn’t have the strength of will to decline the offer. He nodded gruffly. “Are you sure?”
She nodded and rose to her knees, directing him to lie down in her place. She hovered over him, unsure and timid, strands of chestnut silk draping over his midsection. He could not have imagined there was a more alluring seductress in all the world. She licked her lips, then lowered her head. She kissed the tip of him first and he groaned. Then she tasted him and he shivered. She closed her hand and then her mouth over him, and his hips rose off the bed of their own accord. He only survived a few moments of the delicious torture before he lifted her from him and reversed their positions, tucking her underneath him and burying himself deep inside her. He groaned aloud and thrust with an urgency that had been building for what seemed a lifetime. She met each one, shuddering and calling his name just a moment before he clutched her tightly and met his release with one final thrust.
Some while later, as Emma lay peacefully tucked against his side because he was, frankly, still too weak to consider returning to his own bed, John realized neither one of them had spoken since their lovemaking had ended. There’d been no need. This night had been unlike anything he’d ever experienced, even in his previous nights with Emma, and he knew it had been because of her…because she’d met his passion with a need that was just as great.
He’d always thought of sex as good—sometimes very good—but essentially as a physical release, the satisfaction of a need. This night had been more than that. It had been an elevating experience. It was unexpected. She was unexpected. So much more than willing and interested, she’d been…combustible.
She lay peacefully alongside him, and he suspected she was already asleep, understandably spent. He would be asleep soon too, and needed to remove himself to his own chamber, but he didn’t move yet. He considered his wife. Had she spent the day, as he had, anticipating their coupling? Did ladies do that as men did? He thought of Emma at the breakfast table, or discussing the week’s menu with Mrs. Dewhurst, all the while assailed with visions of what they’d just done, and quite liked the idea. He would endeavor to remind her at some point tomorrow, just to see what sort of blushes he could inspire.
He lay back. He wasn’t going anywhere. She was warm. He was comfortable. There need be no greater significance than that. He was finished with pointless self-denial. He could not lose his soul or his sanity to this woman, but neither would he allow his father’s legacy to rob him of the basic joys of his marriage.