“Every man since Adam has feared the power of a woman’s temptation. Every woman since Eve comes to understand they are right to fear us. Be thankful we are merciful creatures.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to her local vicar after a fiery sermon on the dangers of lust.
Responding to her challenge by carefully stepping back, the duke tightened his lips in apparent disapproval. “I should think you would seek to avoid wagers,” he retorted softly.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Evidently, he thought angering her would cause her to retreat from her course. He was mistaken. “Let’s eat, shall we?” She stooped to retrieve the blanket then spread it out with a snap and sweep of her arms, laying it on a smooth patch of ground cushioned with grass, moss, and vines.
“I am not hungry.”
“Pouting is unworthy of you, your grace.”
“You have drawn me away from important—”
She turned from where she was unpacking the basket, her hands landing on her hips. “Rubbish. Is your will so weak that you cannot even bear a simple meal with me? I thought you stronger than that.”
This provocation appeared to anger him, as his eyes snapped and flashed. “Be careful how you challenge me, wife. You may not like the consequences as well as you believe.”
Ignoring the peculiar twist in her belly, Jane promptly replied, “Don’t be silly,” and then lowered herself onto the blanket. “We are dining together. It is not a challenge. It is a meal.” She waved him over and patted the blanket next to her. “Come sit, your grace. The sooner we finish, the sooner you may resume your day’s tasks.”
Reluctantly—very reluctantly—he joined her, sitting on the far edge of the blanket, directly across from her. She smiled and leaned forward to hand him a mince pie wrapped in a napkin then took one for herself. “See? Isn’t this pleasant?” she sighed.
He did not answer, instead taking a resentful bite, his arm propped negligently on one upraised knee.
She was not, in fact, terribly hungry. At least, not for food. But she made a show of savoring each tidbit, each flaky, buttery bite. First, her mince pie. Then, a sweet apricot tartlet. Finally, the plump, juicy strawberries. By the time she pulled the small flask of wine from the basket, his eyes were glazed with what she now recognized as pure lust. He had taken only three bites, preoccupied with watching her lick crumbs delicately from her fingertips.
As her fingers slid over the flask, she tsked. “Oh, look. Now I am all sticky.”
Suddenly, in one swift motion, he pushed himself onto his feet and paced away from her to the stone wall, all the way across the wide space, his hands braced on his hips, his shoulders stiff. “Jane,” he said roughly. His voice was muffled, since he stood more than twenty feet from her with his back turned. “You must stop.”
“Why must I?”
He shook his head, waiting a long time before offering an answer. “What I want from you, it is not … not appropriate to demand of a wife.”
Rising onto her knees, she carefully stood, shook out her skirts, and picked her way over the remnants of their meal to move nearer to him. Mindful that pushing him too far could work against her, she halted a few feet away. “Is it not conceivable you are exaggerating the delicacy of my sensibilities just a bit?”
His head fell forward and shook back and forth as one arm straightened to prop against the stone wall. “You don’t understand.”
He sounded so despairing, she could not bear it another second. Within moments, she had slipped silently between him and the wall, the moss cool against her back, his chest radiating heat against her front. “Then I propose a solution,” she said as his eyes came up to meet hers. They were as volatile as an ocean squall. They drove the air from her body, made her ache deep inside. She wanted to soothe him, to ease his obvious torment. “Tell me your desires. Describe them, one by one. And I shall inform you if anything you say causes me offense. Surely words alone are permissible, if only to establish where the boundaries lie.”
She could see his mind working, mulling her suggestion. He was not a man easily dissuaded from a course he had already set, as Victoria had rightly observed. However, she was counting on a combination of logic and lust to push him into bending. Just a bit. For her.
“Words are powerful, Jane. With your love of reading, you should know this better than most.”
“We shall leave them here, at the castle, then. They will live among the moss and the ravens.” She reached for the hand still propped on his hip, and he let her take it in hers—a promising sign. Stroking the back of his strong, lean hand, then lacing their fingers together, she met his eyes fully and said, “I give you this promise. Whatever you say to me here shall remain ours alone. And, should you desire, we need never speak of it again.”
He appeared mesmerized by her hand cradling and caressing his. For a long while, he said nothing, the rustle of leaves and the rush of their breath the only sounds between them. When he broke the silence, his voice was dusky and low. “Your hands are exquisite. Do you know?”
Her breathing quickened, her pulse following suit. “Are they?”
He nodded. “I dream of them often.”
“What do you dream?”
“Your touch upon me.”
“I dream of that, too.”
Closing his eyes briefly, he took a deep breath. “Not like this.”
With her free hand, she laid her palm directly over his heart. “For me, it always begins here,” she whispered. “I very much admire your chest.”
His mouth curved into a small half-grin. She sensed she had surprised him. “I’m afraid my fantasies are not quite so chaste.”
“Tell me.”
The smile disappeared, replaced with hunger. “You do not wish to hear this.”
Frustrated with his reticence, she swatted him lightly. “I do. Tell me.”
And then, he did, his voice stark and challenging, daring her to object. “I dream of you naked. Completely. Of your hands caressing me.”
If he expected her to scream and run away after that, he was sadly—
“Between my legs.”
Oh, she realized. His appendage. She had not thought much about touching it with her hands. She’d not even had a close look at it, what with his penchant for shrouding them both in cloth and darkness.
But he wasn’t finished. “I long for your hands to stroke me there, to take my cock between your lips—”
“Cock? Do you mean your appendage?”
He blinked as if awakening from a dream, only to find a spider crawling upon him. His dismay was comical. “My what?”
“Your appendage. The part of you between your legs, which you insert inside m—”
He coughed, swallowed hard, and firmed his lips. “You refer to it as my appendage?”
“Yes. You, apparently, do not. I don’t know what you find so amusing. Is cock a better word? I think not. Appendage is more descriptive and gentler to the ear.”
His lips quirked and trembled. “By all means, call it whatever you like.”
She sniffed. “Do go on.”
Chest shaking with controlled laughter, he said, “I have forgotten where I left off.”
“You wish me to stroke your app—your cock—with my hands, and then take it into my mouth.”
All laughter, suppressed and otherwise, ceased instantly at her plain words. His hand squeezed hers reflexively, his eyes blazing down at her like blue flames. “Yes,” he said, his voice raw.
“Frankly, your grace, I don’t see the problem.”
“I am not finished.”
Her heart thudded against the bones of her chest, the arousal of his desires firing hers. “Continue. Please.”
He crowded closer to her, bringing her hand up to his mouth. Tenderly dragging his lips across the skin on the back of her hand, he murmured, “First you would kneel before me.” He slid her index finger into his mouth, suckling it gently, his tongue swirling and playing before releasing it to lie helplessly against his lower lip. He allowed it to retract and rest against his chin. Meanwhile, his thumb circled her palm with tiny, thrilling strokes. “Then your beautiful white hands would squeeze my cock, sliding and milking. You would need to be firm about it. I am agonizingly hard for you. Always. The instant you enter my mind.” He placed her palm against his jaw, holding her hand there. Her fingers cupped his cheek automatically. “When you take me inside your mouth, you will use your lips and your tongue to stroke and pleasure me. Then, with your hands, you will pleasure yourself.”
She moaned, her heat flush raging out of control, weakness destroying her ability to stand. She had never imagined these things. These intimate, erotic, diabolically clever things. But she wanted them. She wanted him. This very second.
He frowned. “I have distressed you.” He began to pull back. “I shall stop.”
She clung to him, one hand reaching for his neck, the other grabbing a handful of riding jacket. “If you stop, I will kill you,” she growled.
His face froze in a look of perplexity and dawning realization. “You are—you are not disgusted.”
“Tell me more. Tell me everything,” she panted, her fingers digging and pulling at him. She could not help it. He had lit a fire unquenched by anything other than him.
“You are aroused.” He sounded astonished.
She groaned a protest at his bloody slowness. “Remove your coat,” she ordered, tugging at the fabric. She had the thing halfway down his back before he began to assist her. Beneath it, he wore only his shirt and a simple, unstarched cravat. She buried her nose against the linen, breathing deeply of his scent, rubbing her aching breasts against his ribs, running her hands up and down the hard muscles of his chest. He was a feast for her hunger.
His hands came up to cup the back of her head, his fingers delving into the tight coil to dislodge her pins. Her hair fell loose down her back, a cool, heavy whisper sliding along her spine. Hands threading into the strands, he used his grip to tilt her mouth up to his.
She opened for his tongue, her hands gripping his nape and pulling herself higher along his body. He tore at the back of her dress, the delicate muslin shredding easily. Bodice now gaping, she shrugged off the gown and pushed it down over her hips as he stripped her of her stays and petticoat. At last, she stood before him, bare but for her spectacles.
His eyes—oh, his eyes—were fierce with lust, devouring her breasts, her rounded belly, her thighs and the swollen, aching juncture between them. His chest worked like a bellows, like a horse run too hard. His fingers ripped away his cravat. Muscled arms crossed over his chest to grip the hem of his shirt and draw it swiftly over his head.
Oh, he was lovely. His chest, padded with muscle, lightly dusted with hair, lured her eyes and hands to linger and touch and stroke with abandon. But there wasn’t time. He dropped his shirt on the ground and immediately began working at the opening of his breeches. She grabbed his wrists, halting his frantic efforts, then fell slowly to her knees upon the discarded clothing at their feet. The warm summer air was like a silken caress on her naked skin as she unbuttoned his fall, her hands deliberately stroking the raging hardness bulging beneath the buckskin. Until it was revealed. His cock. Large and flushed, heavily veined and impossibly hard, it stood straight out from his body.
A loud groan emerged from her husband’s throat as she grasped the hot, silken stalk in her fist, sliding her fingers up and down its substantial length. Unhesitatingly, almost on instinct, she leaned forward and enfolded the rounded head between her lips, suckling lightly and enjoying the musky, salty taste of him.
His hand fisted in her hair, for a bare moment pushing his length past her teeth and deeper into her mouth. He pulled back when she gasped, then slowly pushed forward again. Soon, she realized his need and relaxed her tongue, letting more of him slide in. Her hand squeezed him at the root, trying to better control the rhythm. His strangled cry of pleasure sent echoing sensations surging through her body.
“Jane,” he panted. “I cannot take much more.”
She did not want to release him, but he insisted, pulling her hand away and withdrawing from her mouth. Protesting that she wanted more of him, she fell silent when he dropped to his knees before her, cupping her face in his hands.
“I have to be inside you,” he said starkly, taking her mouth with his before she could answer. Cradling her head, he lowered them both to the ground, laying her upon his coat and shirt, then kissing his way down her throat, his mouth suckling, his tongue sliding. She wrapped him in her arms, pressing her hard, aching nipples against him. One of his hands hooked behind her knee, spreading her legs to make room for himself. She scarcely noticed, for at the same time, his lips found her nipple and consumed it in the furnace of his mouth. Sucking with a fierce pressure, he compelled her body to arch into him, seeking more of the wild sparks flaring outward from the sensitized tip. His tongue swirled and provoked, laving and heating until she moaned her pleasure. As he gave the same treatment to the other breast, his hand cupping the weight of the flesh and holding it prisoner to his mouth, she sobbed and clawed at his back, begging him to be merciful. “Please,” she cried. “Please, your grace. I want you inside. Come inside me. Now, please.”
He released her breast, the damp tip cooling and beading even harder in the open air. “Jane,” he grunted. “For the love of God, call me Harrison.”
“Yes, your grace. Whatever you want. Just hurry.”
His hands pulling her legs up to bracket his hips, he positioned the tip of his cock at her opening, which flexed in ecstatic anticipation. Slowly, relentlessly, he sank his length deep inside her, his flesh stretching and invading in a deliberate slide. Just when she thought he could go no further, he pressed deeper, the base of him burning her opening, the thickness of him an almost painful ache. His arms gathered her tighter against his chest, one hand clasping her nape. “Do you feel that, Jane?” he whispered in her ear.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she nodded.
“That is your husband claiming what is his. What is mine. Do you understand?”
She moaned and arched her back, but he controlled her with his hips, staying rooted deep inside her, unmoving.
“If you understand, then say my name.”
“Please,” she whimpered, her fingers digging into his now-damp hair, her breasts rubbing frantically against his hard, muscled chest.
He licked her collarbone. His teeth tugged gently at her earlobe. His hips thrust even deeper, grinding against her. She moaned desperately. “Say it, wife. Who is inside you now?”
“You are. Harrison.”
“Yes,” he hissed, his hips jerking back and then pounding forward in a vicious, satisfying thrust.
She screamed her pleasure.
He thrust again.
She screamed his name.
And again.
She clawed and begged and screamed again.
Soon, the spiraling pleasure from the heat and power and speed of his thrusts gathered into a wave, rising and rising, curling and building, until her core exploded into spasms of incandescent ecstasy, seizing and spinning along her entire being, slamming her onto a golden shore over and over with its force. As the ripples echoed outward, she reveled in the feel of his continued thrusts, his hips hammering hers, his face beautifully stark above her, staring down into her eyes. The blue was engulfed by dark smoke, roiling with the ferocity of his culminating need. She cupped his cheek, brushing her thumb over his lips. At last, with three final strokes, his eyes squeezed shut. His teeth clenched, his head dropped to her shoulder, and he ended by shouting her name, his seed gushing inside her, his pleasure matching hers.
For a long while, they simply held one another, drifting in and out of sleep beneath the canopy of leaves and sky, their bodies sated and lazy in the sultry heat. Finally, his mouth found hers in a soft, lingering kiss. He stroked her hair away from her face, his hands bumping the rims of her spectacles. A grin tugged at his lips as he pulled back to hover above her.
“And what is that look all about, your grace?” she asked with a smile of her own.
“One day, I shall make love to you without your spectacles,” he answered. “And my name is Harrison.”
Wriggling until she was positioned more fully beneath him, she stripped away the spectacles, stretched out her arm to set them safely on a nearby stone, and then hooked her arms around her husband’s neck, drawing his mouth back to hers. “Well, Harrison,” she said. “I fancy ‘one day’ has arrived sooner than you anticipated.”
*~*~*