Chapter 11
“Did you do or say anything to Maria Dalrimple when you ended your affair that she might feel justified in waging a vendetta against Amanda?”
Alex stopped pacing before the hearth in his study long enough to give his brother a frowning glance. “What makes you think this is Maria’s doing?”
Adam shrugged wide shoulders. “Emma mentioned to me that the lady on the horse seemed familiar to her, despite the veil covering her face. And Amanda did walk in on the two of you engaged in sexual relations when she arrived in London, which I believe would be enough to displease any woman.” He shook his head. “I have said it before and I will say it again, Alex, what the hell do you do in bed with these ladies that they turn feral when you end the arrangement?”
“I merely give them the physical attention lacking from their lives,” Alex dismissed distractedly as he thought on Adam’s previous comment. Could the rider have been Maria Dalrimple?
The incident with the intruder and the broken vase had happened on the night Alex had ended their affair. The second one today in the park had happened after Maria had seen Alex and Amanda together at the Stamford ball on Saturday evening. Surely that could not be a coincidence?
What was it about Alex that brought out these violent tendencies in the women he had once been involved with?
Whatever it was, Amanda was as undeserving as Emma had once been in feeling the lash of the jealous temper and recrimination of one of Alex’s ex-lovers. If Maria wished to make her displeasure known, then she could do it toward him, not Amanda.
Something Alex intended making clear to Maria at the earliest opportunity.
But first, he would empty his house of all these concerned but now unwanted visitors.
“His Lordship has gone out?” Amanda tried very hard to keep the disappointment out of her voice as she sat alone at the table in the small family dining room.
The butler nodded confirmation. “But he left strict instructions you were to be served luncheon in bed.”
Alex could take his strict instructions and shove them up his arse. Indeed, she would take great pleasure in telling him so herself—
Amanda brought an end to her rebellious thoughts to instead smile at Buckham. “I am sure His Lordship meant well, but I am neither an invalid nor an elderly or infirm lady. I take full responsibility for having come downstairs for luncheon at the usual time,” she assured as the butler continued to look uncertain, obviously not wishing to annoy his new employer. “You may now serve lunch, Buckham,” she added firmly.
He gave a stiff nod. “Very good, Miss Fullerton.”
Amanda waited until the butler had left the room before releasing a shaky breath.
She had hurried through her bath and washing her hair before wrapping herself up in a thick towel and drying and rearranging her hair and then dressing in one of her prettiest gowns. Admittedly, it had taken over an hour to complete all that, but she had still not expected Alex not to even be in the house when she came downstairs to join him for luncheon.
He had said the two of them would talk again later, and Emma had seemed convinced that Alex would be with her again as soon as she was bathed and dressed. Instead, Alex had dismissed all their guests and then gone out without saying so much as another word to her.
Amanda’s eyes stung with unshed tears.
Because delayed shock from this morning was setting in?
Or because the man she now realized she was in love with had simply gone about his business of the day as if nothing untoward had happened to prevent it?
The tears escaped over her lashes and scalded a path down the coolness of her cheeks.
Amanda had thought of Emma’s earlier remarks as she bathed, and Emma’s implication that she could see the same love in Amanda’s eyes for Alex as the other woman saw in her mirror every morning for her own husband.
And known it for the truth that it was.
Amanda had fallen in love with Alex.
Not at first sight, obviously. But Amanda now realized she had felt the first stirrings of the emotion when he spanked her for the first time. Even more so on the occasion of her second spanking. Dancing with Alex at the ball on Saturday evening had been delicious. What had happened in his carriage on the drive home even more so.
But it was not only the physical side of their relationship she loved—even those spankings—but the man himself. His deplorable taste in women apart, Alex was the most attractive gentleman Amanda had ever met. He was by far and away more handsome than those gentlemen she had met at the ball. She had also discovered these past few days that Alex was kind and generous to a fault, loyal to his brother and sister-in-law, and even to her. Even more important, he did not harbor the same feelings of what was a woman’s place to be, as so many other gentlemen of Society did.
But he also believed her to have lied to him, she reminded herself.
Perhaps not anymore?
Alex had apologized to her earlier for treating her badly, perhaps because he now believed she had not lied to him after all.
Amanda could not think of anything else he might be apologizing for.
Except he has gone out without speaking so much as another word to me on the subject!
Amanda knew herself to be opinionated, nor did she suffer fools gladly, but in the past, she had always been slow to temper. Not so today. Alex had given her hope only to snatch it away again by disappearing in this way, something for which he would feel the sharp edge of her tongue when he returned.
Something he did not do until she had finished eating the small amount of food she had been able to swallow down for her lunch before going through to the drawing room to await his return.
Amanda barely waited for Alex to enter the room and close the door behind him before she demanded, “Where have you been?”
Alex, having just spent a very unpleasant time visiting with Maria Dalrimple, was not in the mood to be verbally attacked by Amanda too. He was relieved that she seemed none the worse for her soaking this morning, and aware that he still owed her an explanation regarding those events, but there were limits to his willingness to be brought to task this way within his own household.
He moved to the tray of decanters on the side dresser, pouring himself a glass of brandy and taking a sip before answering her. “I advise you moderate your tone when speaking to me.”
“Oh?” Her chin tilted in challenge, those pale eyes glittering with temper rather than the fever he had feared she might take after being so thoroughly soaked this morning. “And why should I do that?”
Alex drew in a calming breath through his nose before speaking. “Perhaps because the last two occasions you chose to oppose me did not end well for you.”
She gave a dismissive snort. “You are threatening to spank me again?”
“No.”
Her eyes widened. “No?”
“You sound disappointed,” he taunted.
“Not at all!” Color stained her cheeks, whether of anger or embarrassment, Alex was unsure. “I just— I do not understand you.”
“Perhaps you are not meant to.”
“You are talking in riddles.”
“Am I?”
“Yes!”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you fully recovered from your ordeal this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.”
Alex threw the rest of the brandy to the back of his throat, then placed the empty glass carefully back on the drinks tray before striding stealthily across the room. “No lingering…chills?”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “No.”
“Are you sure?” he purred. “None anywhere?”
Amanda moistened her lips with a swipe of the tip of her tongue. “Not that I am aware, no.”
“Perhaps I should check for myself, just to be sure.”
“Alex?”
He raised challenging brows. “Amanda.”
Rather than feeling apprehensive of Alex’s strange turn of mood, Amanda felt a delicious shiver of anticipation run down the length of her spine. Perhaps because his eyes were glittering with an emotion she was starting to recognize as desire. For her.
“I… Perhaps you should,” she invited huskily.
His grin was completely predatory as he lifted her in his arms and carried her over to place her so that she was lying on the couch. He sat beside her, the intensity of his gaze moving over her slowly, from her head to her toes and then back again. “What is it that draws me to you, I wonder?”
Amanda made no reply, knowing from Alex’s musing tone that he was not addressing the remark to her but to himself. Knowing that he was drawn to her was enough for the moment.
He reached out to curve his palm against her cheek, his thumb rubbing lightly across her bottom lip. “Did you know that a lady’s lips are said to resemble the ones of her cunny?”
Amanda felt the heat color her cheeks. “I did not know that.”
“Hah, something Miss Marchment did not teach you!” he noted with satisfaction.
“I have already learned these past few days that there are several things Miss Marchment did not teach me.”
“Such as?” Alex’s thumb continued that slow caress against her bottom lip.
“That no man’s…member is exactly the same shape and size as another. I learned this only through observation,” she added hastily as his expression darkened. “I also now know what a man’s cum tastes like,” she added shyly.
“And what does it taste like?”
“Sweet, but also a little sour at the same time.”
“The former is perhaps because I put honey on my toast yesterday morning, and no doubt the latter from the alcohol I had consumed yesterday evening.”
“What you ingest affects the taste?”
“Never having tasted it, I have absolutely no idea, but it is perhaps a logical conclusion to come to.”
Logic? How could Alex could talk of logic now when the very air seemed fraught with the same tension that held Amanda under its spell?
His gaze held hers captive as his hands moved to the buttons at the front of her gown and he began to slowly unfasten them. “Your nipples looked very cold earlier,” he murmured as he pushed the two sides of her gown apart to reveal the chemise beneath. “Are they warm now?”
Amanda was almost afraid to speak for fear of breaking that spell. “I believe so.”
His gaze flickered up to hers and then down again. “But you do not know for certain?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps I should check them myself.” He spoke conversationally rather than asked permission as he pulled loose the ribbon fastening and tugged down her chemise until her breasts were completely bared to him. The coolness of the air instantly caused her nipples to grow fuller and redder. “They do not look as if they are warm,” he murmured as his hand cupped beneath one of her breast and his head slowly lowered to take one of the fully engorged nipples into the fiery warmth of his mouth.
Amanda’s back arched into that heat, pushing her nipple deeper into that inferno of heat as Alex began to suckle and pull on it with his teeth.
This, Alex recognized with satisfaction, was what he had been wanting since he left Amanda earlier this morning. One of her ruby-red nipples in his mouth, the other being plucked by his fingers and squeezed in his palm, and all accompanied by Amanda’s breathy moans of pleasure as her fingers became entangled in his hair and she held him closer still.
Alex gorged himself on both those ripe berries, sucking, pulling, and biting them until they were grown to twice their normal size in his mouth and Amanda was groaning and writhing beneath him.
His cock was a needy throb in his pantaloons by the time he released the nipple from his mouth with a moist pop. He stared down as their plumpness, still hungry for the taste and feel of Amanda in his mouth and against his hands.
Amanda looked up at him with glittering eyes through half-closed lids, her cheeks flushed with arousal, her bottom lip a deep rose color from where she had been chewing on it in between those gasps and groans. “Do not stop,” she pleaded. “Please, Alex, do not stop touching me.”
Stopping was the last thing on his mind! “I believe your nipples to be warm enough now. Perhaps I should test the theory of your lips next?”
She drew in a husky breath. “I…think I should like that.”
Alex knew he would like it. Very much. Besides, he had not eaten any luncheon yet today, and eating Amanda’s cunny would be the perfect way to sate his hunger.
But first he intended to kiss the lips she had been chewing on in between gasps these past ten or fifteen minutes while Alex pleasured her nipples. It was a pity she was not with child, because then he could have sucked and drunk down the warm milk from her breasts—
Dear God…
He had never even thought of such a thing before now. But having thought of it, he could not get the image out of his mind of him lying across Amanda thighs while she fed him from her nipples, one at a time, until he had drained every last drop of that milky nectar from the fullness of her breasts. He could almost taste it on his lips and in his mouth—
“Alex?”
Alex gave himself a mental shake as he saw Amanda’s puzzled expression. “Just thinking of all the things I still wish to do to and with you,” he dismissed in a gruff voice, slightly shaken still by what he had been imagining. An image that caused his full and straining cock to pulse and release dribbles of pre-cum inside his pantaloons.
He reached down to roll and pinch the redness of her nipples, pulling on them until they were again elongated and full before lowering his head to claim her lips with his own.
She tasted of Amanda, sweet and sharp at the same time. Alex gorged himself on that taste even as he continued to pull and tweak her responsive nipples, the aroma of her arousal invading his senses until he felt drunk with euphoria and a desire to drink the cream he knew would be slicking her cunny lips.
He released Amanda’s mouth to sit back and begin slowly pushing the skirts of her gown up her legs. Slender calves, shapely knees, trembling thighs, her silky stockings held up by lacy garters, and then—
“Dear God!” Alex’s breath left his body in a whoosh as he stared down at what he had revealed.
The smooth bareness of Amanda’s cunny.
“Where are you drawers?” he choked out.
“I am not wearing any.”
“I can see that!”
Amanda’s cheeks warmed as Alex continued to stare at her bared pussy. “I had hoped… I wanted…” She broke off with a gasp as Alex parted her legs and one of his hands cupped the whole of her mound.
Her wet and sensitive pussy.
“Naughty girl,” Alex murmured with satisfaction. “Naughty, naughty girl.”
Amanda felt extremely so in that moment. And very aroused. Needing, wanting—
“Bend your knees,” he instructed softly. “Did you hope I would do this?” he encouraged huskily once she had done so, his fingers parting her folds to reveal her pussy lips and the swollen and pulsing clit above. “And this?” His fingers stroked lightly through the cream coating the entrance to her pussy, gathering up and then spreading that slickness upwards. “Did you want me to do this?” He rubbed his fingers over and around her erect clit.
“Yes!” Amanda groaned as the stroking of Alex’s fingers intensified the heat between her thighs and sent shards of pleasure straight to her core. “Please.” She slid farther down the couch, parting her legs as far as they would go to allow Alex greater access, only to draw her breath in sharply as he began to lower his head. “What are you doing?”
“Tasting you.”
Amanda felt the rasp of his tongue against her pussy lips.
“Now I am going to eat you.” His breath was a warm caress against that sensitive flesh.
Amanda arched her hips, fingers digging into the material of the couch as Alex’s mouth claimed her swollen pussy lips. She groaned her pleasure as his tongue entered her tightness and his fingers continued to stroke and press on her pulsing clit.
Pleasure shot straight to her core, hot and deep, uncontrollable, spiraling higher as his other hand returned to her breasts to pull on and squeeze her aroused nipples each in turn. She gasped as his fingers released her clit to move lower, coating his fingers with her cream before pressing against the sensitive flesh beneath her pussy and then caressing even farther back. Those slicked fingers pressed against her bottom hole before one of them slowly entered her there, stretching and thrusting inside before it was joined by a second finger.
It was too much, too overwhelmingly good, too everything, as pleasure burst inside Amanda, through her, over her, in a kaleidoscope of uncontainable ecstasy so intense, nothing else existed but Alex and the pleasure he gave her.
A release far beyond anything and everything she had ever known before.