Chapter 4
Bea was fully dressed, with her hair neatly confined at her crown, and seated in the chair by her bedroom window shortly after seven o’clock the following morning.
Ten o’clock found her still sitting there, reluctant to leave her bedchamber. She had not joined her guests for breakfast, but instead, Jane had brought tea and toast to her here two hours ago. But as the hostess, Bea knew she must make an appearance downstairs, and soon, if only so that she joined her guests in time to attend church with those that wished to go.
Church.
God knows it had been difficult enough for her to attend church after Charles died, but she had eventually made her peace with that establishment. But how could she possibly sit in church today and pretend she was still the same respectable widow, occupying herself with charitable deeds, she had been before Darius’s arrival yesterday?
It was as alarming as the thought of facing Darius again after the intimacies she had allowed.
Would he be one of the guests who went to church? Somehow, Bea doubted it. There was a lawlessness to the duke that could not be contained even by the clergy’s threats of damnation for the sinners.
Perhaps that really was the meaning behind the name The Sinners for him and his friends after all.
Bea was totally bewildered by her own behavior the previous night, and her responses to the liberties Darius had taken with her. Liberties she knew she had encouraged him to take.
She had not known… Had not guessed… Charles might have been her husband for five years, but he had never attempted to touch her with the same intimacy as Darius had. Perhaps if he had, their marriage would not have deteriorated to the barely polite tolerance she had suffered for the latter part of that marriage, and those often painful couplings he insisted on every week in his effort to produce an heir.
Last night’s pleasure had been so unexpected and truly wonderful.
Bea glanced across at the door adjoining her room to Darius’s. The same door she had unlocked and opened, and willingly gone through the night before. Had she ever really meant to chastise Darius, or had it been her intention all along to satisfy the burning curiosity inside her to know if he could give her the pleasure he had said he could?
If that was so, then last night had only whetted her appetite for more.
Her nipples had still been hard and aching when she woke this morning, and between her thighs swollen and damp with her own juices. Even now, if she pressed her legs tightly together, she could still feel the pulse of pleasure of that newly awakened nubbin between her thighs.
Bea longed to feel that pleasure again.
And again.
She wanted… Oh God, she wanted what Darius had promised. More.
She longed to feel Darius’s lips and tongue on her breasts again as his fingers stroked the wet folds and that hard nubbin between her thighs, taking her to a plateau of pleasure she had not known existed. More than that, Bea wanted to feel his lips on those swollen lips between her thighs, as he had made it plain was his intention before she came back to a sense of what she was doing.
Once aware, she had hastily straightened her clothes before all but running from his bedchamber and into her own. Locking the door behind her and suffering the hours of sleeplessness which followed could not erase the memory of what they had done together.
Did other women experience the same pleasure in surrendering to a man’s passionate demands?
Bea knew several of her close friends had happy marriages. Perhaps because they shared those same, and possibly even deeper intimacies, with their husbands… Bea recalled how shocked she had been when Darius touched her bottom. Did her friends allow such intimacies? Bea had a feeling that was indeed the case.
That knowledge rendered her own marriage even more soulless and without affection than she had already thought it to be.
Not that she believed for a moment Darius felt anything more for her than a desire to possess and claim. Until he tired of both those things, which, taking into account her complete lack of sexual skills, would not take very long.
But oh, how glorious would that time in between be!
Except Bea knew she did not deserve to know such happiness. It would also be difficult for her to continue with her mundane life after enjoying such excitement and pleasure. Although it might not seem like much of a life to other people—to Darius—to Bea, it was one that had been forged through great unhappiness and sacrifice on her part.
No, she could not allow last night ever to happen again. Nor allow the memory to tear her apart with longing.
There was no other choice for it. Darius must be made to leave.
“Is that stubble burn I see on your chin?” Darius eyed Quinlan with mocking humor as he sat up against the pillows in his bed so the other man could place the breakfast tray across his thighs.
Quinlan raised his eyes heavenward as he straightened. “I am sure you believe yourself to be humorous, Your Grace, but I only met the man yesterday.”
“That has never stopped you before.”
The other man avoided his gaze. “It would seem that prudishness runs throughout the whole household.”
Darius chuckled. “He turned you down, by God!”
The valet’s expression turned sour. “Might I ask if you fared any better?”
“You might ask.” Darius took a bite from a piece of toast before continuing. “But a gentleman does not kiss and tell.”
“Hah,” Quinlan pounced triumphantly. “Which means, despite the lady having knocked on the door of your bedchamber as I was leaving, you were no more successful in that endeavor than I.”
Darius was not sure he knew whether last night had been successful or not. For a time, Bea had seemed to be completely at the mercy of her own desires, and then reality had struck, and she had fled like a damned virgin.
Before he’d had a chance to taste her.
Licking her juices from his fingers after her departure did not count. He wanted his mouth on her, his tongue inside her, lapping up all those delicious juices as she pulsed and trembled toward her release. He had hoped to persuade her into returning that pleasure to him afterward.
Instead, Bea had fled, and he had been left alone with only his right hand for company.
Having glanced at his pocket watch lying on the bedside table, he now gave Quinlan a frown. “Would you care to tell me what the deuce you are doing waking me at this ungodly hour?”
The other man crossed the room to throw back the curtains from the windows and let in the sunlight. “Ungodly is precisely what it is not, when you are expected to join the other guests at church this morning.”
“Absolutely not.”
“But—”
“Not, Quinlan,” Darius repeated firmly.
“Not even if it is for your king and country?”
“It is for their sake that I am not going. While everyone is away at church is the perfect time for me to search Lady Hanwell’s bedchamber for any proof she is the spy,” he explained at Quinlan’s questioning glance.
“Do you think she is?”
“I will only know that when I have the proof.” Or not. A part of Darius was starting to hope that would be the case.
Bea was much more than she appeared on the surface, one part prude, the other part siren. Despite her having fled last night, Darius sensed her interest, to know more physical intimacies, had been piqued. He could not help but wonder how far she would be willing to go in exploring those possibilities.
Which was enough to cause his cock to now engorge and pulse in expression of its own interest in discovering the answer to that question.
Quinlan nodded. “In that case, I will play my part and go and keep the household staff busy organizing hot water for your bath and shave.”
Darius placed the tray farther down the bed once Quinlan had left the room, throwing back the bedclothes before standing. He always slept naked, and the evidence of his arousal, all nine inches of it, bobbed before him as he crossed over to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows facing out to the front of the house.
He looked outside at exactly the moment Bea, seated with several of her other guests in an open carriage parked in the driveway, glanced up at his window.
Her eyes widened as she obviously saw him standing there—how could she not—in all his naked glory.
The decent thing for Darius to do was obviously to step back from the window until the carriage had departed. But after the frustration he had suffered last night, he was not feeling in the least decent, inside or out.
Instead, he held Bea’s stricken gaze with his own as he stepped forward rather than back, running his hand slowly down his chest before curling his fingers about his cock. He noted the fevered glitter that entered her eyes as he rolled the skin back to fully expose the mushroomed and glistening head and began to slowly pump himself down and then up, fingers lightly stroking that sensitive head before pumping downward again.
Bea had gone very still except for the quick rise and fall of her breasts, her gaze caught and held like a startled deer staring down the sight of a gun as she watched and could not look away from Darius pleasuring himself.
Having Bea’s gaze on him as he masturbated was a pleasure, made even more so by the fact there were three other ladies in the carriage with her who had absolutely no idea the two of them were sharing this moment of intimacy. Darius was so aroused by it, he only needed to pump himself three, four more times, before he felt the familiar tingle at the base of his spine and the tightening of his balls, as warning he was about to release.
Again, he should have stepped back, but some devil inside him—perhaps the one which had seen Bea once again looking the prim and oh so proper Lady Hanwell in a blue silk bonnet and matching gown—urged him to grip his cock tighter and pump harder, until he groaned his pleasure. He used his other hand to grasp onto the window frame as his cum pulsed hotly from the slitted top of his cock and splattered on the window.
“Are you in pain, Bea?”
The concern of her friend Margo was the first indication Bea had that she must have gasped out loud as Darius’s release pulsed repeatedly against the inside of the bedchamber window above them.
It was—
She could not—
Bea had never seen anything so erotically stimulating in her life before. Not least the almost pained expression of ecstasy on Darius’s face as that release pumped from his body.
Bea felt weak with the desire watching him had aroused within her. Her breasts had plumped and her nipples tingled, and between her thighs was burning hot and wet. All from the hunger of that need.
She dared not look up at the window again in case any of the other ladies should do so too and see Darius standing there gloriously naked with his spent cock still in hand. “I have a headache,” she answered Margo, knowing it was the truth. The headache’s name was Darius Strong, the Duke of Wolferton. “But a drive in the fresh air followed by the church service will no doubt do me good. Drive on,” she instructed her driver briskly.
She had fully intended talking to Darius as soon as she returned from church, telling him he must leave, and that last night had been a mistake which could not be repeated.
But after watching him at the window, deliberately pleasuring himself as she watched, she knew she no longer had the will or desire to ask him to go.
“Did you enjoy watching me this morning?”
Bea looked up at Darius from where she knelt to straighten the last of the blankets placed on the ground in readiness for her guests’ picnic luncheon.
She had been busy since the moment she stepped back into the house after returning from church. Had organized two of the footmen to go out into the grounds to leave the clues for the treasure hunt later this afternoon. Then spent some time in the kitchen talking with Cook regarding the picnic they were all to enjoy first. After which she and Kilby had come out into the garden to choose where the best place would be for them to eat that picnic luncheon.
During none of that time had Bea set eyes on Darius.
She was not sure if it was deliberate on his part, and that perhaps he felt uncomfortable in regard to what had occurred this morning. Although she could not see that as being the case. As well as being arrogance personified, she had no doubt Darius’s behavior this morning had been deliberate, confirming he was completely without shame.
His words now confirmed his lack of regret for his actions.
Bea sat back on her heels, looking about them to make sure there was no one nearby before answering him boldly. “I enjoyed it very much. Did you?”
His mouth tilted mockingly. “Very much.” Once again hatless, his dark hair gleamed in the sunlight. He was wearing a black shirt and neck cloth beneath a pale gray waistcoat and blue superfine today, his pantaloons also a pale gray, black Hessians highly polished.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Were you not afraid someone would see you?”
“Someone did see me,” he drawled. “You saw me, Bea. Which is why my cum ended up all over the window.”
That damp heat was back between Bea’s thighs, and the bodice of her gown once again uncomfortably tight. She had not realized until she met Darius that her breasts actually swelled when she was aroused.
She had not realized a lot of things until this man pushed his way into her life yesterday. “Did the risk of being seen make it more exciting?”
“What do you think?”
She considered for a moment. “I would imagine so, yes.”
“Would you like to experience that for yourself?”
“How?” Bea heard the breathiness of her voice.
Darius dropped down onto the blanket beside her, the hardness of his thigh resting against hers. “Place me next to you at dinner this evening. And while your other guests chatter and laugh together, my hand will be beneath your gown and inside your drawers. I will then play with your pussy until you come. Afterward, you can tell me whether or not you found it more exciting than when we were alone last night.”
A gush of liquid instantly dampened her drawers merely at the thought of such wickedness. “Surely someone would see.”
Darius smiled as he heard the lack of conviction in Bea’s protest. “The table and the folds of your gown will hide where I have my hand.”
“I might make a noise.”
“Oh, you will almost certainly make a noise.” He nodded in satisfaction. “I will simply tell everyone that you were startled by a spider.”
The slenderness of her throat moved as she swallowed. “We cannot.”
“I can,” Darius assured her. Unlike Bea, he did not give a damn what any of her other guests thought of him. “Can you, is the question? Dare you?” he added challengingly, feeling a twinge of guilt as he saw her chin lift and her eyes take on a determined expression.
He had spent over an hour this morning carefully searching Bea’s bedchamber to ensure neither she nor her maid realized it had been searched at all. Her bureau held letters from friends and several cousins, but otherwise, there was no personal correspondence, only bills waiting to be paid, and not too many of them. He had found no secret drawers or cupboards, nothing beneath the bed except a chest in which she had stored books and toys, obviously from her childhood. Her dressing room was just as neat and tidy, with no damning evidence in sight.
None of which made her innocent, only careful.
No, unfortunately, nothing Darius had learned thus far had convinced him of Bea’s innocence.
Unfortunately?
Yes, because when—or if—Bea’s innocence was proven, Darius had every intention of indulging in an affair with her in earnest.
He had not felt this aroused by a woman, and so often, for a long time. If at all. None of the available Society ladies were of interest to him, and paying for a lady of the demimonde was also less than satisfying.
Bea looked and acted like a lady, but Darius was quickly learning she had the soul of a siren. And he meant her no insult in that. Darius sensed there was much untapped sexual frustration within Bea, and that, once her barriers were broken down, she would eagerly try anything he might care to show or ask of her.
He was hard again merely thinking of all the deliciously wicked things he wished to do to her. To have her do to him. “Why did you run away last night?”
Bea gave Darius a startled glance and then quickly looked away again as she found herself the focus of those intense gray eyes. “I did not run away—”
“Do not lie to me,” he cut in coldly. “You knew I was about to lick and taste your pussy, and you ran. Why?”
When he spoke to her in that commanding voice, Bea had no will to deny him anything. “You… It was too intense.”
“Lovemaking it supposed to be intense.”
Was it? That had not been Bea’s experience to date. She was more used to a painful invasion followed by a few perfunctory thrusts before Charles squirted his fluid inside her. Once he had withdrawn, he would refuse to allow her to wash but instead instructed her to keep her legs tightly closed and his release inside her for the rest of the night, in the hope she would conceive his child. She never had.
“I hope it is not your intention to run away from me again,” Darius stated.
“It was my intention to ask you to leave today.”
“And?”
Bea closed her eyes briefly before looking at him again. “I will not run from you again. But…”
“Yes?”
“I have a condition if we are to continue with this…adventure.” She gripped her lace gloved hands tightly together in her lap to stop them from trembling at the enormity of what she was doing.
“Yes?”
“No matter what happens between us, you will not ask me any questions.”
His eyes narrowed. “What sort of questions?”
“Any and all.”
He scowled darkly. “Why in hell not?”
“I will not answer that—”
“I have not agreed to your condition yet.”
She frowned. “You are very forceful.”
“You have no idea,” he said without humor.
Oh, Bea had every idea, but for the moment, her curiosity had gotten the better of all her good intentions from earlier this morning.
Because she ached. She wanted.
Most of all, she wished to be in the room with Darius when he next stroked and pumped his cock. To actually hear his groans of pleasure when he came. To then know what his release tasted like. And afterward, what it felt like to have his mouth on the intimate parts of her body.
She had lain awake for hours the previous night after leaving Darius’s bedchamber, her body aching and hot. But there had been no relief for that ache. No end to her longing. And no matter what she had decided in regard to asking him to leave, Darius had broken down every last barrier she had when he stood in front of the window this morning, his pale gaze fixed on her as he pleasured himself to release.
Her chin rose. “That is my condition. You may take it or leave it.”
Darius studied her through narrowed lids. The whole point of his making love to Bea was so that he could ask her questions in those unguarded moments that followed. For him to agree not to ask her those questions would defeat the whole venture.
Except…
He no longer wished to make love to Bea only so that he could ask her questions while her guard was down. His motive now was far more selfish. He wanted Bea spread-eagled on his bed, her wrists and ankles secured to the bedposts by four of his silk neck cloths, after which he wished to pleasure her and give her climax after climax for hours without end.
“What are you doing?” Bea stared at him as he moved so that he was kneeling in front of her before unfastening the buttons to the fold of his pantaloons.
“Instead of shaking hands to confirm our arrangement, you are going to suck and pleasure my cock. It has been throbbing all morning and is in need of relief.” He released the hard length from its confines. “But before you take my cock in your mouth, you will unfasten the front of your gown so I might play with your tits while you make me come.”
Bea’s eyes were opened wide at the shocking intimacy of what Darius was suggesting—instructing—but also at the crudity of his language. Even if she did find the latter wickedly arousing… “I could not possibly—”
“You will do it because I asked it of you. It is what lovers do for each other,” he added firmly.
Lovers? “But—”
“If you do not do it yourself, then I shall unfasten your gown and expose you, and I cannot guarantee your gown will escape damage in the process.” He shrugged. “One way or another, I intend to play with your tits while your mouth is pleasuring my cock.”
Bea avoided his gaze while she unfastened the buttons at the front of her gown with trembling fingers.
“You will need to pull down your chemise too.”
Bea knew there was absolutely no point in arguing with this man when he was in this forceful mood. Nor did she really want to. She was far too intrigued by the things Darius was describing. His cock in her mouth. His hands pleasuring her breasts. All while in the garden where anyone might see them.
“Better.” He nodded his satisfaction once her breasts were completely bared. “Now suck.” His hand was about his swollen cock as he offered it to her.
Despite her protests and the fumbling to unfasten her gown, Bea had not lost all sense of decorum. “Should we not move somewhere less…public?”
“My back is to the house, so no one can see what you are doing in front of me.”
“The servants will shortly be bringing out the picnic.”
“Then you had better be quick about it and take care of the matter before they do,” he reasoned. “Stop protesting and do it, Bea,” he added harshly.
She stared at the turgid length in front of her, thick veins throbbing along its length, the mushroom head a glistening red as the juices escaped the slit at the top. She had never— She did not know how—
“It was not a request but an instruction, and you did not forbid instructions,” Darius bit out between gritted teeth as he lightly pumped the length of his cock. “Suck it, and you will see for yourself how exciting the forbidden can be.”
He watched as she moistened her lips, her gaze fixated on him pleasuring himself as she placed her hands on his thighs and slowly lowered her head. That little pink tongue made another appearance as she licked up the bead of pre-cum that had bubbled to the surface of his cock.
Darius gave a groan as that rasping heat laved over and around the sensitive tip before she lapped up the second bead of pre-cum that had appeared in response to that caress. “Take me in your mouth, Bea, please,” he encouraged gruffly. “Deeper,” he encouraged as the heat of her mouth opened to engulf the whole of the bulbous top. “To the back of your throat. Yes, just like that.” Darius’s neck arched as the pleasure of her hot mouth shot straight to his balls. “Suck so that your cheeks hollow out. Yes, just like that.” The walls of her mouth encased and drew on him as he thrust to the back of her throat and then slowly withdrew, before thrusting in again.
Bea had never done anything so scandalous in her life before.
Had never wanted to.
Sucking Darius was delicious.
He tasted delicious, sweet and salty at the same time. He smelled delicious too, that heady musk stronger with her nose pressed against the hard muscles of his lower abdomen.
His groans of pleasure spurred her on to give him yet more of it, and she pushed his hands aside to replace them with her own, stroking and pumping the inches of his cock she could not get inside her mouth. For all that Darius had instructed her to do this, Bea knew it was she who now held the power whether to give him pleasure or not. The feeling was exhilarating.
It was also extremely arousing to watch as Darius’s hands first cupped and squeeze her bared breasts before he rolled the red and engorged nipples between finger and thumb. Pleasure pulsed through Bea, and she could feel how wet her drawers were becoming with the gush of juices between her thighs. The swollen nubbin pulsed with the need to be stroked as it had been last night.
Was it possible to attain the same explosive release of last night merely from sucking Darius’s cock and having her nipples pulled and squeezed, all while daring the risk of being caught by one of her servants or guests?
As the pressure increased between Bea’s thighs, the nubbin pulsing with the same wild rhythm as her heart, she knew herself to be on the very edge of a climax even more earth-shattering than the previous night.
She was determined not be alone in that release, intended for Darius to join her.
Bea increased her efforts, drawing Darius’s cock deeper, sucking harder, instinctively knowing by the growing hardness of his shaft that Darius was nearing the same release she was.
“Do you want me to withdraw, or can you take it?”
If it was anything like she had witnessed this morning, then Bea wanted to be the recipient of all that thick and delicious release Darius had pumped over the window of his bedchamber.
Her answer was to lift higher onto her knees, taking him deeper, her fingers stroking him harder, faster. Darius threaded his fingers into her hair to hold her head in place as he gave several deep thrusts to the back of her throat.
He groaned. “I am coming now.”
The words had barely left his lips before Bea tasted the first hot spurt of his release, quickly followed by a flood of that delicious nectar pumping down her throat. That, and Darius’s almost painful squeezing of her nipples, triggered her own shuddering climax.
Bea had no idea how long the euphoria lasted, nor did she care. This, the wild pleasure, was too delicious for her to want it to ever end.
“You came too,” Darius stated gruffly.
Bea lifted her head and reluctantly relinquished his only marginally softened cock. “I did,” she confirmed almost shyly. “You were perfectly correct. It is very exciting to risk discovery and exposure.”
So much so, Bea found herself very much looking forward to dinner this evening, at which time Darius had said he intended to touch and caress between her thighs and bring about her climax, all while her other guests ate their dinner in complete ignorance.