Chapter 8
“Kiss me first,” Darius encouraged gruffly as he seemed to guess some of her dilemma.
Kiss him. Yes, she could do that.
She placed her lips gently against his, only to have him rear up from the pillows, his lips parting hungrily against hers as his tongue thrust and claimed the heat of her mouth. Bea lost herself in that claiming for long and endless minutes.
Darius finally pulled back, gray eyes piercing as they gazed into hers. “Are you soft and wet and ready for me between your thighs?”
“Yes,” she groaned as she buried the heat of her face against his shoulder.
“And may I offer words of guidance, rather than instructions or orders?”
“Yes,” she said again. She trusted him not to overstep that line.
“Straddle my hips and lift up onto your knees before guiding my cock inside you.”
Bea lifted her head to look at him. “You have done this before.”
Darius sobered. “I have never allowed any woman to tie me up in this way. Ever. Whatever experiences we have both had before this have no place here. This is our first time together. All brand-new, with no other memories to mar it. Do you understand?” he prompted softly.
She did understand, and she appreciated Darius’s gentleness in reassuring her this would be nothing like her years spent as Charles’s wife. Years when she had been made to suffer through his complaints of having to use the salve before pushing roughly into her, having him grunt and groan for several minutes like an animal rutting on her. Then would come the flood of his liquid inside her before his withdrawal, the instruction not to open her thighs until morning, before he left her lying there in the sticky pool of his release.
She did not need Darius’s reassurances to know this was nothing like that. Darius had given her nothing but pleasure in their lovemaking, had gifted her the freedom of his body to caress and pleasure, and she had no reason to believe having him inside her would be any less pleasurable.
She felt a little less self-conscious as she moved to straddle him, her legs stretched wide across his muscular thighs.
“Now lift up and rub the head of my cock in your juices,” he encouraged. “It will help to ease my passage inside you,” he explained.
Bea’s cheeks burned as she gripped his cock and leaned slightly forward to do as he suggested, gasping softly as she ran that cock head along the lips of her pussy and then higher until it pressed against her engorged nubbin. Pleasure bloomed inside her at the feel of this stimulation against that swollen bud.
“Again,” Darius encouraged as he saw and heard Bea’s reaction to his cock touching her clit. His cock was big, and bringing herself to climax first would ease his entrance inside her. “If my hands were free, I would push a finger inside you now, stretch and loosen you before adding a second, maybe even a third as your pussy opens for me. I would rub against those nerve endings inside you with every thrust of my fingers until you were so aroused, your juices were dripping down your thighs. And I would revel in how tightly your pussy grasped and squeezed my fingers as you came.”
She gave a low groan, and Darius was unsure whether it was from the stimulation of his words or the imagery of him doing those things to her.
“Do it for me, Bea,” he said urgently, even as he fought his own need to come in response to the stroking of the sensitive head of his cock in her juices and against her pulsing clit.
“I cannot…”
“Please,” he pressed.
“I—” She looked at him uncertainly. “You would enjoy it if I did?”
Darius nodded. “And so will you,” he promised. He had only known Bea a short time, but it was long enough to know there was a very sensual woman beneath that prim exterior. Not that she looked particularly prim right now. Her hair was a golden tangle about her bare shoulders, her nipples hard, and the curls damp between her thighs. “You will see, this way, you will be able to control your own pleasure.”
“As you were pleasuring yourself this morning as you stood in front of the window?”
“Yes.”
“Do you pleasure yourself often?”
“When I feel the need,” he confirmed. “And since being here, I have felt a great need. There is nothing to be ashamed of in giving yourself physical release, Bea.”
“Are you sure?”
“Very.” He nodded, realizing this was also new to Bea. It told him that Hanwell had given her no joy at all in their marriage. “Now lift up higher on your knees and put your own finger in your pussy.”
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I have never done anything like this before.”
Darius had already guessed that. “Do it for me now,” he pleaded softly. “Stroke and pleasure yourself while I watch.” Her shocked gasp told him he may have gone too far. Or perhaps, with that now-fevered glitter in her eyes, not far enough. “I want to see you fuck yourself on your fingers and imagine it’s my cock thrusting deep inside you.”
“Darius…” she groaned, her cheeks awash with color at the crudeness of his language.
He grinned unrepentantly, having detected longing in her tone as well as embarrassment. “Trust me, you will enjoy it.”
Her movements were tentative at first, her body tense as she placed her middle finger against her pussy lips.
“Lift up and then sink down onto your finger.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened, and she gave a shuddering moan as she slowly pushed that finger inside her channel.
“Does it feel good?”
She swallowed. “It feels…strange.”
“But good?”
“Yes,” she allowed shyly.
“Now lift up and then plunge down again. Again,” he said hoarsely. “Now put in another finger,” he encouraged, knowing she was ready to take two fingers once he heard the juicy grasping of her pussy each time she thrust that single slender finger inside herself. “Curl your fingers slightly forward and you will find your own hidden treasure. Do you feel it, Bea, a little knot of nerves?”
“Yes,” she gasped as touching it obviously gave her pleasure.
He nodded. “Stroke and rub against that every time you lift up.”
“Oh.” She gave another gasp as she followed his instructions.
Minutes later, she added that third finger without any prompting from him, her eyes closed, cheeks flushed, her back arched, and her breasts thrusting forward as her fingers pumped faster.
She had forgotten about his cock completely as she pleasured herself, but that didn’t stop Darius from feeling his own release building merely from watching Bea’s increasing abandon. Between her thighs was now wet with the flow of her juices. “Use your other hand to caress and pull on your nipples.”
There was no hesitation this time as she did as he asked.
“First one and then the other,” Darius encouraged, watching intently as she plucked self-consciously at her nipples. “You will need to pull harder and downward for the greatest pleasure.”
The pre-cum leaked copiously from the slit at the tip of Darius’s cock as he listened to Bea’s pleasurable groans and watched as she became more and more abandoned in her movements. Those three fingers were now thrusting deep, both her nipples elongated from the rhythmic tugging of her fingers, and her red and engorged clit was now clearly visible poking through her wet curls.
God, how he wished he could put his mouth on that pulsing nubbin and suck her to completion. “Stop touching your nipples now and stroke your clit.”
Darius could feel the beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead as those slender fingers moved to part her curls, baring her clit completely, before she began to stroke and press that swollen flesh.
“God. Oh God,” Bea began to chant mindlessly as she felt her release building to fever pitch, and so much harder and deeper than it had been yesterday. “Darius!”
“Fuck your fingers deeper,” he bit out. “Press harder on your clit. Harder still. Yes, just like that,” he groaned.
Bright bursts of color exploded behind Bea’s lids as her body was consumed beneath a wave of pleasure so intense, she never wanted it to end, the walls of her pussy convulsing about her fingers and her clit pulsing over and over again beneath her fingertips.
Her legs were trembling so badly by the time that maelstrom came to an end that she could only collapse weakly forward onto Darius’s sweat-dampened chest, her whole body shaking and shuddering in the aftermath.
Darius had been right, it was a wondrous experience to pleasure oneself, made even more so because Darius’s pale gray eyes had watched her every move as closely as a hawk watched its prey.
“Put your fingers in my mouth.”
Bea’s head almost felt too heavy to lift as she gazed down at him without comprehension.
“I want to lick and suck your juices from them.”
Bea had grown accustomed to that bloom of self-conscious bloom of heat in her cheeks now, her movement languid as she raised her hand and placed her fingers against Darius’s lips.
His tongue licked the cream from her fingers. “God, you taste so good. Far too good to waste. Move farther up the bed.” He shifted his shoulders down the bed. “Bring your pussy up here to me.”
He was simply impossible to resist, and Bea had no strength left to do so anyway. She crawled up the lean length of his body to place her knees on the pillow either side of his head, her pussy presented to him like a banquet.
“Perfect,” he groaned. “Now put your hands on the back of the bed and hold on.”
Her fingers barely had time to grasp the top of the bed before she felt the relentless probing of Darius’s tongue against her sensitive nubbin. It instantly sent her hurtling over the edge of another climax.
He was insatiable as his tongue lapped up the flood of her release before lashing her nubbin again and bringing her to another climax. Bea lost count of the number of times she reached that release as Darius continued to feed on her greedily.
“No more,” she finally groaned, her head resting on her hands as they kept a white-knuckled grip on the back of the bed. “Please, Darius, I can take no more.”
His lips were a gentle apology against the inside of her thigh. “Sorry, love. I forgot myself. You taste so delicious. I have not hurt you?”
Bea gave a shake of her head and then realized he couldn’t see her. “No, you did not hurt me.”
“Will you release my wrists now and let me hold you?”
She sat back on his chest and looked down at him, his lips and chin glistening with her juices. “But we have not… You have not…”
“I am afraid I have.” He gave a grimace. “I came seconds ago.”
Bea glanced over her shoulder and saw the evidence of that release splattered all over his chest and abdomen.
“That has never happened to me before,” Darius acknowledged ruefully. If anything, he had grown as cynical in the taking of physical pleasure these past few years as he had everything else in his life. But with Bea, innocent Bea, so wild in the throes of her passion, everything had seemed brand-new, sending him over the edge of release without so much as a touch to his cock.
For all they had done together, and would do together in future if Darius had his way, Bea’s smile was slightly shy as she now swung herself off him to stand beside the bed and unfasten the silk ties at his wrists and ankles.
Darius moved to the edge of the bed before standing to take her slight form into his arms. “You were magnificent,” he murmured into the silky softness of her hair.
Bea buried her face against his chest. “I was shameless.”
“Magnificently so,” he insisted indulgently before he began to chuckle. “I swear I will be inside you very soon,” he explained at her questioning glance.
Bea’s laugh sounded weak. “I fear it will not be tonight. You have exhausted me.”
“And you me.” He nodded. “Let us get into bed and hold each other until we fall asleep.”
That would be another first for him, Darius realized with a frown. He did not spend the night with his lovers. Night always led to morning, and morning inevitably brought the question of when the two of them would meet again. Darius rarely bedded the same woman twice, and even on those rare occasions that he had, he did not spend the whole night with her. But the thought of Bea returning to her own bedchamber, of his sleeping alone in this vast bed, was utterly repugnant to him.
“What is it?” Bea appeared worried by his distraction.
“Nothing.” The frown cleared from Darius’s brow as he threw back the bedclothes. “Absolutely nothing,” he repeated with satisfaction as the two of them made themselves comfortable in the bed.
His arms were about Bea, her head resting against his shoulder and her arm draped lightly across his waist. He knew within minutes, by the steady rhythm of her breathing and the heavier weight of her arm, that she had fallen asleep. Within seconds, he joined her.
“Would it be convenient for me to have a private word with you some time this morning, my lady?” Kilby inquired politely when she came down the stairs the following morning.
After enjoying a night with Darius which had led to the two of them falling asleep in each other’s arms. Sometime during the night, Bea had woken, slightly disoriented, until she realized the arm curved about her side and the hand cupping her breast belonged to none other than Darius Strong, the Duke of Wolferton. Along with that had come the knowledge she was lying in bed with him completely naked, his own awake and very aroused body curled against her from behind, his lips caressing and then gently biting her nape and shoulder.
It had seemed the most natural thing in the world to arch sensuously as his hand moved lower and he began to stroke the already swollen nubbin between her thighs. Even more natural still to seconds later bend and then slightly part her legs and allow the hard length of his arousal to enter and claim her.
She had gasped as the broadness of his cock breached the entrance to her channel from behind, groaning softly as Darius increased the pressure of his stroking fingers at the same time as he pushed his shaft deep inside her.
Not only did he fit, but she had felt so full, so claimed, her release, just minutes later, so intense she shuddered and quaked beneath the onslaught.
And then Darius began to move inside her in earnest, long and measured strokes of his cock that brought her to climax twice more before he withdrew and she heard his groan as the heat of his release pumped against the cheeks of her bottom.
Darius had risen quietly from the bed to wet a cloth and gently clean his release from her body and then his own, before disposing of the cloth and climbing back into the bed to settle himself behind her, his arm once again possessively about her waist as he drew her back against him. It had been beyond sensual that neither of them had spoken a word during their lovemaking or before they both fell back to sleep.
Darius had still been sleeping deeply when Bea slipped from beneath the bedcovers earlier this morning, collecting her discarded clothes before returning to her own bedchamber. She had been lost in a state of euphoria ever since.
“Lady Hanwell?”
Bea blinked back to an awareness of her surroundings at Kilby’s prompting. Now, what had he said to her before— Ah yes. “Of course.” The bright smile she gave the butler gave no indication of the aches and the delicious stretching of her body she felt after last night’s lovemaking. “We can meet in my private parlor once I have been to the breakfast room and said good morning to my guests.”
“Very good, my lady.”
She gave him a searching glance. “Is something troubling you, Kilby?”
“Nothing that cannot wait a few more minutes,” he assured her.
Bea felt a slight unease in the pit of her stomach at the butler’s grim expression. “What is it about?”
“I—”
“Lady Hanwell. Bea,” Landbourne greeted warmly as he stepped out of the breakfast room. “I thought you had forgotten our tryst this morning.”
Bea had forgotten all about the Earl of Landbourne. What woman would not after spending the night in bed with Darius? And she would certainly not class her agreeing to have breakfast with the earl as being a tryst.
Her smile became coolly polite. “Of course I had not forgotten I agreed to have breakfast with you today. Although it would seem you have already eaten?” After all, he was leaving the breakfast room, not entering it as she was about to do.
Landbourne took a proprietary grasp of her arm. “I am more than happy to eat some more if it means I will also enjoy the pleasure of your company.”
Which no doubt accounted for the fact he was sadly overweight. “Very well.” She nodded. “We will talk in half an hour, Kilby.”
“Very well, my lady.”
Kilby was very young to be a butler, possibly only in his early thirties, but Bea had always liked him when he was footman here. She had elevated him to the lofty position of butler after Charles died. She had never had cause to regret her decision.
But she sensed something was sorely troubling the usually unflappable Kilby this morning.