Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
P hoebe could feel the moment Charles surrendered to the fiery passion she felt for him. His lips moved over hers insistently, his tongue probing the seam of her lips with a fierce tenderness that was totally at odds with his normally cold and aloof demeanor.
When he held her in his arms like this, it was always as if he was an entirely different person. It was like witnessing a different side to him that only she was privileged to see.
It was humbling. Exhilarating.
Sensually intoxicating.
She let out a slight yelp when he suddenly swept her off her feet. Her hands instinctively went up to his shoulders to keep herself from falling.
“Charles! What do you think you are doing?” she demanded.
“What I should have done ages ago,” he replied gruffly. “What I should have done the moment you arrived at Wentworth Park.”
She choked on her muffled laughter. “Well, I do not see why we cannot—”
“Phoebe.” He spoke her name in all seriousness and she feared that she had somehow offended him or ruined the moment for the both of them.
She raised her eyes up at him shyly. “Yes, Charles?”
“I will be damned if I took you on the cold, hard floor for the first time.”
Her eyes bulged at that, but then she felt mirth bubbling up her throat. “Well, My Lord, there is the table…”
“Now, there is a suggestion I might be enticed to consider,” he murmured with a rare, devilish smile. “But not tonight. Tonight, I am taking you to my bed.”
“Mine is much nearer,” she volunteered quickly.
He leaned close into her ear and nipped delicately at the lobe. The sensation from that naughty gesture had her toes curling in her slippers, her body going soft and warm.
“The servants will still be able to hear you scream in your room,” he growled. “For tonight, I want everything of yours to be mine—your kisses, your moans, your screams. Everything .”
She felt the heat spreading from her chest up her neck to her cheeks. There was a hint of a threat in his tone. A dangerous promise.
And heaven help her, she was thoroughly looking forward to him making good on his word.
“I am yours, Charles,” she whispered into his ear and pressed a soft kiss to his temple. “Make me yours.”
“Oh God, you do not know how long I have wanted to do just that!”
They managed to reach his bedchamber so quickly that Phoebe hardly even remembered Charles kicking the basement door close behind him with a loud bang.
She had giggled softly as she’d laid her head on his shoulder. “I thought we were worried about waking the servants?”
“The basement is far beneath their quarters. It should not be much of a problem,” he had replied.
Presently, he kicked the door to his bedchamber open and hastily nudged it close, before gently laying her upon his bed. His actions were such a contrast that she could not help but smile as she reached out to sweep away a lock of dark hair that had fallen over his eyes as he covered her body with his own.
Phoebe had always thought herself abnormally tall amongst the other young ladies of the ton , an ungainly giantess amongst a flock of swans. But Charles, who was much taller, with his broad shoulders and lithe, muscular frame, made her feel small. Delicate even.
“I sincerely hope you are not laughing at my attempts to get you into my bed, wife,” he murmured, turning his head to press a soft kiss to her palm. “Otherwise, I will have to punish you for that…”
“I just cannot help but marvel at how you are such a study in contrasts,” she murmured. “And that I am forever entranced just watching you…”
He groaned and pressed his lips into hers with a searing kiss, sending her senses reeling as his tongue delved into her mouth, tracing her lips and entangling with her own. Her eyes fluttered close as she lost herself in the wild passion of his kiss—yet another contrast that she loved.
“Such a sweet tongue you have there,” he growled, pausing to delicately nip at her bottom lip with his teeth. “Perhaps you were a flatterer as a child, too.”
“Not really,” she admitted with an impenitent smile. “I was told that I had a penchant for mischief and was an incredibly abysmal liar.”
He chuckled darkly at that. “You must have gotten yourself into so much trouble, then…”
“Oh, you would not even know the beginning of it!” she rolled her eyes. She looked at him with gentle curiosity. “Were you a troublemaker as a child too?”
“Future Dukes cannot be troublemakers,” he replied curtly, a hint of bitterness in his tone. Before she could ask him another question, he had sealed his lips over hers once more. His kiss was an education in seduction, rendering her not only speechless, but scrambling for a single coherent thought as well.
Phoebe felt as if her entire body was aflame. Like she had become liquid heat to be molded in his hands as he pleased. When his hand spanned her chest, his fingers passing over the peak of her nipples, she arched into his touch with a sudden gasp.
“I love how you respond so easily to my touch,” he told her, his voice low and sensual as his fingertip circled a rosy peak through the thin fabric of her nightclothes. “It makes me want to touch you all the more…”
Then do it! Phoebe wanted to cry out, but all that would come out was a soft moan.
Working for the Crown, Phoebe deduced that Charles must have acquired some knowledge of torture, for that was what he was doing to her right now—a kind of exquisite torture that soon had her sobbing for release. Even then, he did not relinquish her body’s pleas—oh no, he continued to wring moan after moan from her, drinking it all in as if his very existence depended on it.
She felt something building from deep within her—a rapture that she could not comprehend, just hovering out of her reach.
And Charles held it in his hands. Or his wonderfully expert tongue.
Whatever it was, Phoebe found herself writhing beneath the onslaught he performed on her senses, until she felt she was nothing but a mass of wailing need, her body coiled so tight that she felt she would snap with a single breath.
She let out a mewl of disappointment when he moved away from her. She felt almost… bereft without the warmth and his weight pressing on her. She opened her eyes in confusion when she heard him mutter a curse under his breath.
“Damnation!” he swore, before he tore off his shirt, scattering tiny buttons in his wake. His breeches followed soon after, revealing toned, muscled legs, and a behind that belied his physical activity.
I suppose that boxing under that trapdoor was not all he did , she surmised in wonder as her eyes drank in his masculine physique.
He was a study in perfection, she realized in awe, watching as the firelight danced over his muscles, casting light and shadows. When he turned towards her, her gaze further roved unbidden from his broad shoulders, to the planes of his abdomen… down to his manhood, jutting proudly between his legs.
“Do you like what you are seeing?” he rasped, a teasing smile playing upon his lips.
Phoebe did not know what she should not like.
Like every gently bred young lady of the ton , she had very little knowledge of the male anatomy, and whatever wisdom her Mama had sent her off with on the day of her wedding—well, it was sorely lacking, to say the very least.
Still, her husband looked every bit as fine as Michelangelo's David. No, he was far more impressive.
While David had been carved out of cold marble, Charles Montgomery was made of flesh and bone, alive and gloriously virile in a way that no Renaissance sculpture could ever hope to compare.
“Well, I have never seen a naked man before,” she nervously admitted, propping herself up on the bed on her elbows.
He chuckled. “Thank heavens for that.”
“But you look—” she paused, choking a little bit at the end.
What could she possibly say? Breathtaking seemed too pale a word. Amazing was far less erudite.
“My beautiful, intelligent wife is at a loss for words,” he murmured, his hand reaching out to cradle the nape of her neck. “Now, that is quite the compliment.”
Phoebe would have protested that she was not as beautiful as he professed her to be. Her intelligence—well, she liked to think herself brilliant, at times, but she was sure she was nowhere close to his intellect.
It was rather amusing how highly they thought of each other—which was certainly more than any lady could have expected of her husband.
As her mind ran away with those thoughts, Charles drew her in for another kiss, effectively silencing all the voices in her head. All that was left was him. And her.
And the intense heat that flared bright and hot between them.
He leaned into her, gently pushing her back into the bed as his knee rose up between her legs. He nudged her gently where she ached for his touch the most and Phoebe moaned into the kiss, pressing herself into him, desperate for his presence there.
“Charles,” she sighed into his lips.
“I know, darling. I know…”
When his fingers slipped through her wet slit, she let out a cry of triumph, her body bowing off the bed. He parted her folds gently as he stroked her, stoking the banked flames into a great conflagration once more.
“Oh, God, you are so wet already,” he groaned into her ear. “So wet and ready for me.”
She let out a cry of dismay when he pulled his finger away from her center, only to feel the blunt head of his manhood at her entrance. Her eyes fluttered open as she searched his face in confusion.
“This is going to hurt,” he warned her. “God, I wish there was another way where you would not be hurt by all this…”
He is going to make me his , she realized as her eyes searched his tortured features. She reached up to caress the side of his face and Charles pressed a soft kiss to her open palm. An apology of sorts.
“I want to be yours, Charles,” she whispered. “Fully. And you are so gentle with me already. So gentle…”
Her words seemed to have the effect of breaking down his resistance, for his lips returned to hers in a kiss that ravaged her senses and left her reeling. If she had not been on the bed, Phoebe had no doubt she would have fallen to the floor.
He kissed her deeply as she felt him pushing into her. Stretching her.
She sucked in a deep breath and he stilled.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked her, his features etched with concern.
She shook her head. “It feels…strange. But it does not hurt.”
“You must tell me if it hurts,” he told her. “I will stop if it does.”
“I do not think you would like that—”
“For you, Phoebe, I will.”
She looked up at him and nodded. “I am ready.”
“Hold on to me, darling,” he told her gently.
She did as he instructed, her fingers finding purchase on his broad shoulders as he pushed deeper into her. Their progress was painstakingly slow. If she so much as gasped a little, Charles would stop. His forehead was already lined with beads of sweat from holding himself back.
He drew her close and pressed a soft kiss to her shoulder. “I am about to breach your maidenhead, darling. If you wish to scream, or bite me, you may.”
Phoebe nodded, her fingers tightening reflexively on his shoulders. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the pain she knew would come.
It was part of her coming into womanhood, the breaking of the barrier that stood between innocence and womanly knowledge. After this, she would no longer be Phoebe, the spinster.
She would be a woman. Charles’ woman .
The thought was a heavy intoxication that lulled her just as Charles surged into her, breaking through her barrier swiftly. She let out a soft cry when she felt the sharp pain of her lost maidenhood as he filled her wholly, replacing what had been broken with himself . When he moved even the slightest bit, even the smallest breath, she could feel him deep inside her.
It was a rather strange feeling. Phoebe supposed that this must be what a butterfly felt when it shed off its past form to unfurl its wings.
“Does it hurt?” she heard him ask her, concern written all over his anxious features.
Did it? She was certain that it did just a moment ago, but it was fading now. Instead, she felt a fullness. She felt herself stretching, accommodating him.
“Not so much,” she whispered shyly. “It almost feels… nice .”
He laughed hoarsely and drove deeper inside her, until he sank fully within her tight channel. She felt the faint ripples of delight in her very core as her muscles clenched him, drawing an erotic groan from his throat.
“Does it hurt?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “On the contrary,” he smiled wistfully.
Then, he began to move within her. Shallow thrusts at first that stoked the fire inside her once more. She let out a soft gasp when she felt the first frisson of pleasure coursing through her, like the first rumblings of an earthquake.
It felt similar and yet totally different from the feelings Charles evoked from her. Somehow, this burgeoning delight felt deeper. Like it was something more .
The more he moved within her, the more it built within her until she was clinging onto his shoulders once more, his name falling from her lips in cascades.
“Oh… ooh!” she moaned as Charles began to thrust into her with greater urgency. “Charles…oh, Charles…!”
His pace quickened, spurred on by her enthusiasm, it would seem. Phoebe, on the other hand, was lost in a sensual haze, her little moans soon morphing into sobs and cries of delight, her hips starting to buck as she matched his tempo in this age-old dance between a man and a woman.
He took her hands and pinned them over her head, stretching her whole body before him as he drove into her. Deeper. Faster.
Phoebe had never felt so exposed and vulnerable—and she loved it. All of it.
She felt the huge tidal wave of pleasure building low in her belly, making her toes curl, as gasps and moans fell from her lips. Still, Charles did not stop thrusting into her.
Once. Twice. On the third, she felt herself shatter, her vision blinded for a moment as sheer, undiluted pleasure flooded her entire being. Vaguely, she heard Charles growl as he sank deep into her one more time, filling her. A warmth spread within her as she shuddered, her tight channel clenching him.
“Oh, God, Phoebe,” he groaned, as he gathered her into his arms.
Phoebe let out a soft moan as little waves continued to assail her. She shivered in his arms as he drew the covers over them.
Moments later, when her breathing had calmed, she felt him press a soft kiss to her forehead. She raised her eyes up to him.
“How do you feel?” he asked her tenderly, smoothing a lock of hair away from her face.
Phoebe smiled up at him, her eyes bright with wonder. “I feel… like a wife . Like I am truly yours.”
He groaned and hugged her tighter. “If you keep looking at me like that, we are never going to get a wink of sleep tonight.”
She blinked in confusion. “What do you mean?” she murmured, snuggling into his side with a soft yawn.
He just chuckled softly. “Do not be stubborn, Phoebe. Sleep.”
She still did not understand what he meant by that, but when she thought about it, staying up with Charles did not seem like such a bad idea. She had stayed up for much longer as a débutante, whiling away her hours in some ball or another.
This, she decided sleepily, would have been a much better use of her time.
Perhaps , she thought to herself as her eyes fluttered close. Perhaps I had to go through all of that, just so I can find this perfection I have with Charles…