Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Amelia shivered as the door to their bedchamber closed softly behind her back and was locked by her husband. The feeling of guilt about sending the children back to the nursery faded, replaced by anxiety over what might happen next.
It would be different today. Her husband wanted her in his bed. She faced him, determined to enjoy what should be perfectly normal in a marriage.
But there was such an intense gleam in his eyes that she trembled again.
She might be inexperienced but she understood that look. Chatham drew closer and cupped her face. She did not resist his touch as he turned her face slightly one way and then the other before his fingers caressed along her jaw. The touch was light but not impersonal.
Slowly, his fingers dragged down her throat.
Amelia closed her eyes and embraced the strangeness of marital relations. To have her emotions turn to desire in a matter of moments was startling. She had not expected their marriage to be this way.
His fingers slid along her collarbone next, and it was so decadent a touch that she shivered. “I did not expect this attraction between us,” he whispered.
“I didn’t either,” she confessed.
“I will teach you what is possible between a man and a woman. But it seems we are already well matched,” he murmured, and the brush of his lips at her collarbone was gentle, then he drew back when she moaned.
“I want you to enjoy being married in every way possible. I want you to know satisfied desire.”
She opened her eyes and searched his face. The earnest expression brought a smile to her lips. “I would like that. I enjoy your kisses.”
A slow smile appeared on his face. “More than kisses, I think. Your pleasure comes first, then mine. That is how it should always be between us. There will be no repeat of the last time we were together.”
She did not quite understand what he meant by that, but she nodded. For now, she would simply follow his lead and enjoy him until she knew it all.
He caught her face in his hands again and kissed her softly before drawing back.
Amelia wet her lips, tasting him, and set her hand against his chest to steady herself when her knees trembled.
Chatham struggled out of his coat and waistcoat.
He caught her face again and drew her back for another, deeper kiss that went on forever. The brush of his tongue across the seam of her lips made her gasp in shock, and when his tongue brushed hers, she clutched at him.
Kissing Chatham was no rushed or brief experience today. He tasted her, devoured her, and made her pulse race with the excitement of what they did together.
She became aware that his fingers were digging into her neat bun and tugging. Amelia broke the kiss when a hairpin dug into her skull quite painfully. She reached up and removed it. “If you wanted my hair down, you could have asked.”
“I was trying to be subtle,” he said.
Chatham had not been subtle in the whole time she’d known him, and she laughed. “You failed, my lord,” she said.
He sighed. “Would you please take your hair down?”
“Of course, if it pleases you.”
“It does.”
Amelia raised her hands, found the remaining pins her maid had secured her bun with, and removed them. She shook her head to bring her hair to lose order.
Chatham groaned.
She looked at him quickly, startled by the raw, desperate sound. But he only captured her head again and kissed her deeply.
While they kissed, she felt him playing with her locks. She smiled against his lips, liking the way it felt when he ran his fingers through the long lengths as he crushed her to him.
She swayed into him, liking the strength of his body against hers, and wondered when the rest of his clothes would come off.
She did not have long to wait.
Her husband ripped open his cravat and then removed his shirt, paused kissing her only long enough to pull the latter garment over her head but left his cravat about his neck.
Amelia’s breath caught. Chatham was solid muscle, hard and almost unyielding under her fingertips. She swooned a little, overcome by him.
Chatham swept her up into his arms without warning and carried her to the small settee. He sat her down on his lap.
She squirmed, confused. “I thought we were to make love?”
“And we will. Right here.”
She glanced around them, startled. “Surely not?”
“Wait and see,” he whispered, and then his lips were nibbling on her neck and his hands, fingertips, were dancing lightly over her torso.
Her nipples tingled the first time he circled them.
She squirmed until he moved onto other less sensitive parts of her body, stroking her hip and her thigh through her gown, while he sat in a state of half dress.
Amelia turned to liquid as she stroked the hot, muscled body beneath her. Chatham appeared ravenous to kiss her everywhere. She felt a brush of cold across her back and shivered, lowering her gown’s bodice in the process.
Chatham grinned and helped lower it farther with his teeth, until her arms were free of the sleeves. Amelia glanced down and watched Chatham frown at the laces of her stays, clearly unable to untie her.
“May I?”
“Yes, but do it slowly,” he whispered, breathing hard. He lay his head against her shoulder, and she was certain his gaze was on the strings.
Slowly?
Amelia found her fingers almost as useless with him watching her so closely, but she succeeded, and when the garment was loose, Chatham’s fingers were beside hers, teasing the garment away from her breasts and causing her breath to catch.
He stroked her skin, drawing closer to her nipples, which were already pointed from the cold or excitement. When his fingers slid over the points, she moaned out loud.
Chatham sighed as he cupped her bare breast and turned his face toward her throat.
His breath was hot against her skin as he caressed her breast with reverence, even tugged on her nipple, too.
Amelia shuddered and moaned, already out of her depth and climbing out of her skin. If this was a marriage without love, she would be a very satisfied woman indeed.
She teased her fingers into Chatham’s dark hair as he lowered his face and took her nipple into his mouth. Her back arched at the flick of his tongue across the hard point, and she held him there when he sucked.
Her sex throbbed in response, and she gripped her gown at the sides, unsure of what to do with herself but feeling a compulsion to do something scandalous.
Chatham’s hand slapped over hers, and together they raised her gown a few inches higher.
Chatham released her breast and pinched her stocking at her calf. “How high do your stockings go today?”
Her breath shuddered out at the odd question. “They are tied above the knee today.”
“Above the knee? I should like to see all of your leg, with your permission, of course.”
She nodded quickly, nearly breathless with anticipation. His fingers, warm and heavy upon her leg, dragged upward. He stopped where stocking met thigh, lingered there, stroking around the tight ribbon. Then he searched for the ends of it. One tug and it was undone, sliding down her leg with ease.
His fingers returned to skim over the old wound. “Are you certain this is as old as you claim?”
“Yes,” she promised. “I was ten.”
“Ten and there was no one around to protect you,” he complained.
She tugged her gown over her knee again. “Things improved when Reynolds returned home from school.”
“There are other scars.”
She winced. He’d see the worst one eventually. There was no point hiding it. “Yes.”
“Where?”
“My back.”
Chatham pushed her gown out of the way and removed her stocking, his fingers sliding down her limb, but then she was flipped around, her gown shoved aside to expose her back.
He outlined the burn her sister had made with wax as if it must still hurt her.
His touch was light, gentle, and then his lips brushed her skin there, too.
“She did this too. A pox on your sister and your family.”
“It was only wax.”
“Wax hurts.”
Amelia shuddered as his breath warmed the skin on her back.
No one had kissed her hurts since her mother.
To have a husband do it was a kindness she’d not expected.
His arms wrapped around her waist and squeezed.
“No one will ever hurt you like this again,” he promised, and then he turned her back to face him.
“I know,” she told him.
He rearranged her to straddle him, pushing her gown aside and sweeping everything she was still wearing over her head, dumping it carelessly on the floor.
His breathing was fast and labored.
She searched his face, afraid his passion might dim due to his anger over the unsightly scars he’d found on her body.
He seemed unusually interested in her imperfections.
His fingers dug into her rear and pulled her snug against him though, sitting her right over his groin and his obvious state of arousal.
She shuddered, imagining him over her again, inside her, hard and impatient and so very thrilling. Chatham, however, seemed in no hurry to put her on her back.
After a moment of hesitation, she reached out to touch his hair again, enjoying the silky strands as they slipped through her fingers. Chatham closed his eyes, groaned, and his hips rose against her sex.
He still wore a cravat around his neck, and she made use of it to pull him closer.
His eyes flashed open. “Yes,” he whispered, rushing to lower his trousers.
He rose under her again, butting the head of his erection against her sex.
Amelia gasped and looked down, liking the sensation and hopeful for more.
She also liked the feeling of control, too, and wriggled against him until his hips grew still. Chatham cupped her breasts and kneaded them. He thumbed her nipples as she ground down harder and more urgently against his body.
Then he suddenly lifted her by the hips, and she felt the pressure of his length seeking entry as she lowered again.