Chapter 2
Chapter
“Come here, Jules,” Fred said, quietly, and leaned down toward her. He couldn’t quite believe this. Couldn’t quite understand that she had agreed to be his wife. And how much more it meant this time that she’d said yes because she wanted to. Because she had agreed to marry him.
Their lips and tongues met, licking and sliding into each other. The sounds of their kiss a soft susurration of skin against skin. He pulled her even closer until their bodies were flush, the heat between them rising quickly.
And then he picked her up, his wife, and carried her to bed. He laid her down and then took a step back, staring at her.
“What?” she asked, cheeks flushed.
“I’m just looking at you, Jules. I like looking at you.”
He walked to her slowly, reaching out to cup her face when he was close enough. He sat on the edge of the narrow bed and said, “Turn over so I can undo your stays.”
He watched while she turned, waist curving, hips flaring.
His cock so hard in his trousers it felt as if it were made of a steel rod instead of himself.
He leaned down and kissed the nape of her neck, where wisps of dark hair tickled her skin.
She moaned when his lips touched her body and he couldn’t help but take his hand and press it into himself for just a moment.
He undid her stays, one by one, taking his time. Letting his fingers trail down her side and back, across every inch of skin he uncovered.
“Fred,” she whispered and he loved how it sounded close to a whine. Loved that she was shaking under his touch, that she needed him the way he needed her.
He pressed kisses to the tops of her shoulders, across her back, and down her spine, wherever his fingers had been. And then he helped her stand to remove the gown completely.
“Take the chemise off, Jules.”
She stepped out of it and, Christ, Dorset had gotten it wrong. He was no Adonis, but she was Aphrodite. Absolutely and in every way.
“Let your hair down,” he rasped and when she removed her pins and let it fall down around her shoulders he palmed himself again.
“Let me,” she said and closed the distance between them.
She took his hand in one of hers and with the other she pressed her palm to his cock. His hips jumped at the contact and a low, guttural moan escaped his lips. For a moment he had to close his eyes and think of every piece of horseflesh at Tattersalls so he wouldn’t lose himself completely.
Her fingers skimmed along the outline of his cockstand still in his trousers. “I liked watching you touch yourself in the carriage,” she said. “But now I’d like to touch you myself. If you agree.”
“Yes. Christ, yes.”
“Take your trousers off then, Fred.”
He tore the buttons he moved so quickly.
But he didn’t care. All he wanted was to be rid of his clothing as soon as possible.
And then he was standing before her, as naked and vulnerable as she was standing before him.
For a long moment they just stared at each other, bathed in this new light of understanding between them.
He enclosed her in his arms then, wanting to feel her skin against his. Wanting to live inside this moment for as long as he could because it meant everything to him.
“Jules,” he whispered into her hair.
“I know,” she said and pressed into him, her fingers cupping his hard, hot erection. He felt himself moaning at the touch, rutting his hips forward into her hand.
When they lay down on the bed again they did it in unison, pressed as close together as they could be.
The bed was narrow and demanded it, but they could have been lying in a bed the size of London itself and Fred would not have let an inch come between them.
Not with Julianna there beneath him, her arms and legs wrapping around him as if she too wanted to hold him as close as she could. As if she never wanted to let him go.
Fred leaned his head down to kiss his wife again.
The slip of her tongue in his mouth made him feel frantic, frenzied.
He thought of Tattersalls again, and when that didn’t quite do the trick, he thought of his estate management to-do list. Anything to calm his panting, the way his hips had begun to rut against her entrance.
“Fred,” she whispered, her hips coming up to meet his. “Let me feel you.”
“Wait, Jules. I can—”
“No. After. I want you now. I want to feel you inside me.”
He kissed her once more, hard, before he pushed inside her. The smooth, warm slide felt so good his eyes nearly fluttered back in his head.
This, this, this. My wife, mine, for me, played in a jumbled loop in his head.
He pressed up on his forearms so he could better look into her face and then he began to move.
He was tentative at first, a slow, shallow rocking of his hips until he was certain she was comfortable, that she felt pleasure too.
But when she closed her eyes and used her heels to press him further into herself, he moved faster.
“There, Fred. Like that,” his wife murmured. When she clasped his ear lobe with her teeth he felt his bollocks draw up tight.
“Jules—” he said but she had taken over the rhythm now. She was moving beneath him, her hips snapping as she discovered her own pleasure.
The feel of her beneath him, pleasure evident in every plane of her face, was nearly too much.
“Jules,” he gasped out again.
“It’s alright, Fred. It’s—”
She held his gaze while she came apart beneath him.
It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
The noise she made then, a gasping, guttural cry, pushed him right to the edge.
The lightning bolt of his own desire coiled in his lower back and then arced out of him until he was gasping and panting, too.
All he could see or hear or think was, Jules.
My wife. And then he tumbled right over the cliffside and felt only exquisite pleasure all the way down.
The next morning when he opened his eyes he thought for a moment the day before must have been a dream. But then he felt Julianna’s warm body pressed up against his and he knew it wasn’t. She was here, with him, now. And she’d agreed to marry him again.
He couldn’t help but take his fingers and gently caress them down her arm at the thought. She woke up, her smile sleepy and wonderful.
“Good morning,” she whispered. “I’m starving.”
And Fred thought he’d never, ever been happier.
A SEASON THAWS: HAWTHORNE HALL DANCES FOR THE DESERVING
The Poisoned Quill-June 15th, 1860
Printed on Cheap Paper for the Dearly Interested
Dearest Readers,
Now that the heaps and piles of unseasonable snow have at last retreated from Dorsetshire’s roads, we at The Poisoned Quill are delighted to report the thaw extends to our dreadfully postponed social season as well.
Hawthorne Hall shall soon be ablaze with light and music once more, its doors flung wide for a charitable evening under the gracious patronage of its Lord and Lady. The long-promised ball in aid of soldiers and families affected by the late Crimean War is, at last, drawing near.
And we have learned that there will be another Lord and Lady in attendance that evening. It is rumored that none other than the Local Adonis and his Ice Bride will present themselves beneath Hawthorne’s glittering lights.
One supposes they could hardly absent themselves, given that the Countess’s own brother was laid low by an unfortunate illness contracted during his time in the Crimea.
Or is this yet another instance of the public image before the private good?
Is the Ice Bride even colder than we imagined?
Will she drag her poor brother to the affair, putting his life at risk, just to warm our hearts for her?
Or will he remain behind, fortified by yet more bone broth, blankets, and duty, while his callous sister toasts his suffering beneath the chandeliers?
One can only hope the weather holds during her performance.
Dorsetshire remembers all too well the last occasion on which Lord Chester ventured forth to Hawthorne Hall in foul conditions.
It would be most unfortunate for history to show an inclination toward repetition, unless the Ice Bride is counting on the weather to remove yet more familial obstacles from her path.
Ever Yours in Disgust & Delighted Curiosity,
E. S. Mallory
Editor-at-Large, The Poisoned Quill