Chapter Fifteen #2
It was very different from the one Wilfred, as a child, would have seen. Why, she could hardly remember that old trundle thing. It was still poor Gweny’s bed, but when Irene had come out into Society, her father had treated her to a new bed.
A large four-poster sat in the middle of the room. Its oak corners stretched up to the heavens, and the fabric that covered the top was a dark, rich green, as were the coverlets on top of the mattress.
Wilfred reached out and stroked the embroidered coverlet, and Irene found herself inexplicably envious of the fabric.
Envious! Of a blanket!
“It’s perfect,” he said quietly, seating himself on the bed and turning to look at her with a serious expression. “And so are you.”
Irene did her best not to roll her eyes as she stepped toward him. “You don’t have to say that sort of mushy stuff, you know.”
“And what if I mean it?” Wilfred challenged with a raised eyebrow. “Irene, you are perfect. You… You don’t know how long I have waited for you to open your eyes and see me. It might be your only failing.”
Heat blossomed across Irene’s cheeks. “I cannot understand why I didn’t realize what I felt for you was different.”
“It doesn’t matter how long it took us to get here. The point,” Wilfred said, holding out his hands as Irene took them, “is that we got here.”
Irene could not help but smile as she leaned down, her legs nestled between his knees, and kissed him lightly on the mouth.
And then not so lightly.
Oh, this man, he made her want to take all her clothes off and allow him to kiss every inch of her.
Even now, the pair of them fully clothed and herself standing before him, not even sitting by Wilfred on the bed, Irene could feel the sparks of sensual bliss he created with that wicked tongue of his.
“Reeny,” he exhaled.
Irene did not quite know what possessed her to do it. All she knew was that one moment she was standing before Wilfred, her Wilfred, her hands in his, kissing him chastely—well, mostly chastely—and the next, she had mounted him, straddling him on the bed and kissing him furiously.
Wilfred moaned, but it sounded like a pleased moan, so Irene did not bother to move. Why should she, now that she was pressed up against the man with his tongue teasing a decadent route of pleasure in her mouth, one of his hands tangled in her hair and one cupping her buttocks?
His strong body, the hard planes of his chest, were perfect to melt against. Irene could barely think, only feel, knowing that the aching need within her was somehow growing even as she attempted to sate it.
“Wilfred,” Irene whimpered, her fingers scrabbling at his shirt buttons as something in her begged for more.
What, precisely, she did not know.
His answer was naught but a groan, his hands moving to the hems of her skirts and pushing up the fabric until her knees were exposed to the air.
Irene halted her kiss. “I want—I want you. I want everything. I want—”
“Then let me love you,” Wilfred replied, gazing up with such adoration that she was quite overcome by it. “If you trust me, Reeny, if you want to give yourself to me, let me accept.”
All thoughts, all sense had completely disappeared from Irene’s mind. Yes, these were the sorts of things one should say and share with one’s husband alone—but surely, that was what Wilfred would soon be? How could he not be, considering how much they cared for each other?
She nodded, shyness unexpectedly preventing her from speaking.
His grin was half-teasing, half-serious. “No, I think after all these years of waiting—”
“Wilfred!”
“I need to hear it,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving hers. “I need to hear how much you want me.”
He was the most irritating, rascal of a man!
Irene was in half a mind to dismount from the cad and march out of the room, even if it was her room…
but then his thumb brushed innocently—perhaps not-so-innocently—over the budded nipple struggling to free itself from her stays and a shot of pleasure made Irene moan.
She could never leave him.
“I want you to ravish me,” she whispered, her voice only getting stronger as she laughed at his imperiously curious expression. “Damn it, Wilfred, I love you, and I want to share this with you. N-Not just tonight. Every night.”
Unsure as she had been as to precisely what he was looking for, it appeared that she had found it.
Wilfred’s ravenous mouth had returned to hers and Irene whimpered as the pleasure returned, fizzing and soaring through her body like lightning.
His mouth seemed to be everywhere, on her lips, at her throat, nestled into the swells of her décolletage, and his hands, his hands were everywhere too, cupping her cheeks, tugging the last pin from her hair, pushing her skirts past her thighs and undoing his—
Irene caught her breath as her fingertips suddenly reached warm skin and wiry hair. Goodness, had she been the one to undo all these shirt buttons?
“God, I love you,” murmured Wilfred against her neck as his frantic hands undid the buttons of his trousers and—
It was not quite a cry, and it was not quite a gasp. It was probably something in the middle.
Irene looked down, wide-eyed, at…at…
“What did you expect?” asked Wilfred in a slightly worried tone, glancing up at her face then down at his large, jutting manhood, then back to her face.
Well. Expected. Expected wasn’t quite the word. Irene had never… She had not thought…
“You went to that art exhibition with your cousin Evelyn,” Wilfred was saying, his voice somehow distant and his cheeks definitely red. “Reeny, I thought you knew—”
“You’re magnificent,” Irene whispered.
And he was. He was just so much…so much more than she had expected.
Reaching down and brushing a thumb over its glistening head, Irene reveled unexpectedly in the sudden yelp and spasm that came over the man seated beneath her.
A strange flicker of joy, of power, of delight in the power she had over him, sparked through Irene. Dear God, so she could give just as much sensuality as he could. It was… It was marvelous.
Just like in their friendship, she could please him and he could please her and dear God, it was a wonder anyone did anything else other than this!
“You’ll have to tell me what to do,” were the words that slipped from Irene’s lips, the vulnerability suddenly easy, natural.
After all, this was Wilfred. If she could not admit her ignorance and ask for guidance from Wilfred, from whom could she?
But for some reason, the redness in his cheeks was deepening. As though he were embarrassed. As though he…
Understanding, or at least a hint of understanding, dawned. Irene’s jaw dropped. “You haven’t done this before!”
“Well, with whom would I have done this?” hissed Wilfred, as though they could be overheard. “I’ve been waiting for you, you dolt!”
Irene could have laughed, though she was prescient enough to recognize that her best friend, now her lover, would perhaps not react well to such a movement. But it was difficult not to.
Of course, Wilfred would never have shared this with anyone else—the thought was abhorrent! But… Well. She had always presumed a gentleman was experienced in such a matter.
Wilfred looked up, adoration shining through his eyes. “I may not have practiced with anyone else, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what to… What we need to… Do you trust me, Reeny?”
And she looked down at him, her thighs straddling his own and her whole body pulsing with need for him, and smiled. “Completely.”
His deep and passionate kiss almost twisted her mind completely, and perhaps that was his intention, for Irene hardly noticed the strong, unhesitant hands that grasped her hips, lifting her up several inches, then moving her forward, then slowly, slowly, moving her down—
Irene’s eyes shot open and she gasped into their kiss, “Wilfred!”
Oh, it was intoxicating, and it was invading, and the feeling of his manhood pressing against her folds was bewildering and yet the bliss was already soaring through her as he pushed deeper, deeper, and Irene could not understand how she could accommodate so much, but her body welcomed him and oh, it was everything. Everything.
He was everything.
And the gasping, panting Wilfred beneath her, gazing up not just with adoration now but with possession, a keen determination that she was his and he was hers, was the man she wanted. For the rest of her life.
“Now ride me,” Wilfred whispered, kissing her neck, her lips. “I’ve seen how well you can ride. How many times have we gone out together, just the two of us?”
Irene could barely think, barely breathe. “‘R-Ride’?”
The man she loved nodded. “Ride.”
Hardly sure if the man had a good grasp of his own wits, Irene decided to appease him. After all, what harm could a little movement—
“Oh!” she gasped.
A little movement, it appeared, could do very little harm but could do much, much good. Just a few inches up on her knees, pulling herself free but not entirely from Wilfred’s manhood, that had felt good—but thrusting down and spearing herself on him had felt very good.
Wilfred’s eyes gleamed. “Ride me, Reeny.”
And so she did. Panting heavily, hands clutching his shoulders and her head eventually falling back with the overwhelming carnality, Irene rocked and rode on her lover, her voice slowly growing, unable to hold back. “Yes—yes, oh, God, yes, that’s—Wilfred, you feel so—”
“And you feel so damned good,” gritted out Wilfred through his teeth, and for some reason, the poor man looked just as pained as he did pleasured. “Take it, Reeny, take all the satisfaction you want.”
She did not need such an instruction. Irene’s body seemed to know what it wanted, plunging harder and harder onto Wilfred’s thick manhood, which sparked teasing, aching joy through every inch of her body, and yet there appeared to be something more, something just out of reach, and she could weep for the frustration.
And somehow, he knew.
Naturally, he knows. Wilfred is my best friend, Irene thought wildly as one of his hands reached out and caressed her breast, his thumb and forefinger capturing her nipple and twisting in a way that made her whole body buckle.
“I need—I need,” Irene panted.
She was unable to say more, for Wilfred had covered her mouth with hers, his tongue twisting with agonizing ecstasy, and God, it was infuriating. She was so close—
Irene’s eyes widened and her squirming shout of surprise was swallowed by his kiss as Wilfred’s other hand moved to beneath her skirts, to where they joined, and his thumb reached into her folds and circled slowly around a part of her that…that…that…
Irene exploded.
She had not meant to. She had not known it was coming, this undulating blast of bliss, this decadent detonation of ecstasy throughout every pore of her body, but it was here and she could do nothing but let go, losing herself to the peak, and beneath her, Wilfred was bucking and crying her name and all it did was push her higher, higher, until she reached a peak that wrenched a cry from her lips.
“Wilfred!”
How, precisely, Irene had collapsed onto her best friend, the two of them tangled in skirts and shirts and sheets on the bed, she did not know.
What she did know was that she was lying in the arms of Wilfred, having shared the most inexplicable pleasure, and she would never, never be the same again.