Chapter 27
“Who the hell is that?” Nathaniel interrupted his friend, looking over Leo’s shoulder with angry deep-blue eyes.
They had been discussing what should be done for Collins, a mutual friend who had fallen on hard times. As they talked, Nathaniel had partly kept his attention on Cecily, and had felt a twinge when he observed her short exchange with Lady Mountingdon.
That was nothing, however, compared to the anger he felt when he saw Cecily give her hand to that fair-haired adventurer. All other thoughts instantly flew out of his mind.
“Oh, it’s only Lord Keenan,” Leo replied, unconcerned. “He never likes to miss a dance.”
“Why is he holding Cecily like that?” Nathaniel demanded, his gaze tracking the couple through the open doors of the ballroom and his feet already following.
“Because this dance is a waltz,” Leo told him with a sigh, walking beside him into the ballroom. “How else would he hold her? Look, Keenan is a flirt, but he’s no harm, really. Can we get back to Collins?”
Nathaniel was no longer listening, however. He watched with stormy eyes as the blond man swept his wife into the waltz, bending and twirling her in time with the music.
Lord Keenan was just a flirt, was he? No harm? Maybe. Even so, Nathaniel didn’t like it at all, especially when he saw Cecily laughing at something the man said to her.
“Nathaniel,” Leo murmured in a warning tone. “It’s only a dance. You look like you want to murder the poor man.”
“Maybe I do,” Nathaniel muttered through gritted teeth.
“Good Lord, you’re actually jealous?” his friend exclaimed with a little laugh. “I never thought I’d see the day that Nathaniel Winslow cared enough about a woman to be jealous.”
“Mind your own business, Leo,” Nathaniel snapped, not liking what was being implied any more than he liked the sight of Cecily waltzing with Lord Keenan and enjoying it.
As he readied himself to move forward and intervene in the middle of the waltz, Leo placed a restraining hand on his arm.
“Very well, Nathaniel, but I caution you to be prudent. Cecily is your wife, and Keenan is nothing to her. Do not make more of this than it is.”
Reluctantly, Nathaniel paused and waited for the dance to end.
Cecily was his wife in name, just as Leo said, but was she his wife in reality or even to her own understanding? With her body still unclaimed, did she feel that she was his?
At that moment, it did not seem so.
Damn it all, he should have taken her a hundred times over while he had the chance. Then, his blood would not be roiling now, and perhaps her dark eyes would be smiling up at him like that, and not at Lord Keenan.
As soon as the music began to wind down, he stalked over to her.
“My wife and I must talk,” he said tersely, taking her arm before the final bars even sounded, not caring how rude he must seem to Lord Keenan or anyone else watching them.
Cecily did not resist, her expression cool and unreadable as Nathaniel led her out of the ballroom, down a dim corridor nearby, and into a small candlelit sitting room that suited his purposes just as well as any other.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing, Nathaniel?” she demanded with cold and dignified anger. “We could have talked in the carriage on the way here. We will have another opportunity on the way home, and—”
“Have you forgotten who you are?” Nathaniel interrupted angrily as soon as the door closed behind them. “I saw you out there laughing and flirting with that man. You are my wife, the Duchess of Greyhaven. I expect you to conduct yourself with the propriety suited to our rank.”
“As you do?” she hurled back at him, her mask of cool disdain suddenly discarded and replaced by hot fury that more than matched his own. “I do not think I could match your levels of ‘propriety’ if I tried, nor would I want to.”
“What?” he sputtered, confused now as well as angry.
“Oh, Lady Mountingdon has opened my eyes to you,” Cecily told him accusingly.
“I understand now. I was a plaything, a toy you picked up because it entertained you for a few minutes. Now that you are bored with me, you have returned to your regular mistress, or mistresses. I neither know nor care how many other women you have.”
Nathaniel’s head spun. What on earth was she talking about? Her face was entirely sincere, and her dark eyes flashed with indignant fury even as her lip trembled with emotion.
However wrong she might be, she truly believed what she was saying.
“I have no mistresses,” he told her bluntly.
“Then why did Lady Mountingdon talk about you the way she did?” she demanded. “She made me feel like such a fool because I never guessed—”
“Oh, hang Lady Mountingdon!” Nathaniel exclaimed, seeing now that the blonde woman had used Cecily to take her revenge on him. “She and I were lovers once, briefly. It was purely physical. She wanted more, and I did not. Now she seeks to turn you against me. That is all.”
“Why should I believe that?” Cecily threw back at him. “Why should I believe anything you say?”
“Because it’s the truth,” he insisted, not knowing what else he could say.
“There has been no other woman for me, Cecily, since the moment I saw you stealing food from Mildenhall’s buffet.
Dear God, woman, you’ve led me a merry dance since then.
When do you think I could even find the time for all these mistresses? ”
“You met someone the day you went up to London. I know you did!” she accused him outright.
“I met a man,” he replied, remembering his meeting with Lord Holt and not wishing to talk about it now. “Not even a man I particularly like.”
Cecily took a deep breath, her cheeks pink and her chest heaving. “Then why—”
Nathaniel held up a hand. “Enough, Cecily. I married you. I made vows to you in front of our families. You are my wife.”
“Am I?” she challenged, her tone somewhere between mutinous and pleading.
Several golden-brown curls had fallen over her forehead as they argued, and the flush on her face was spreading to the milky-white swell of her breasts in their frame of gold-embroidered white silk.
Nathaniel thought she had never looked so beautiful. Slowly, he reached out a hand and caressed her face. She gasped but did not pull away, instead leaning into his touch.
“Yes, you are my wife, Cecily,” he murmured, brushing his fingers across her soft pink lips and feeling them part slightly at his touch.
“If you are expecting me to get down on my knees and apologize to you, I will not,” she declared willfully, although the movement of her lips against his fingers was definitely a kiss, and one that sent a bolt of pleasure straight to his cock.
“I want no apologies, Cecily,” he told her, his heart pounding hard. “However, I do want you on your knees, this very minute.”
Her eyes widened in confusion, the pupils already blown with arousal.
“What do you mean?” she asked uncertainly.
Nathaniel slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, far closer than Lord Keenan had held her during the waltz. He kissed her full on the mouth, his lips and tongue questing hungrily.
Cecily belonged to him, not to Lord Keenan or anyone else.
“Oh, Nathaniel,” she moaned as he gripped her dress and drew it down to her waist, exposing her exquisite breasts in the candlelight. “I don’t understand you.”
She did not protest his kisses or his handling of her breasts, although her confusion was written as large on her face as her excitement.
“You will understand soon,” he breathed. “I promise. Now, down on your knees.”
This time, she obeyed and sank down to the floor before him, looking up at him with hungry and bewitching dark eyes. She was utterly captivating in her state of deshabille, and his cock was already throbbing for her.
“Unfasten my trousers and my undergarments,” he instructed her, and she obeyed with trembling fingers, unfastening each button carefully and glancing up for his approval. “Now, take me in your hand.”
Here, she hesitated, so he reached down to stroke her hair encouragingly, loosening it further over her bare shoulders.
“You have seen it before,” he reminded her gently, although his voice was already roughening with lust. “It is past time that you made a closer acquaintance, don’t you think?”
As she reached into his undershorts and finally took him into her warm palms, he groaned with pleasure.
“Yes,” he told her. “Feel how hard I am for you? You do that to me.”
He groaned appreciatively once again as she squeezed and caressed his cock, now fully hard and eager for her attention.
Looking down, he saw fascination on her face as she stroked and explored him, even reaching down to cup his balls in her other hand. She had never seen an adult man naked and aroused before, and Nathaniel was glad that her curiosity and desire outweighed any nervousness.
“Kiss me now,” he instructed her, delighting in her quick response of pressing her lips to the throbbing head of his shaft but amused that they remained closed. “You must also open your mouth for me.”
“Should I put it in my mouth?” Cecily asked, looking up at him with a shocked expression that made him chuckle, especially considering the unashamed nakedness of her breasts beneath her scandalized visage.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “Remember how I used my mouth on your pretty little quim? There is something similar that you might do for me.”
Still unsure, but recalling the pleasure his mouth had given her, and apparently wishing to return it, Cecily did as she was bidden.
“God, yes,” Nathaniel whispered hoarsely, his hands tangling in her hair as she took the head into her mouth. “Use your tongue a little, Cecily. Now, more in. Ah, yes, like that.”
She obeyed, and he gave a soft grunt as she sucked and licked him with endearing shyness.
Coupled with the pleasure, the very sight of his lovely half-naked wife on her knees before him with his cock in her mouth almost undid him.
Pulling himself out of her mouth abruptly, Nathaniel stood there panting as he tried to gather his self-control.
“Did I do something wrong?” Cecily gasped, looking up at him.
Shaking his head, he pulled her back to her feet and kissed her deeply, cupping her breast in his hand.
“You did everything just as you should, Cecily,” he assured her. “It is only that there is something I must do. Something I should have done before.”
His wife would not leave this room a virgin. Nathaniel knew it now in his head, in his heart, and in the throbbing of his cock. He felt sure that every misunderstanding and unhappiness between them could be resolved if only their bodies came together in desire, as they were designed.
Cecily moaned his name and clung to him as his hand raised her skirts and caressed the dark, damp triangle of fur between her silken thighs.
A finger slid easily into her slit and found her as soft, swollen, and slippery as he could have wished.
Having his cock in her mouth had evidently aroused her.
“Are you ready to be mine, Cecily?” he whispered in her ear and felt her tremble in his arms as she nodded.
He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the soft rug before the empty fireplace. He laid her down, then pulled her white silk skirts around her waist and kissed her soft, naked breasts and thighs, making her writhe in pleasure and anticipation.
“You’re very big,” Cecily murmured nervously as he spread her thighs apart and placed himself between them. “I am not sure this will work.”
“I will go slowly,” he reassured her, feeling her body tense at the first touch of his shaft to her entrance. “Don’t be afraid, Cecily. Look at me, feel me.”
He held her gaze and intertwined their fingers as he penetrated her for the first time, sliding into her inch by inch while she made helpless little mewling sounds in the back of her throat.
The feel of her body opening to him was glorious, but he knew he must keep control of himself if he were to bring her the same pleasure.
“You’re so deep,” she moaned as he gyrated his hips experimentally.
“Does it feel good?” he asked, lightly kissing and nipping at her throat. “Do you like how it feels?”
“Ohh, Nathaniel, yes!” she cried out, and he rewarded her with a small thrust and then another.
Soon enough, her legs lifted of their own accord and wrapped around his waist as though to pull him in deeper and hold him there.
“You’re mine, Cecily,” Nathaniel grunted as he began to work her in earnest, her full breasts now bouncing and quivering. “My beautiful wife…”
Cecily’s loud cries were music to his ears. The passion he had seen before in glimpses was fully awake and spilling over as she was finally properly claimed. His fingers sought and found her swollen bud while his hungry mouth sucked on her erect nipples.
Cecily made a sound that was almost a scream. Her inner walls clamped around him and then spasmed, milking him. His deeper groans mingled with her subsiding whimpers.
They lay there entangled for long minutes, until Nathaniel finally raised his head and kissed her lips.
“I told you the truth before. I haven’t touched another woman since the first night I set eyes on you,” he admitted, feeling no urgency to withdraw from her or rise before he had to.
“Oh…” she murmured, with soft wonder in her eyes.
Nathaniel did not ask. Either way, Cecily was now his.