Chapter 8 #2
He began trailing kisses up the column of her neck as he drew her closer.
Unable to keep the hoyden at bay a second longer, immediacy took over and she inelegantly lurched forward—who had time for elegance?
—and climbed atop him so she sat, straddling his thick thighs, her breath coming in short gasps.
Later, she would wonder about this daring side that she hadn’t known existed until tonight.
But not now.
Now, her gaze met his on an equal plane and the craving she saw in there sent shivers skittering through her. This gorgeous, glorious, too massive, too masculine man wanted her.
And she wanted him.
How simple—how elemental—was desire.
Parched and hungry for him, she took his face in both hands and drew him in for another kiss, her nipples pressing into his chest. She simply needed his mouth on hers.
How deep, how complete was her fall into his kiss that she hardly noticed when his hand began trailing up her thighs and slid beneath her.
Then she—oh—noticed. How her sex throbbed and ached in anticipation of his touch.
Rough fingers slid along her slit, and she gasped, more sparks flying through her, her entire being concentrated where he touched her…
there. Her face angled and her mouth found his neck, the taste of salt and man on her tongue.
“You’re so wet, my sweet,” came a low murmur in her ear, a long groan pouring from her when he found her center. “And so tight.”
She inhaled at the sensation of his long, thick finger entering her. It was a not unpleasant feeling as her sex adjusted around him. With a will of their own, her hips moved in a slow circle and his finger slid in and out of her, in again.
Oh, this feeling…
It was better than prosecco.
“So eager,” he rumbled on a laugh.
A novel sense of urgency began to scratch at her. “I need more,” she rasped.
“And you shall have it.” His gaze went serious. “Touch me.”
Oh.
He didn’t need to tell her where.
She knew.
Her hand slipped between them, down his muscled chest, ridged stomach—oh, the muscular feel of him—lower until…oh. There he was. Trembly fingertips feathered down his length.
His head arced back, and a moan escaped him. “Wrap your fingers around me.”
She did. The feel of him. So hard. So big. She squeezed and tugged. “Like that?”
“Oh, yes, exactly like that.”
Sudden, impatient greed clawed at her. She wasn’t entirely certain he would fit, but she wanted this inside her. Now. “Ripon—”
“Tristan.”
“Tristan,” she repeated. The name of a hero. It suited him. Tonight, she would be his Isolde. “I need you.”
His gaze, cloudy with desire, met hers. “You’re certain?”
She bit her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded. She’d never been more certain of anything in her life.
His hands tightened on her hips and lifted, her arms draped over his shoulders for balance. His fingers covered hers around his manhood and guided him to the entrance of her sex. “This will hurt a bit,” he muttered in her ear. “We’ll move slow.”
She wasn’t certain slow was possible. She was simply so hungry for him. With breathless deliberation, she lowered onto him as he stretched her, filling her inch by inch. It did pinch, but alongside the pain raced pleasure.
“Am I too much?” he said against her neck.
Yes. “No.”
Somehow her body understood she needed all of him inside her.
A need she hadn’t been aware of in all of her seven and twenty years.
And when she thought she’d surely taken all of him in, there was yet more of him to be had.
Her hips moved on him, shallow at first, testingly, the race of her heart in unison with his, their breath mingling inside the curtain of her hair, every movement of her hips eliciting a groan from him.
How sweet was the pain of pleasure. A bead of sweat dripped from her chin onto his chest.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Ready?
“Aren’t we…aren’t we already…?” She wasn’t sure how to finish.
“You have so much to learn, my sweet.”
My sweet.
The idea of being his was as seductive as the man himself.
His hands tightened on her hips and took control of the movement of her body, the length of him stroking in and out of her in measured rhythm, pain tipping over into pleasure.
And the pain that remained? Strangely, it craved more and more as a feeling began to build inside her.
A need that was beginning to make demands of her—that she satisfy it.
She had no idea how, but the man whose body moved against hers…
He did.
He gathered her closer, only a slick of sweat between them, and she felt permission to give over to abandon as she grabbed his hair and pressed her mouth to his, reduced to the very elements of who she was.
She broke from his mouth. “I never knew it was like this.”
His gaze, dark with promise, held hers. “It isn’t.”
Amelia didn’t take his meaning, but she couldn’t think in this moment. She could only be as he slouched further back onto the settee, thrusting his hips, impaling her further, drawing a gasp from her. “Too much?” he asked.
“I think…”—oh—“I think…”—oh—“I think it might not be enough.”
His mouth curved into a wicked smile. “Insatiable, my sweet.”
As one, the rhythm of their hips increased, their bodies moving in perfect counterpoint. Tension coiled tight inside her, pulling at her, demanding focus.
“Amelia,” he said, “surrender.”
“I…I…I don’t know…how.” Surrender wasn’t in her nature.
“Your body knows.”
As she moved on him, the promise of something…
something…more…scratched at her… Her body tensed…
Her quim held… Of a sudden, release burst upon her in a wash of bright orange…
Her sex pulsing around his thick manhood, pleasure spiking through her veins in a platinum streak, afloat in the abandon of a wild space that existed outside the realm of that which could be touched.
And still he moved inside her, stroke after relentless stroke.
It was too much.
It would never be enough.
“You are…” he murmured into the base of her throat. The same abandon that had seized her moments ago now held him within its unrelenting grip.
“I am what?” She needed to know.
But he’d lost the thread as he tensed beneath her, the thrust of his manhood, hard and demanding. Amelia could only hold on as he released a long groan and climax took him and he gathered her in his arms, held her tight, and settled back.
Somehow, through sated lips she asked again, “I am what?”
Eyes closed, he grunted.
Her chest pressed to his, she felt the sure beat of his heart, matching her own, each thud slower than the last.
“Unexpected.”
“Pardon?” she asked, her cheek now resting against the crook of his neck, eyes closed, her mind and body adrift.
“You are unexpected, Lady Amelia Windermere,” she heard, muted, as if from a great distance.
Pleasured and safe in his arms, she fell into complete surrender as never before in her life.
Dawn blinking golden light through parted bed curtains, Amelia stared unblinking at the frescoed ceiling above.
He was gone.
At some hour unknown to her, he’d deposited her into bed and didn’t join her.
Though she tugged at his arm.
Though she whimpered.
Of course, with morning returned sanity and a few rational thoughts. Like…
She was no longer a virgin.
Possibly no longer marriageable. Not that she cared about that all that much.
While she wanted to be accepted back into proper society, she’d never been all that concerned with ensnaring a husband. Her family already had money and titles, after all.
Even so, she’d also never seen herself as the sort of woman who would take lovers, either.
And she most definitely didn’t want to be seen as the sort of woman who took lovers.
Just below family, reputation was everything, and the Duke of Ripon would be bad for her reputation. Very bad.
Her mind knew this. Her body, however, held a differing position on the subject of the Duke of Ripon, for it had learned something about him only hours ago…
How very, very good he was.
She squeezed her thighs together and dragged a pillow across her face.
And groaned.
She may never stop groaning.
So, this was how it felt to have opened Pandora’s box?