Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Before Delilah could ask how that could possibly be true, Sebastian’s mouth continued its trail up the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, and a held sigh poured out of her. “That feels…oh…”
The rest of the sentence became lost to history as his mouth moved along her thigh, his tongue a wet slide up…up…up… Her sex throbbed… It ached… It needed… It demanded.
Could it be that where his fingers once touched her his mouth would—
Oh.
Slick and warm his tongue stroked her slit. “Sebastian,” she moaned.
He chuckled against her. As his tongue flicked, his thumb entered her, sliding in and out as he took control of her body—of her wants and desires.
As he took control of her pleasure.
Her booted heels pressed against his shoulders, she leaned back onto her elbows and let him touch her and fill her, deliver pleasure to her with each flick of his tongue.
Oh, the sight of him—the feel of him—between her legs…
In literature and in life, women were always portrayed as the more sensual of the sexes.
But gazing upon this man, his eyes holding hers, daring her to look away as he pleasured her with his tongue, she knew it to be a fundamental untruth.
This man was pure sensuality.
Impossible that she’d never seen what others so clearly saw.
This man with his unknowable gaze…his wicked smile…his unapologetic arrogance…was sin personified.
Tempting her into sin with him.
She’d never been all that adept at resisting temptation.
A Windermere trait, truth told.
Another finger entered her and she lost all capacity for thought as her body became a vessel for the pleasure he delivered.
Sensation built beneath his talented tongue—curled inside her sex.
It was a feeling she’d come to know… Her entire being now centered in the place where the firm tip of his tongue met her most sensitive flesh… where his fingers entered her.
Then he sucked her nub into his mouth, his tongue softly brushing and teasing her…
laving…stroking…a gathering of sensation occurring within her as release held itself out of reach, taunting her with promise…
then all that was collapsed inward, released as if on a spring, her body filling with light and air and color as she cried out and tumbled over the edge of climax, her sex pulsing around his fingers, him watching her with that dark intensity that only increased her pleasure.
He gave her quim one final lick and lifted his head. “I’d say you liked that.”
A wicked smile on his mouth, he wiped his chin with the back of his hand. It occurred to her that she should feel a modicum of shame or modesty.
She felt neither.
“I suppose this is what people are talking about when they refer to a tup,” she said.
Oh, the arrogance curving his talented mouth as he rose and stepped between her legs, his fingers making quick work of his trouser buttons.
Gravity took the cloth, and his cock sprang free.
Thick…turgid…ready. Oh, the heat that blazed through Delilah as he took a thigh in each hand, and his heavy length slid along her sex, his manhood hard against her opening. “This is what’s referred to as a tup.”
And he pressed into her, one slow, intentional inch at a time. A long moan poured from her. She didn’t recognize herself as he impaled her. So hard…so big…filling her with sensations only he could offer.
And didn’t the expression on his face say he knew it.
And—oh, heaven help her—didn’t she find it entirely too attractive.
As he began to slide in and out of her, it occurred to her that her body might be forming a dependency on this man. That when summer ended she might not be able to give him up. But—oh—how could she possibly when he made her feel like this?
Her legs wrapped around his waist, bringing him yet closer. She reached up and pulled his mouth to hers, taking this act to another level of intimacy, as she ground against him, his full, heavy length skating along the sharp straightedge between pleasure and pain.
He sucked his breath and uttered, “Delilah,” with raw ache and need, the utterance rumbling through her so that she nearly climaxed again on the spot.
Of a sudden, he shifted back and out of her, provoking a cry of outrage. “What do you think you’re—”
“I thought you wanted a proper tup.”
And with that he tugged her forward and off the edge of the stage so her feet touched ground, immediately taking her hips in hand and turning her around.
Her bottom bared to the breeze, his hand found the middle of her back and subtly pushed, leaving her no choice but to bend at the waist and plant her palms on cool stone.
The hand trailed up her back and wove through her hair, her hips angled so her bottom curved up.
Over her shoulder, she met his gaze just as he pushed at the opening of her sex, entering her, his fingers clutching her hair, his other hand pressed at the small of her back as he held her steady and guided his cock in and out of her with deliberate intention.
Hot sensation took wing inside her. This…
tupping…felt a bit wrong…a bit perverse…
a bit like what happened in dark alleyways and gardens in the dead of night…
like what happened between the lines of the warnings given by chaperones…
And like everything right.
Oh, all she could do was feel as he moved in and out of her, his breath ragged and desperate at her back. An odd feeling of power surged within her. That she could make this man—the arrogant Duke of Ravensworth—desperate for her…
Oh, that was conquest.
At least in this moment.
And this moment was all that mattered as she angled her hips to receive more of him and meet him stroke for stroke, his equal in this tupping. He wasn’t the only one able to deliver pleasure.
He subtly pulled her hair so she arched back. “Delilah,” came his voice in her ear. “I’m almost there.”
“Oh, yes,” she returned, the now-familiar sensation coiling in her sex. “Faster,” she demanded, meeting him stroke for stroke.
He accommodated, but not as deeply, somehow intuiting what she needed—what would get her there…faster.
Then release was breaking upon her, making her cry out, and behind her, both of her hips in his hands, he followed, shouting his release to the sky above.
She collapsed forward onto her elbows, and his movements, inevitably, slowed, the ragged in and out of his breath at her back.
Though they’d…tupped…not unlike animals, she suspected—or perhaps like humans desperate for each other, came a more generous thought—she experienced connection.
From her body to his, yes, but somewhere else, too.
A place that channeled deep enough to cause a dull ache inside her chest.
Was it possible that Ravensworth had connected to the place that beat faster at the merest thought of him?
It was a possibility that wasn’t as troubling as she would’ve once supposed.
Had he truly tupped Lady Delilah Windermere like a common strumpet?
That was Sebastian’s first thought as he reentered his body.
And had she truly enjoyed it?
That was his second thought.
Then he turned her around, met her thoroughly sated gaze, and knew the answers to both questions.
Yes and yes.
“We’ll eventually make it to a proper bed,” he said, striving for a note of levity.
No responding smile found its way to her swollen, kiss-crushed lips. Instead, she stared at him with uncharacteristic seriousness. “I think…” She was weighing her words. “I think I might like you.”
He blinked. “You think? You might?”
Truly, Delilah… What was he going to do with her?
He reckoned he could tup her again.
She looked amenable to suggestion.
He snorted.
Actually, he knew precisely what he wanted to do with her.
But it wasn’t something he could demand.
It was something he needed to ask.
And she needed to agree.
He buttoned the fall of his trousers, deciding he should be fully dressed for what he was about to say.
“You seem to enjoy, erm—” He cleared his throat.
He might’ve started all wrong. Perhaps it was a trifle inelegant to tell a lady that her sexual appetite resembled that of a wanton—though a compliment.
Delilah, however, appeared to gather where the sentence had been heading, and didn’t seem the least offended. “A good tup?” There was the smile returned to her mouth.
“Erm, yes.” Oh, Lord. “Do you know how you could have a good tup whenever you liked?”
She reached for him, hooking a finger into the waistband of his trousers and tugging him forward, a saucy glimmer in her eyes. “How’s that?” She wasn’t truly asking. “By making you my love slave?”
“Or,” he countered, summoning his last shreds of will. Her idea wasn’t a bad one. “Marriage.”
The smile froze on her lips, but a saucy echo of itself.
“Haven’t you ever considered it?” he asked. Most women did.
“Why should I?” She looked genuinely nonplussed. “If I shackled myself to a man, what would I receive in return? Someone who would happily accept my dowry and strip me of my freedom?”
“You don’t think there’s a man out there who wouldn’t? A man who would respect you as an equal?”
“I’ve never met such a man.”
The proclamation passed her lips with the certainty of repetition, as if it were a line she’d memorized that had become rote response.
He wouldn’t let it slide by unchallenged.
“Haven’t you?”
She blinked. Her eyebrows drew together. “Why would two people like us marry? We have wealth and status. You and I could live in sin and freedom forever.”
Oh, these Windermeres. Didn’t they understand anything? “To safeguard what we have.”
She exhaled an annoyed sigh. “Why do men have to think like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like everything—including a woman—is a possession to be kept under lock and key.”
“I’m not speaking in generalities, Delilah. I’m speaking of you and me—us. I don’t think of you as a possession.”
Realization lit across her face, and she gasped. “Are you proposing marriage to me?”
And Sebastian understood something.
He wasn’t.
“Delilah, when you decide to marry me, it will be your idea.”
Her mouth opened, then snapped shut. Opened again…and snapped shut again. She would be well within her rights to call him an arrogant, condescending arse.
But he wouldn’t mind—for he knew he was right.
Delilah possessed a wildness to her heart that would ever demand to be free. To rush her would be the height of foolishness. Besides, summer yet held a couple of weeks in it—weeks to woo and win her.
For her to decide she would be his.
That much he knew—even if she didn’t yet.
Once she’d regained her capacity for speech, she said, “I suppose we should return to camp.” She pushed off the stage and smoothed her skirt. “I’ll need to run my lines again this evening.”
She wanted a change of subject, and he agreed it was likely for the best. They began retracing their steps across Wimberley Hill toward the docked punt. “Are you nervous about tomorrow night’s performance?”
“Yes.”
She moved alongside him, but didn’t reach for his hand. His fingers felt empty without hers twined through. He could only hope she felt the same.
“But that’s what makes it so exhilarating,” she continued, her cheeks bright with passion.
The way her fervor shone through when she spoke of performance…
It gave him hope.
Lady Delilah Windermere couldn’t live without her passions.
Now he could only hope he was one of them.
And he knew.
He more than liked this woman.
There was a reason he wanted to make her his—and it had naught to do with what they’d just done on the stage.
It had to do with another feeling, one deeper and more powerful than mere desire.
But the time to tell her hadn’t yet arrived.
He had another few weeks.
He had time.