Chapter 18 #2
He licked his lips, looking conflicted. “Is that… a good idea?”
“Is it not?”
“This is your first time, is it not? In bed with a man?” He looked so pained, she almost felt sorry for him.
“I confess I am not an expert, but there are certain things a lady should receive on her first time to make things… easier for her. Less painful. And if she’s unfamiliar with the act, then—” He bent his head and bit her collarbone again, making her gasp in surprise once more.
“I had intended to behave like a gentleman during this first encounter.”
“You are presuming there will be a second encounter,” she quirked a brow, although the severity of her words was marred by the way she arched into him and rocked against him, seeking friction against her core.
“Oh, there will be a second time…” he said darkly.
“Only if I command it.”
“Yes. And I have utter confidence that you will.”
He slid her skirts to her waist and pressed his hard ridge against her naked core. She cried out at the contact, sparks flying across her vision. And yet his bottom half was still clothed.
“You are arrogant…” she informed him when she caught her breath.
“Confident.” He rocked his hips against her again, and she moaned.
“Obnoxious…”
“I can hardly deny that one.” His eyes turned unfocused and he cursed under his breath. “How can this feel so good like this?”
“This is not one of the acts you mentioned?”
“This? No, it’s—” He bent and caught her mouth in his, nipping her bottom lip. “It’s an act to prepare you for what’s to follow.”
To prepare her?
Everything felt so good already.
She felt as though her nails would bite straight through his skin as she gripped his arms, trying to pull him closer if at all possible.
If she could, she would sink inside his skin, so close that the two of them merged and became one.
Here and now, with heat and pleasure blooming inside her, and his mouth extorting kisses from her, she wanted to live inside this moment forever.
Just this, and just him, and none of the outside complications that lingered beyond reach.
She would have given everything to extend this moment forever...
But there was more to come, and past the slow, luxurious thrusts he gave her, she realized her urgent, emotional contentment was giving way to something keener.
Impatience.
This was good—better than good—but her body yearned for more. More friction, more pleasure, more, more, more... She didn’t even understand to what end, but she couldn’t give any thought over to that.
“Dress off,” he muttered, more to himself than to her, and he rose off her.
Before she could complain, he had flipped her and was addressing himself to the lacing at the back of her dress.
He had it off in record time, along with her stays.
He tugged them over her head, exchanging grace for speed, and she was all too eager to help him.
Once all her layers had been removed, she lay before him, naked, and fought the urge to cross her arms across her chest. Jenny had, by necessity, seen her unclothed, and so had other maids.
During the first few weeks of her accident, she had been forced to relinquish pride in favor of medical necessity.
But this felt entirely different. Not just bare—she felt exposed. The slick warmth between her legs felt cool in the air. His heated gaze traveled over every inch of her. Her small breasts, the tiny, dark nipples, and the thatch of hair between her legs, now damp with her arousal.
His gaze also noted her every visible rib, the prominence of her hipbones, and the long length of her legs. He didn’t shy away from her ruined one, didn’t skip over that part of her as though it was lesser or less arousing.
She reminded herself that she had persuaded him to abandon his massage partway through by rubbing that part of herself against him. Unlike everyone else she had ever met, he did not find her leg ugly.
The thought bolstered her confidence, and she met his eyes boldly when he returned them to her face.
“Well?” she demanded. “Do you find me pleasing?”
“Extremely so,” he whispered in that rasping voice she found unbearably attractive. “I would like to touch you. May I?”
“Yes.” She said the word almost as a plea, and he grinned as he bent his head, but this time to her breasts.
The first pass of his tongue across her nipple made her moan, and she arched into his touch, gripping his hair in an attempt to hold herself steady.
One hand cupped her side, his thumb pressing into the soft swell of her breast, and his other slid down her stomach to her navel, then lower to her soft curls, before finally, his fingers reached her folds.
He groaned. “You’re so wet, Alice.”
“Is that… good?”
“Yes. Yes, it’s a very good thing.” He brought his fingers back up her body, tracing them wet around the hard bud of her nipple, then licking her fluids off her skin. The sight was so unexpectedly arousing, she pressed her sticky thighs together.
“You are a goddess…” he breathed, husky again, and applied himself to her other breast as his hand delved back down lower.
She had not experimented on herself—proper young ladies did no such thing—and so every slide of his fingers was a surprise. There was one part in particular that he found, tracing circles into her slick flesh until she writhed, the pressure building in her lower belly, all light and heat.
“Please,” she babbled, not knowing what she begged for, hating that she was begging for him, but knowing she could not help herself. “Please, Frederick... I need to—you must—don’t stop... If you stop, I will never forgive you. Never, never...”
He chuckled as he kissed back up to her mouth again. “I love it when you talk,” he murmured against her lips. “What will you do if I stop now?”
The pleasure wound tighter. She was a firework, a lit fuse, seconds away from combusting entirely. She would explode into a thousand pieces. She would burn brighter than the sun, so long as he didn’t stop what he was doing with those wonderful, magical, clever fingers of his.
“Frederick,” she moaned.
“What will you do, kitten?” He kissed her cheek in such a soft, tender gesture, but then he pinched her nipple, and the pleasure surged beyond measure. Yet she never quite fell off the brink. Something kept her tethered there.
“I’ll kill you,” she moaned, and he laughed, tipping his head back.
“I should have known that would be the first punishment you chose.” His teeth scraped her skin, and she panted, so close.
So very close. “But just think, my sweet—you can do this to me, too... You can make me squirm. Bring me to my knees.” His voice darkened with desire.
“I should very like to be on my knees before you.”
The idea of Frederick on his knees sent her bursting toward the edge. As though he felt the burgeoning tension in her body, he slowed his fingers, and she cried out in frustration.
“Why are you doing this?” she whined.
“Denial makes the eventual reward all the sweeter... Do you not think I know all about what it is to want something, to be denied it, and then for it finally to be granted?”
He moved, and she realized he was pressing his hips into the bed as though to relieve an ache there. She could imagine how he felt, and wondered at his lack of urgency.
Or rather, his self-control in denying himself when she could not stand being denied even these few times.
“Do you want to come?” he demanded, and she nodded vigorously.
“Yes, make me—please…”
“Say it. Say ‘I want to come’.”
“Frederick…” she moaned.
“Say it and I’ll make it happen, sweetheart.”
She hated him. She wanted him. She never wanted him to stop what he was doing, because even though she did want to—well, that—more than anything, with every denial he gave her, the more the tension inside her racked up, until she wanted to weep at the intensity of it.
Just as she’d predicted, he knew her body better than she ever did.
And he had offered her something in exchange—the chance to do this to him in return.
He had seen her desire for control, and despite requesting she yield for this, he was giving her the chance to take back control in a visceral way next.
“I hate you…” she mumbled, gasping as he slid a finger inside. Just one, but it already felt as though he was penetrating her with too much. She had the sensation of being filled—of perhaps even being too full—and he made a guttural noise at feeling it.
“So tight,” he groaned, the words a praise although she didn’t understand why. “You are going to feel so perfect around my cock.”
She couldn’t help it—she blushed. Even with his finger inside her, with his thumb slowly rubbing across the place she needed him the most, the coarseness of his word made her almost embarrassed.
He nuzzled into the side of her face. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “Let go. This is a safe space. Relax.”
“Make me come.” The words burst out of her in an order rather than a request. For a heartbeat, his fingers stilled, but then they started up with more purpose.
“As my lady wishes,” he murmured, and with devastating ease, he tipped her over the edge into blinding pleasure.