Chapter Twenty-One

He crouched and put his lips to her breast.

Caroline gasped as he caught her against him, holding her close while his tongue circled her nipple over and over. The space between her legs was already slippery.

He’d shown her how to pleasure herself, and she’d brought herself to climax a few times in the nights since then. Every time she’d touched herself she’d thought of him, and it had made her core sore with wanting.

“Please. I don’t think I can stand much longer,” she gasped.

At once, the earl wrapped his powerful arms around her and lifted Caroline into the air.

“Then you ought to lie down.” He watched her with worshipful hunger as he carried her to the bed.

Caroline sighed as the satin bedclothes met her skin.

She rolled down her stockings with trembling hands as Gabriel undid his breeches and shucked them off. When he revealed his manhood, she emitted a shocked noise.

“Are you all right?” His concern was immediate.

“Quite,” she breathed in reply, even as she blushed. “I only require a moment to adjust myself.” The length of him was dusky and curved slightly at the tip. The thought of him entering her should have filled her with horror and shock at her own immodesty, but Caroline felt nothing except mounting excitement.

“We’re making many adjustments tonight, it seems.” The earl looked on her with silken desire.

In her pamphlets, she’d written of women lying back upon chaises and feeling ecstasy… somewhere . The descriptions had been vague to allow her to cloak her inexperience.

She had no doubt, though, exactly what she now wanted. She laid her head upon a pillow. In yielding herself up in such a manner, she caused Gabriel’s mouth to fall open. His eyes were now lost; he was entirely hers.

“Will you give me whatever I desire?” Caroline asked, feeling like a goddess speaking to her supplicant.

“Indeed.” He touched her thigh, traced his rough hand along the smooth line of her body.

Caroline shivered with anticipation. “Then will you bring me to a climax again, my lord?”

“Only if you call me Gabriel from now on.” He looked wild with delight as he joined her upon the bed. His callused hand felt wonderful on her sensitive skin as he squeezed her breast and then slid his fingers down to between her legs. “I do like that you simply asked for what you wanted. I want to please you.”

Caroline gave a soft cry as he parted her with one finger. Gabriel put his lips to her neck, a laugh of delight rumbling in his chest. She knew she was swollen and wet, and she knew how much that pleased him.

“I do love how ready you already are. But there’s no need to rush, is there?”

“No. None at all.”

She arched her back as his fingers began a slow, teasing dance.

With every expert movement, he let the pulse between her legs begin. The tension mounted, the excitement sang in her blood as he rubbed that sensitive spot until she almost exploded with delight…then, as her apex neared, he stopped and slid a finger inside her body. The passage was a bit tense, but also exquisite.

“My lord, you really mustn’t tease me like this,” Caroline gasped. She couldn’t help her smiling, though; the pleasure throbbed through her, radiating out like a ripple in a pond.

The delight lapped over her body again and again, weakening her to the point of tearful ecstasy.

“I told you. It’s Gabriel.” He bit lightly upon her nipple and traced his tongue about the areola with expert delicacy. His fingers found that tender, wonderful spot between her legs again and made her whimper. He chuckled as Caroline writhed beneath him, trembling on the very precipice of a most exquisite drop. “You must say my name, Caroline.”

“I shall call you as I like. Oh. ” Her whole body was burning with the desire for release. His breath was harsh, too; he wanted her surrender as badly as she needed his.

“Even if my name is the only pathway to what you desire?”

She looked deep into his eyes. Their green was practically a living place, a jungle or dense forest.

“And would you be so cruel as to deny me, my lord?”

She saw then in his eyes that he was fully captured, that there was nothing she could do to lessen his desire now. That he would rather do anything, break any oath or vow, than keep from giving her what she most wanted. This. Them, together.

“You’re a vixen.” His words were hot and harsh in her ear as he spurred her on to further ecstasy. Caroline gave low, disbelieving moans as the pleasure swelled and crested within her.

“Oh, my lord. Gabriel,” she cried out, surrendering to him as fully as he surrendered to her. Caroline wanted as much as she could get; she wanted more, and when she received it she knew she would desire more yet again.

The tension in her body gave way to joyful release. She gave a muffled cry against his shoulder as the climax burned through her. Caroline whimpered as they kissed, the earl lying fully atop her. There was no returning from this point, and no wish to turn back.

“You’re mine.” His voice was possessive as he aligned his body with her own.

Caroline felt the girth of him as it began to slide inside her, inch by glorious inch. She surrendered herself to it, loving the way they met and melded.

“Yes. I’m yours.” She took deep breaths in and out, adjusting as he stretched her.

Caroline trembled upon the threshold of a new world and gave a soft cry of joy as he entered her fully. He filled her, let her feel entirely new as he claimed her body for his own.

It was astonishing to lie with a man atop her, the power of his form trembling against the softness of her own. She’d succeeded in bringing him fully under her spell…and had become his own helpless captive in turn.

“I’ve never felt anything like this before,” Gabriel whispered.

“Neither have I.” Caroline took a moment to fully adjust around him. Gabriel waited until she was ready, though he trembled atop her with the increasing desire to move. Still, he was the supplicant, she the goddess. Caroline kissed him softly and said, “How does one make love?”

“Allow me to demonstrate.” He captured her lips in one hot, searing kiss and then began.

She gasped as he rode her gently at first. His passage in and out of her began to stir Caroline to another great climax. She tilted her hips, trying to meet his own pace. Wanting them to join so totally together that they could never be parted. For her, this was alien territory, a new frontier of experience.

Yet this was also the way many other young women had been deflowered.

Gently, the man on top of her, the woman allowing his caresses and thrusts. They were neither of them entirely typical; why should their first coupling be any different?

“Show me something new,” she whispered against his lips as he kissed her. “I want to try everything.”

“You’re insatiable, then?” He said it with pride and arousal.

Caroline wrapped her legs around his waist, bit and sucked upon the lobe of his ear. She reveled in his surprised cry; perhaps he was unused to young ladies being this forward. Momentarily she wondered if she ought to be embarrassed. If this was yet another area of life in which she was naturally ill equipped.

Caroline pushed that thought from her mind. Even if every other man would think that way about her, Gabriel did not, and he was all that mattered.

“Show me something new,” she whispered in his ear.

“As my lady commands.” Gabriel pulled out of her and Caroline gasped when he turned her over. She was on her hands and knees when he entered her from behind with a long, swift thrust.

“Oh!” She was shocked when she saw them both in the mirror at the foot of his bed. The earl was slick with sweat as he took her from behind, and Caroline’s naked body was flushed with the rigor and ecstasy of the union.

“I want you to see how incredible you look,” Gabriel hissed as he rocked into her again and again. Caroline arched her spine, shivering with wonder as she felt him sheathed so fully inside her. “I’ve craved every inch of you. Even now, I can’t bloody get enough.” His voice grew tighter as his thrusting grew even more strenuous.

Caroline reveled in the creak of the bed beneath them. She saw in the mirror a young woman with wild hair and passion-swollen lips, languorous with ecstasy as a man rutted with her.

She wanted to achieve her peak when he did his. Caroline put a hand between her legs and touched the sleek, wet folds of her sex. She felt his powerful thrusts and rubbed at the little point of heaven between her thighs.

“I love how wanton you are,” he moaned.

“Don’t you dare finish without me,” she gasped, her fingers bringing her to the apex of delight as his cock plunged ever deeper within. She groaned, speeding ever onward as the earl grabbed her by the hips and slammed inside. His jaw was clenched as he fought against his pinnacle.

“I can’t…much longer,” he rasped.

As he said that, Caroline’s touch finally ignited her fully. She felt like a bud opening as the climax shook through her, making her open her mouth and give the most luxurious cry of triumph. The earl slammed into her thrice more and then groaned his own finish. She felt him go still within her, and then they were both gazing into the mirror, both flushed and sweating.

Gabriel leaned down and kissed her back, directly between her shoulder blades.

“I’ve never known true union with a woman until now,” he muttered.

Caroline sighed as his body slid out of hers, and she turned onto her back. She was propped on her elbows as she gazed up the indescribable muscled length of his body. She was aware of how naked and slick she was, how opposite of a proper young lady.

She loved it. Caroline didn’t want to be conventional in any way. Not in her thoughts, her talents, or her amorous practices. She could never have been satisfied with an ordinary member of the ton . She didn’t deserve the good fortune that her own bad behavior had created.

But she had no intention of letting go now.

“Caroline? How was it for you?” He seemed eager to know, concerned that her pleasure had been any less ecstatic than his. She sat up upon her knees and kissed him. Caroline held him close, savored the salt of sweat on his lips, the hearth’s heat of his body.

“Why should you ask when you already know the answer?”

“Because I like to hear myself praised, obviously.” With a rumbling chuckle, he kissed her breasts and throat. “You’re quite the wordsmith, after all. I’m certain you’ll have an original way of describing your rapture.”

“Rapture, was it? Are you so sure?” She giggled as he kissed her with almost brutal strength.

“I know what I heard. That tongue of yours can be used to great effect. Speak, my lady.”

Yes. She was to be Lady Rockford now. Caroline could have cried with the sheer delight.

“I will use my tongue to praise you,” she said softly, kissing the lobe of his ear and whispering, “if you will kindly return the favor.”

He needed no further instruction. The earl kissed her and kissed every inch of her body. When he positioned his head between her legs, Caroline was vocal with his praises indeed.

Caroline awoke with an abrupt start. She sat up, still naked, and noticed that gray light had appeared beyond the windowpane. She should have been out of here some time ago, but somehow she’d forgotten how to be sensible in all the orgasmic tumult of the evening.

The Earl of Rockford lay asleep beside her. His body had sheltered her own, his heat and strength allowing her to rest fully in a way she’d never known before. Whatever was to come next, she would know both satisfaction and security.

The thought made her smile as Caroline hastily dressed and slipped into the corridor. She could find her way to the guest wing easily enough. As she hurried away, she paused before turning a corner.

Caroline whipped around, gazing into the darkness of the hall. Had something stirred? She hadn’t heard anything, had she? She’d not seen anyone.

No, that had been a trick of her imagination, which was running particularly riotous at the moment. With swiftness, she rushed through the dim hallways and back to her room.

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