Chapter Eighteen #2
He reached down and grasped her ankle, running the other hand up the back of her calf, then the inside of her thigh, until he reached the top of her stocking.
Slowly, he undid the tie and rolled the worn-softened fabric down her equally soft leg.
When he got to her foot, she let out a breathy gasp that sounded almost like a laugh. Ticklish. Interesting.
Propping one leg on his shoulder, he reached up and brought her other stocking down, glancing up to see her watching him with hooded eyes, a finger caught on her lips.
The look of her heavy lids and desire-dilated pupils shot straight to the base of his cock, and he had to bend further to accommodate the almost painful bulge in his trousers.
With her stockings removed, he was free to slide his hands up her legs and push back her skirts. He revelled in the movement, watching as his hands revealed more and more of her long, shapely legs. The sight was unbelievably erotic.
He began placing kisses along the length of her leg until he had her skirts folded at her midsection. She tried to push her legs closed, but he held them up, baring her to the firelight and his feasting gaze.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“Shh, love. Do you trust me?” It was a natural question, but when she nodded without hesitation, he had to dip his chin against his chest to catch his breath, momentarily overwhelmed.
When he looked up again, he let out a groan.
She was already so wet that her womanhood glistened in the warm light.
He felt like a man starved, but he restrained himself, savouring the look of surprise and anticipation in her eyes as he lowered his mouth to her core.
He laved his tongue up the length of her, smiling as she shuddered in response.
Benjamin pulled her other leg to rest on his shoulder and wrapped his arms under her thighs, pulling her to the edge of the chair and closer to him. He licked again. She moaned.
His restraint snapped at the throaty sound, and he buried his face in her glorious wet heat.
Never had he experienced such bliss. He kissed and sucked, running the flat of his tongue over her clit again and again and then plunging it into her entrance.
As she writhed against him, he brought a hand around and slid his middle finger into her heat.
His head swam as her muscles contracted around him. Pumping his finger in time with his tongue, he latched his mouth around her mound, sucking as he slid another finger in.
She was grinding against him now, rocking her pelvis against his face as her pants filled the room. Benjamin sped up his thrusts, reaching up to pinch her nipple as she ground into his mouth.
“Oh—oh God, Benjamin.”
He felt every word throb in his loins. Her fingers were wrapped in his hair, and every tug brought him closer to his own release. And then she was spasming around him, holding his head tight between her legs as she let out a glorious stream of expletives no town debutante might know, let alone use.
He did not wait for her to come down from her high before picking her up and carrying her to the bed. In a flash, he had removed her gown and pulled off his waistcoat and shirt. Before he had the fine linen shirt over his head, though, he felt a caress over his breeches.
He let out a choked groan as he ripped the fabric from his face and looked down in awe. Charlotte had slid to the edge of the bed in front of him and was slowly undoing the fastenings of his breeches. She looked up and gave him a wicked smile, making his heart stutter. His magnificent elfin queen.
Her hair had escaped from its bindings and curled enticingly around her temples and down the back of her neck. He wrapped one around his finger and pulled gently, marvelling at the soft texture as it gently sprang back into place.
Quickly, his attention was drawn back to his own lower anatomy as he felt a warm hand grasp the base of his cock and stroke once, then twice. He immediately grabbed her wrist, stalling her actions.
Charlotte frowned. “I would like the opportunity to return the favour.”
He gave a strangled bark of laughter and leaned to capture her lips in a kiss. “Next time, I promise. I just need to be inside you. Now.”
Next time, there would be a next time. She was his.
She smiled at that and kissed him back, twining her arms around his neck.
Still standing, Benjamin lifted a knee to the bed, spreading her legs wide. Without breaking the kiss, he aligned the throbbing head of his cock with her entrance and slowly pushed inside.
He felt his eyes roll back as her heat enveloped him, drawing him further and further in. Beads of sweat began gathering on his brow and the back of his neck as he stood perfectly still, grasping for the last threads of self-control.
“Ohh.” Charlotte tilted her hips forward, pushing him further inside her.
“Benjamin.” She moaned his name in a plea that was enough to break him.
He drew slowly out and then, just as slowly, thrust all the way back into her tight, wet heat.
His thrusts were long and deep, and as he began to pick up the pace, he looped one of Charlotte’s legs up over his arm, going deeper and drawing moans from both of them.
He pushed her further onto the bed and climbed on after her, rolling his hips against her pelvis and sending shock waves through his body.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him closer, deeper.
There was nothing but their two bodies. Together.
Charlotte matched his thrusts, awkwardly at first, then more and more in sync with him.
They were racing for the same edge, pushing, reaching.
With one hard grind of his hips, the strength of her own legs pressing him into her, they both fell off it together in a blinding burst of release.
Benjamin felt his pulse beating through him and into Charlotte, her own body thrumming in response.
A harmony of limbs wrapped together and singing with the same euphoria.
It was long moments later that Benjamin began to regain his senses.
He was lying atop Charlotte, their chests still heaving together.
She trailed a finger lazily down his spine, and he buried his face further into her hair, inhaling deeply the smell of rose soap and satisfied woman.
He felt lighter than he ever had—as if his bones had been replaced with some effervescent material.
“Benjamin.” Her voice was a small, playful whisper, and it sounded far away.
“Mmm,” he hummed into her hair.
“I cannot really breathe.” He felt her laughter under him as he nuzzled his face against her cheek, reluctantly rolling off her.
“Have I hurt your shoulder?” He drew a careful finger over the puckered skin just beside the roll of her shoulder. It was a fading red mark against her otherwise creamy skin and, while no longer an angry wound, was not yet a proper scar.
“Not more than the first time.” She gave him a teasing grin, and Benjamin was immediately, impossibly hard again.
“Imp.” He brushed a curl from her forehead. “Really, Charlotte, you would tell me if I hurt you.”
Her smile softened. “Of course. Really, it does not bother me. It is only really sore in the mornings or if I swing my arm around.”
“Do you have much call for swinging your arm around?”
“Oh yes. Besides being an accomplished duellist, I dabble in pugilism as well.”
“I will keep that in mind when antagonising you.”
“You plan to antagonise me?”
“Only marginally.” He prodded her in the ribs, and she jumped with a squeal, breathlessly swatting at him to stop. Her laugh was infectious, and when she tried to wrestle herself away from him, he felt his own chest begin to rumble with laughter.
∞∞∞
Benjamin Scarsdale had a glorious laugh.
It was warm and rich, but the gruff way it emerged from his throat made Charlotte wonder when the last time was that he had really, truly laughed.
Now that she was thinking about it, though, stroking a gentle finger through the smattering of coarse hair on his sleeping chest, she could not remember the last time she had laughed like that before meeting him.
They had made love again before lounging in the warm glow of the fire-lit room. Charlotte had dozed off first, waking an indeterminate time later, tucked into Benjamin’s side, the slow rise and fall of his chest moving her head while his long, muscular arm wrapped around her back.
She should leave now. The city would be waking soon, if it had not already, and Charlotte did not want her new situation to become common knowledge.
It would take only one early-to-rise kitchen maid peeking out a window to see her alighting from Scarsdale’s coach for all of Mayfair to know she had taken up as his mistress.
She was his mistress.
The thought did not fill her with the shame and disgust she would have expected. She was disappointed that it had come about as a result of insurmountable debt, but the reality of the exchange itself was unexpectedly wonderful.
Lying here in Benjamin Scarsdale’s arms, in his wide four-poster bed, Charlotte could not think of a time she had felt more content. If she could stay like this for the rest of her life, she would.
But alas, she knew this moment was just a passing dream, and their arrangement would be over quickly as well.
Perhaps Benjamin would consider keeping her on for more than the agreed month, but no.
Charlotte would not watch him tire of her.
She would savour these weeks and carry them with her forever.
The memory of this moment, curled against his relaxed muscular form, would warm her in the long, cold years that stood before her.
With that, she slipped from under his arm and dressed herself as best she could and slipped out into the night.