Chapter 20
I t had not taken long for Hetty to grow bold, so flushed, breathless and full of longing as she was.
Theo had guided her slowly back towards the armchair, sliding his hands along the curves of her bodice, and she, in turn, allowed herself to be seated astride his lap with a shiver of anticipation she could neither name nor resist. He winced, just once, and she froze.
“I am perfectly fine,” he said quickly, catching her wrists in his hands. “Truly. But I may require a moment’s pause if you keep looking at me with that particular expression.”
“And what expression is that, sir?”
“The one that suggests you intend to devour me whole.”
She laughed, soft and scandalised. “And what, pray, do you intend to do to me next?”
“I intend to make you sigh.”
“That sounds terribly virtuous.”
“Oh, I assure you, it shall not be.” He trailed his fingers down the seam of her bodice. “I intend to unlace this absurd confection of a gown and kiss every inch of skin it reveals. I intend to teach you precisely how wicked a man’s hands may be without venturing too far.”
She swallowed hard, for his words seemed to warm her from within.
“And I shall make you sigh, Hetty Tolliver, until you forget every one of your mother’s blasted seating arrangements and floral garlands and remember only me.”
“And if you should perish in the attempt?”
“Then you must throw yourself dramatically upon my coffin,” he said with mock solemnity, “crying that no man ever died more nobly, nor more delighted.”
Pressing her forehead to his shoulder, Hetty stifled a laugh. “You wish me to weep prettily at your funeral, do you?”
“Indeed not prettily,” he said, brushing his lips against her temple. “I wish you to scandalise the entire congregation. I should like you to wail in anguish and declare your undying love, before swooning onto my casket.”
“I shall do no such thing. I shall wear your favourite colour and dance with someone wildly inappropriate. A poet, perhaps. Or worse, a Whig.”
Groaning aloud, he let his head fall back against the chair. “Vicious woman.”
“Delicate man,” she said, now making quick work of his waistcoat buttons.
Catching her hands in his once more, he held them still. “We stop the moment you wish it. At once. You need only say so.”
“I know,” she said. “But I do not wish to stop. Not yet. ”
She leant in and kissed him again – deep and unhurried, full of tremulous promise of all she did not yet know but was determined to discover. Sliding her hands beneath the loosened waistcoat, she traced the line of his chest through fine linen. At his sudden wince, she halted at once.
He shook his head. “Continue.”
Obeying him, she let her hands explore once more. He raised his hand slowly as she kissed him, letting it trail along the curve of her waist, then higher, until his knuckles grazed just beneath the swell of her breast.
“I shall make a proper study of you,” he said.
“Beginning with your shoulders… your collarbone… and then, here… ” Brushing his thumb lightly over the peak of her breast, he watched the shiver that rippled through her.
“Until I know precisely how you like to be touched, and precisely how to draw from you every sigh I desire.”
“They do say reformed rakes make the best husbands.”
He placed soft, open-mouthed kisses upon the exposed skin just above her gown’s neckline, moving slowly from one shoulder to the other.
She shivered, and he smiled against her skin. “You are shaking.”
“I am not,” she lied.
He kissed her again, a little lower now, where the fabric grew sheerest. “You are. Delightfully so.”
Her hands gripped his shoulders as he tugged gently at the ties of her bodice. The gown slipped loose, the neckline yielding to his touch until the soft upper swell of her breast was laid bare to the firelight, and then his mouth was upon her .
She gasped, tightening her nails into his shoulders. “Theo – ”
“Hush,” he whispered against her skin.
He took her breast gently into his mouth at first, then with growing pressure, until her breath caught and her hips shifted forwards without thought or command. Only then did he draw back, his breath warm against her flushed skin, and murmured, “Does that please you?”
She could scarcely shape her reply. Her eyes fluttered open. “Yes.”
He smiled, slow and wickedly fond. “Then I shall be most obliged to continue, Miss Tolliver… for your instruction in pleasure, of course.”
And so he did –applying himself with unhurried purpose, savouring her gasp as circled the tender peak with his tongue. His other hand rose to cradle the weight of her remaining breast, tracing slow strokes with his thumb that matched the pull of his mouth.
She felt utterly undone. “Theo,” she breathed once more, though this time there was no hesitation in it, only need.
“Yes, my dearest?”
Dearest. It caught within her, a word too intimate to be accidental. It was not the language of convenience, nor of games. No – this was unnervingly sincere, and dangerously close to something with feeling. Reaching for him, she slid her fingers into his hair, drawing him closer. “Do not stop.”
With a low groan, his mouth sought hers anew. Into him she arched, wholly unguarded now, drunk on the heat of his mouth.
“You are exquisite,” he murmured, his voice thick .
She could form no reply. Her body was burning, every inch attuned to the press of his mouth and the path of his hands. He lavished her with affection, tracing slow kisses across her chest, her collarbone, the curve of her throat. When at last his hand drifted lower to rest at her waist, she froze.
He stilled at once. “May I?”
She nodded, and he raised her skirts inch by torturous inch. She gasped as he skimmed her bare thighs, ascending higher, then higher still, until he touched her. She buried her face in his neck as a strangled sound escaped her.
“Have you ever touched yourself here, my love?” he breathed.
She let out a scandalised squeak. “Theo!”
He gave a low laugh, his mouth grazing the curve of her ear. “That is not a denial. And this is hardly the moment to grow prudish.”
Her face burned; she buried it deeper against his neck. “I shan’t dignify it with an answer.”
“No need. Your very breath confesses what you will not.”
His fingers moved against her, and at once, she lifted her hips to meet his touch, though Heavens knew she had never laid a hand upon herself so.
She had not dreamt such a feeling existed.
She buried her face in his throat, as though she might conceal the sounds rising from her lips. “Oh – oh, this cannot be right.”
Theo’s breath stirred her hair. “On the contrary, it is precisely right. You have simply never been shown it before.”
Never shown it before… Indeed, how could she have been?
She had read novels that waxed lyrical on stolen kisses and overheard matrons speak of the marital act as though it were a tiresome but ne cessary household chore.
How could she have guessed that such a dizzying assault of sensation might be part and parcel of it?
Had she known, she might not have been so violently opposed to marriage at all.
Her breasts were laid bare, her gown bunched in a most compromising fashion about her waist, and she– good heavens – astride a gentleman like some brazen wanton.
The thought made her blush hotter still.
She dared to lift her head from his neck and meet his eyes, only to be struck by a look so unabashedly wicked that she very nearly lost her balance atop him.
It was the sort of look that would have the scandal sheets running out of ink.
That she, Henrietta Tolliver, unmarried and (until three minutes ago) mostly respectable, should be the recipient of it was nothing short of madness.
She had just enough presence of mind to think that no sermon in Christendom could possibly forbid such a look – indeed, if vicars preached half so persuasively, churches would be standing room only – before his mouth captured hers and every last shred of thought fled in utter disgrace.
A soft cry escaped her – desperate and wholly unlike herself –as he quickened the motion of his fingers. Her thighs yielded wider for him, straddling his lap, and he slipped one daring finger inside her while the other teased. Merciful heavens – what was he doing to her?
“Oh,” she said on a gasp as her head tipped back. “Oh –”
“Yes,” he murmured, now grazing her jaw with his lips. “There it is. Do not shy from it, my darling. Let the sensation hold – do not be ashamed. ”
She clung to his shoulders, digging her nails into his skin. Ashamed? She could hardly recall the meaning of the word. She was barely aware of anything beyond his mouth on her throat and his fingers sliding slowly into her most private place. “There,” she gasped, lifting her hips to help him.
A low sound escaped him, half-breath, half-groan. “Ah, my darling. You liked that.”
His words were laughably insufficient, for the feeling was lightning, coiling tighter with every stroke – a rising madness that made her press shamelessly against his hand and bite her lip to keep from crying out. What in heaven’s name was happening to her?
He altered his touch just so, watching her shudder in response. “You shall like this next part as well.”
His rhythm never wavered, as though he had all the time in the world to learn the secrets of her body. Her thighs trembled on either side of him, her breath breaking in shallow gasps and still he did not relent.
“I shall have you come undone for me, Hetty,” he whispered into her ear. “Right here, in my arms. On my lap.”