Chapter 23 #2
Hetty’s pulse fluttered wildly. She knew not precisely what he meant, save that every glide of his hand seemed to rob her of sense. His palm traced down, over the curve of her thigh, parting her gently until she felt the heated weight of his hand press more keenly against her.
“Theo…” His name fractured on her lips as his fingers explored. He coaxed, teased, slid, until she felt her breath splintering, her body softening beneath the onslaught. When he slid a finger inside her, she moaned, muffled when his mouth claimed her.
“Easy,” he coaxed, his other thumb still circling in patient rhythm. “That sound… you have no notion what it does to me.”
“I… I cannot seem to think. ”
“You need not think,” he rasped. “Only feel.”
At last, when she was trembling and flushed and pressed helplessly against him, Theo drew back just enough to look at her.
His eyes blazed with a hunger barely contained as he angled his hips and reached to guide himself.
The thick, hot weight of him nudged against her entrance, and she could scarcely breathe for the shock of it.
“You must tell me if it proves too much. I shall stop the instant you ask me.”
Her throat bobbed. “I trust you, Theo.”
He pressed forward by the smallest degree, the blunt head stretching her in a way that made her gasp aloud.
The sheer size of him staggered her – she had felt his hardness against her thigh and in her palm before but never imagined how immense it would be inside her.
At the first flicker of discomfort across her face, Theo stilled at once, his jaw tight with strain.
He bent to kiss her temple, his lips moving in a stream of tender nonsense, murmuring for her to breathe until the tension in her body eased.
Only then did he sink deeper, inch by deliberate inch, his breath shuddering with the effort of control.
She clutched at his shoulders, torn between the burn of the stretch and the intoxicating fullness of him.
At last, when he was fully sheathed within her, he ceased all motion, holding himself rigid above her.
“Are you quite well?” he asked softly, brushing his thumb lightly across her cheek.
“Yes,” she whispered, exhaling shakily. “Yes, I believe so. It is rather a great deal, all at once. ”
He gave a hoarse laugh, kissing the corner of her mouth. “God help me, Hetty. I swear, I shall not move until you bid me. But know this: I am yours entirely. No restraint remains to me but what you command.”
She could feel the truth of it, for his whole frame trembled with effort, the vein standing in his throat as he held himself still for her sake.
Her mind, ever so quick with quips, found none now; there was only sensation and the shocking intimacy of having him so utterly joined to her.
The longer he held still, the more she felt him, thick and pulsing inside her.
When she shifted, just slightly, the friction only heightened her torment.
“Sweet heaven –do not move unless you mean to undo me entirely,” he ground out.
“Oh, I do mean to,” she breathed. Her legs curled about his waist, drawing him deeper, and he obliged, surrendering to her body’s welcome.
Her skin prickled with fever; the press of his chest, the rasp of his breath, the silken slide each time she dared to shift her hips – it was too much and yet not nearly enough.
She wanted friction, release, and the full force of the desire thrumming in him.
“Theo,” she whispered, biting her nails into his shoulders. “Please… move.”
Whatever fragile leash he had held snapped in an instant.
He groaned her name as though it were his undoing and thrust into her.
The shock tore a moan from her throat, but it melted into a shiver of pleasure as her body yielded to him.
She writhed helplessly, arching up to meet him, and the answering surge of heat made her cry out softly against his mouth. “Oh. Do not stop. Please. ”
He let out another low groan, pressing a hot kiss to the hollow of her throat as he quickened his pace. Gone was the careful gentleness; now he drove into her with all the pent-up hunger he had tried so nobly to restrain.
She clung to him, gasping his name, her legs tightening at his hips to hold him nearer. As he answered her with equal fervour, the bed gave an audible creak of protest beneath them.
“Gracious,” she managed breathlessly beneath him. “Are we meant to be making such a dreadful racket?”
He choked a laugh against her ear, each thrust punctuating his words. “Not – your concern – any longer. Your bed – now, Hetty. Yours – ” He groaned as she clenched around him, the sound dissolving into a curse. “God above – you may – make any noise – you desire.”
“Any noise?” she gasped, and with a wicked little smile, let out a long, dramatic moan, loud enough to rattle the bedframe and send scandal echoing through the rafters.
Theo jolted, before a dark laugh tore from his throat. He snapped a broad hand over her mouth, pressing her cry into a muffled gasp. “Minx,” he growled, driving his hips harder in reprimand. “There are still servants in this house.”
Her muffled giggle shuddered against his palm, her eyes dancing with triumph.
She wriggled beneath him, her laugh cut short by another helpless moan that made his grip falter.
Her world narrowed to the drive of his body within hers and the molten pleasure unfurling low and deep until it tore through her in a rush so exquisite she cried out against his hand.
Her vision blurred, her body clenching around him as wave upon wave overtook her.
Above her, Theo gave a strangled sound. His body stiffened and Hetty opened her eyes, staring up at him in wonder.
The amused lord she had always known was gone, replaced by something raw and wild.
His face contorted, jaw clenched, every vein and tendon standing out as he thrust once, twice more before his whole frame shuddered violently.
She felt his weight bearing her deeper into the mattress as the force of his pleasure shook through his limbs.
It was ungoverned; a kind of violence softened only by the way his forehead pressed to hers and the way her name broke raggedly from his lips.
Finally, he collapsed atop her with a guttural groan.
She lay stunned beneath him for a moment before a startled laugh escaped her. “Now I see why women complain of being smothered beneath a man.”
He gave a hoarse laugh, pushing himself onto one elbow before rolling heavily to his side. He drew her with him so that she lay tucked close against his chest. “Well – was it as dreadful as the stories would have it?”
“It was,” Hetty said thoughtfully, “enlightening.”
Theo chuckled, brushing a lock of hair from her brow. “Is that your polite way of confessing it was not entirely dreadful?”
“It was rather splendid, in truth. Though perhaps,” she added, feigning earnest reflection, “we ought to attempt it once more. To be certain. ”
Another rough laugh burst from him, though he winced at the motion. “My darling girl, I fear my ribs are engaged in open rebellion. You must allow your champion a brief respite, lest he perish in your service.”
She hummed in mock sympathy and pushed away from him.
“Then I shall fetch us a bite to eat,” she declared, swinging her legs from the bed and seizing his discarded shirt, which she promptly pulled over her head.
The garment dwarfed her, slipping rakishly from one shoulder in a fashion that made Theo groan aloud.
Hetty turned, frowning, and placed a tentative hand between her thighs. “Good heavens. Why am I so… sticky?”
Theo made a strangled sound as he choked on air.
Her eyes flew to his, narrowing at once. “You promised you would not laugh.”
“I am not laughing,” he replied with desperate solemnity. “I am…suffering.”
“You are smirking, Theo.”
“I am grimacing,” he insisted gravely. “The wound, you know – most devilishly painful. It twinges.”
She regarded him with scepticism. “Then perhaps, sir, you will condescend to explain what, precisely, this… substance is?” She gestured vaguely, mortified.
He cleared his throat. “That, my dearest, would be… the consequences of… my – ah – satisfaction.”
She stared at him. “Your what?”
“My…conclusion,” he said, with all the gravity of a man delivering a eulogy .
Hetty’s mouth parted in dawning horror. “But surely you do not mean – That cannot possibly –Oh, is that how – ?” She broke off, quite unable to finish the sentence.
Theo arched a brow. “My love, how did you imagine children were conceived upon the marriage bed?”
“Good Lord,” she managed, bolting from the room in a flurry of limbs and linen. “I require sustenance this instant.”
She could hear Theo laughing in earnest now, one arm flung across his eyes. He was quite at ease, stretched in all the disarray of their marriage bed, while she fled in mortification at the mere notion of harbouring her husband’s seed.
Maddening, incorrigible man. Even in her outrage, she knew he would delight in having so thoroughly discomposed her, for it was his peculiar gift to be at once the most provoking and impossible of creatures, and vexingly, the one whom she could not help but adore beyond all reason.
—
?—
Hetty returned bearing a tray full of what could only be described as a haphazard but spirited collection of provisions: a round of cheese, two somewhat bruised apples, a pot of quince preserves and an uncorked bottle of claret with two mismatched goblets clinking precariously beside it.
She nudged the door open with her foot, feeling quite triumphant.