Chapter Thirteen #2
He moved his head as if his options were weights on opposite sides of his mind.
“Very well,” he agreed. He brought his hand to his forehead.
“Harriet, my first, was a woman who lived in the parish where my uncle had his first living.” His hand slipped down over his eyes.
“I think she liked the idea of corrupting the vicar’s nephew. I was all of eighteen at the time.”
Millie’s brows went up. Harriet. She’d never met a Harriet she’d liked. “And the other?”
“The other was a barmaid with a taste for lusty young men—a single, bad choice, born of ale and self-pity I made in the year I came into my majority. I felt myself fortunate to have escaped the pox. After that experience, I decided if I did not—” A deep, red flush blossomed up from beneath his collar. “I feel like I can’t breathe.”
Oh, dear. Had she broken him?
Quickly, she loosened his simply knotted cravat. What a cumbersome bit of cloth. How silly men’s fashions were! She parted the sides and set to undoing the tiny ties that held his shirt together. Without such confining garments, hopefully he’d be able to breathe.
His hand dropped from his forehead to her waist.
She glanced up and into a gaze so perfectly heated she thought her knees might buckle.
“If you did not?” she echoed.
“If I did not… care deeply for the lady, I would not take such a risk again.”
His confession took a moment to sink in.
The word “corrupting” in his first story had implied he’d been young. The second could have happened at any time. But he was well into the first decade of his manhood, meaning he’d likely remained celibate for years.
Her lips formed a silent oh.
“Are you satisfied?” he asked.
“You answered my question.” She swallowed roughly. “Thank you.”
“Is there anything else you’d like to ask me?”
She shook her head. “Perhaps we could proceed to the…”
“Rogering?” he suggested.
Her jaw dropped. “How many words are there?”
His chuckle rumbled in the chest beneath her fingers.
“My ignorance is not a matter for funning!” She scowled.
“Not funning…marveling.” With loose fingers, he caressed her cheek. “I cannot believe my luck. And you should know that the look I believe you think is chiding…” He kissed her before moving to whisper in her ear. “Just makes me want to lick you all over again.”
Ah, yes. The licking. And the stripping. If he was going to keep saying things that made her dizzy, they really should sit down. She pulled back just far enough so he could see her face.
“In that case…” She leveled him the look.
“The lady likes to play with fire.” He swept one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees and lifted her onto the bed.
She’d been right. This bed was entirely too small for two.
However, she was already beyond caring. Her husband was at her side, leaning over her body, his lips locked on hers, his chest crushing her breasts. Heat radiated from his hip, his thighs, even his feet. He kissed her deeply, probingly, his tongue a mere prelude to a deeper invasion.
Heavy feeling in her breasts returned, and with it, a fire even further below. She was hot, achy and trembling. She wanted him urgently. But his kiss was slow and languid, and he savored each taste as if she were a pricey port after a long, tedious meal.
“You don’t have to remove the dress.”
“Oh no,” he laughed a wicked laugh against her lips. “You chose to don that gown, so now both of us are going to suffer through the torture of its removal.”
She whimpered. “I knew you were cruel.”
“You knew…and yet you deliberately set a spark in the pan.”
“I do love my firearms. What—” Her query ended in a groan.
One hand at her neck tickled her just beneath her ear, his other palmed her breast.
“That…” She shifted beneath him. “That makes the urgency worse.”
“Poor thing.” His radiant eyes lit with mischief. “You have my deepest sympathy.”
“Lies,” she spat.
“I’m ready to apply myself to those buttons, now.”
She moved as if to rise.
“No.” He kept her pinned beneath his body. “I’d rather do this lying down.”
Lying down? But her face would be in the pillow and her backside…
A rush of crawling heat skittered over her skin. Everything within tightened with what she would have described as mortification, if it weren’t for the thumping deep in her groin.
He moved away, just far enough to allow her to roll over.
She rolled, then set her forehead against the pillow, arching her neck so she could breathe. She waited. One inhale. Two. Her breath heated her face. Why the devil did he not begin?
She lifted one foot and impatiently whacked the bed.
He responded with a beast-like groan. But his fingers were light and tender, as he worked the buttons from the top down. One by one, he freed them. Each time she felt the silk restrict before giving way. After each, he paused, placing his lips against her stays.
Contraction. Swish. Heat. Release—over and over until she thought she’d go mad.
She lost count somewhere beneath her shoulder blades. And though the waist was still high, the upper part of her dress ended lower than would have been fashionable in recent years.
She exhaled with relief when he finally finished. Slowly, she moved to rise, intending to fully remove the dress.
He pressed against the small of her back. “Not yet.”
With her face in darkness, she became acutely aware of every part he could see. As if he wanted to accentuate that fact, he straddled her legs and ran his hands slowly down her sides. Shoulder, breast, waist, hip—he molded each as if sculpting her from sand.
She thought he’d stop when he reached her thighs, but he did not.
He edged back, and, ignoring her indignant whimpers, kneaded those evil, world-altering fingers into her buttocks.
By the time he reached her calves, her lips were trembling with restraint, threatening to spit out the worst of those vulgar words.
He released her. A second later, he moved away.
Slowly, she turned, fully prepared to give him a scold. But his gaze was so full of devastated longing, her anger instantly fled. She wanted to take him into her arms and reassure him she’d grant his every wish.
“‘And all that’s best of dark and bright,’” he murmured. “‘Meet in her aspect and her eyes.’”
She sat up, the dress falling from her shoulders. Poetry? What had gotten into him?
He jerked as if choked. “I don’t deserve—”
“Sst.” She withdrew her arms from the sleeves of her gown, wiggling and turning as she pushed the garment down over her hips.
Then, her beautiful silk dress was just a heap of lavender she kicked straight off the bed.
“You’ll need to unlace my stays. I’ll need your help.
If, that is,” she made her voice sultry, “you still want to see me bare.”
His face blanked. “Come over here. I don’t think I can move.”
That was odd. He’d had no trouble moving a moment ago. The bed creaked as she sidled over. The mattress depressed, making the process difficult. Nonetheless, he set to work. Quietly, steadily, he loosened the long ribbon.
The dress fabric fell away, and she took her first truly deep breath in hours.
“I apologize for my clumsy fingers,” he said roughly. “The knots were quite tight.”
His fingers hadn’t been clumsy, not when they’d been all over her arse.
She glanced down. “They’re shaking,” she murmured.
“I know.”
He looked so grim. Ah, Auggie. The licking would probably have to wait. Only one sin at a time for her dear, moral man. She moved to her knees and worked the buttons of his waistcoat.
“What are you doing?”
“You did not think I would consent to being the only one unclothed, did you?”
“Millie.” He chuckled softly. “Oh, Millie”
“Stand up,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She glanced up, catching the flicker of a smile. That was better.
“Now, you set to taking out my hair pins,” she instructed as he pulled off his waistcoat. “And I’ll see to your other fastenings.”
Dutifully, he began searching through her coiffure for the hidden metal sticks. He cast each aside, willy-nilly, anywhere but on the bed. Little ringlets fell here and there, silken strands across her face and nape.
She was too busy to give her full notice. First, she encircled him with her arms and, blindly, felt for and released the tie at the waist of his trousers. Then she set her fingers to the three buttons. She squealed in triumph and delight as his trousers dropped to the floor.
“Success!” She grinned up at him. “And this my first time, too!”
He cupped her face, smiled down into her eyes, and then devoured her with a rough kiss.
She was not disappointed in the sight of him bare.
No, not in the least.
*
Neville’s beloved may have had a sharp tongue, but her mouth was small and sweet, and her lips joined eagerly with his own.
A few moments ago, a haze had come over him, and then a focused rush so strong, he’d almost whipped up Millie’s skirts and destroyed every secret, cherished hope he had for their marriage by ripping off his trouser flap, lifting her hips, and then burying himself inside of her, fast, hard and deep.
Only a sharp, lightning strike of awareness of everything he could lose had made him stop.
He’d almost taken his wife from behind, and on her first time, too.
Guilt sat, sick and swampy in his gut.
But those moans! Those little, wiggling whimpers!
Millie’s strange mix of innocence and boldness would plague him even if he were a saint.
He’d intended to pause. Maybe even tell her they should delay consummation until they’d both had some rest. But then, she’d taken off his trousers, and there was nothing he could do to stop what was coming next.
He still had on his shirt, and she, her shift.
But now her dark brown hair, appearing almost auburn in the orange candlelight, fell wildly about her shoulders, reminding him of the indecent vision he’d had right in the middle of Almack’s, of her in breeches!
After feeling every inch of that arse, he didn’t think he could handle her in breeches.
Not, at least, for several satiating months.
“So,” he spoke against her lips, “you’d like to see me bare.”