21
Robert had spent in his breeches.
He had fucking spent in his breeches like an adolescent boy.
Jo had not even touched him. His cock had not even been freed from the confinement of his breeches and yet it had been one of the best sexual experiences of his life.
He clutched Jo more firmly against his chest. She had looked so beautiful when she climaxed. So wild and vulnerable at the same time. Surprised at the amount of pleasure she was able to feel. He was not certain he would ever get enough of it.
Without thinking, he kissed her hair, then remembered that such a show of affection would definitely give her the wrong idea. He leaned his head against the back of the chair but kept his free arm firmly around her.
This was nothing. It was the way their marriage had always been headed. They both wanted children. They had agreed on five, blast it; it meant sleeping together often and frequently, which was exactly what he wanted. And it would be cruel to simply shove her away afterwards.
Robert would have to ask Thornston what the right amount of cuddling after intercourse was if you did not want to give the woman the impression that there could be more between you than physical intimacy. Robert groaned inwardly at the thought of his friend laughing his ass off.
“Can I stay in your bed tonight?” he found himself asking in a hoarse voice, which was decidedly the wrong thing to say he was certain, yet he was not ready to be out of Jo’s orbit.
He felt Jo’s body stiffen against his – and not with the aftershock of her climax. She did not answer immediately but remained still against him.
“What would happen? If you slept in my bed,” she asked in a low voice, no more than a whisper.
Robert figured it would be best to have this conversation without his hand lodged between her legs and gently pried it out. The whimper Jo made at the movement went straight to his balls and he could feel his cock stir again. Bloody hell, it had been far too long since he had been with a woman.
“Whatever you wish,” Robert told her.
He could sleep beside her without them having intercourse. He was not that much of an animal. Being allowed to stay in Jo’s bed and the chance to pleasure her again would be worth the ache it might cause him.
Jo sighed deeply before she sat up. The sight rendered Robert speechless.
Her artfully done hair was mussed, her lips were swollen from their kisses, her beautiful, perky breasts with the large, dusty pink nipples were proudly on display, being thrust even further up by her corset, the pearl nestled between them in her cleavage, but the most beautiful thing was her eyes.
Her grey-blue eyes were still dazed and had a look of wonder from her orgasm, yet he could see that it was making way for a more analytical look.
He wished he could lean forward and kiss it away immediately but refrained. He should not kiss her unless he was trying to arouse her, he told himself.
“I think I might…” Jo began as she tugged her breasts into the cups of her corset and tied the string again.
“We could maybe…” Her cheeks were flaming red and she was not meeting his eyes as she spoke.
“We could perhaps do what we did… in my bed…” She looked away toward the window, but Robert kept his gaze on the side of her face.
“But I would also like to… you know…” she mumbled as she started pulling the exquisite sea blue dress up.
Robert reached out to help her button it.
“What would you like?” he finally had to ask, when her dress was back in place and she had been biting her lip for several minutes.
“To give you…” she cleared her throat, then whispered without meeting his eyes: “Pleasure”
Heavens. She was amazing. Virginal and knowledgeable at the same time. She was clearly uncomfortable with mentioning it, yet she forced herself to do so, because she knew it was important.
“I would like that very much,” Robert said in a hoarse voice. He kept still beneath her, afraid that Jo might feel his cock growing hard again beneath her lush bottom.
Jo looked at him shyly and smiled a little.
“How much do you know, Jo?”
He should have checked this, before he placed his fingers between her legs, Robert thought glumly as he cursed himself.
She seemed so knowledgeable that it had not crossed his mind that she might not know what happened between a husband and wife in the bedroom.
Although most young women were kept in the dark until their wedding night, her list had indicated that she had at least some knowledge, but they had married in haste, and Jo did not have a mother who could tell her.
“Know?” Jo repeated, and then her cheeks colored a furious red as she seemed to catch up. “Yes, yes, uhm, yes, I… Beatrice, she… at least the broader strokes…” She looked frantically at him as she tried to explain this.
“Good. Why don’t I ask Robinson to serve our dinner in your lounge and then we can see what happens?”
Jo’s eyes shot to his, wide and horrified.
“The dinner,” she breathed. “It must be ready; they are all waiting. What will they be thinking?”
She tried to rise from his lap, but Robert gently held on to her. He felt pleased when she sat back, even though she could easily have pried herself away.
“We are married, Jo. They are all grown people. No one will fault us for having dinner in private.” He could not help but smile at what he hoped would happen later. He knew he would not be sleeping with her tonight, but the chance to pleasure her again seemed very possible.
“Right,” Jo muttered and looked away from him. “Right,” she told him again, then met his gaze with a tentative smile and anticipation coursed through him even stronger than before.
Robert told her to go to her room first. He needed a moment before he felt comfortable being seen by a member of his staff, and it would be much quicker if Jo were not present. Besides he wanted the chance to quietly slip away to his own room and change his breeches and small clothes.
The duke and duchess’ suites were arranged at one end of the second floor of the townhouse, their bedrooms at opposite corners, his facing the garden, and Jo’s the street.
Each of them had a connecting lounge and a dressing room that also served as their washroom.
The two bedrooms were connected by a door, but Robert had never used it in the six years he had lived in the house since he reached his majority and fully took over responsibility for the dukedom.
He opted to use the door from the hallway to her lounge rather than the one between their bedrooms.
“Come in,” Jo called from inside, and he thought he detected both a slight tremble of nerves as well as a smile in her voice.
Robert had never been in the room before, only looked at it from the doorway once, when he first moved in. The furniture had been covered in Dutch covers and it had been impossible to see that his mother had ever lived there.
The walls in the lounge had burgundy silk wallpaper and wainscoting in dark mahogany. It seemed that the dark look from his bedroom carried over to hers as well, even though his grandmother, who had redone the house some thirty years ago, had opted for much lighter colors downstairs.
Several paintings of landscapes and flowers lined the walls.
One of Riddlesmarsh Hall as seen from the forest. The trees lined the front, then a meadow of flowers until the large sandstone structure rose from the ground as natural as if it had always been there.
A pang of longing hit him. It had been more than six months since he had last been back, and he found that he missed it.
The room felt lived-in in a way that immediately made him feel comfortable.
A few books were lying on a desk, a shawl haphazardly thrown over the back of a high-backed chair, and a collection of seashells was lined up on the marble mantel by size.
Jo had evidently instructed the staff not to clean up after her, since he knew Mrs. Taylor would never willingly leave a shawl draped over a chair in such a manner.
“Please, sit,” Jo told him with a smile and gestured to the table and two wooden chairs by one of the windows. It was meant for playing cards, but Robert had eaten dinner at a similar-sized table in his own suite quite a few times and knew it was possible.
A side table beside it was laden with dishes from their dinner. They sat down opposite each other and started filling their plates in silence.
Robert wanted to haul Jo into the bedroom and pry her clothes off.
If it was up to him, they would sleep together tonight and any night after this, but he knew she was not ready, and for her sake, he could wait.
For his own sake as well, he supposed. He trusted her to give herself to him often and willingly, if he was patient these first few months of their marriage and allowed her the time she needed to adjust. Which was what he wanted from the marriage, he told himself. Companionship and sexual relations.
“Have you been to Brighton before?” Jo asked after they had eaten in silence for several minutes. Robert recognized it as a similarly benign question like the ones he had thought of himself yet sent her an appreciative smile for her efforts.
“Yes, we have been quite a few times.”
“Do you go every summer?”
“Not every summer. Sometimes we would head straight to Barforth Castle. Perhaps make a visit with someone for a few weeks.”
“Is there much to see and do? I have never been.”
Robert did not know what he wanted their conversation to be, but he knew he wanted it to be deeper. Yet he told her of the Royal Pavilion, the libraries, and the beach that he wanted to show her while they were on their honeymoon.
“My mother told me that they will not come by the house we are staying in unless invited,” he added as an afterthought.
When Jo did not reply, he looked up from his roast chicken to find her staring horrified at him.
“What?” he asked.
“Why would she make such a promise?” Jo squeaked. Her fork with beans was hanging over her plate, but she seemed to have forgotten it.
“Because I talked to her yesterday about the house. I…” Robert looked away and sighed, suddenly unsure whether they were on the same page. “I thought it strange that she would rent a place close to them. And the rest of the ton. I thought she would find something more… secluded.”
“Me as well,” Jo muttered and seemed to remember her green beans. She stuffed them into her mouth and chewed vigorously.
Robert was pleased that she had also hoped for a more secluded location, just the two of them. He hid his smile over it though, since Jo still seemed perplexed and he did not want to cause her distress.
“She said that we are always welcome to visit them, but that they would stay away unless invited. We are still newlyweds after all.”
Jo was looking at him with wide eyes, chewing her beans for far longer than seemed necessary.
“Do you think that means that…” She cleared her throat. “That she believes that we…”
She gestured with the fork between the two of them.
“She told me quite bluntly that she is hoping for a gaggle of grandchildren, so yes, I do think it means she believes…” Robert trailed off.
Jo blushed deeply and avoided his eyes, focusing on cutting a piece of her chicken breast instead.
“A gaggle,” she muttered under her breath.
“You did agree to five,” Robert could not help but tease her which only made her cheeks glow even brighter.
Then he recognized his tone as flirting and decided to pull back a little. Since she had invited him into her bed, he needed to be more careful than ever so that he did not confuse her feelings.
“Do you want to wait with the… eh, the consummation, because you do not wish for a child at the moment?” he asked when the thought struck him. He briefly glanced at his food then forced himself to look at her face.
She was his wife. He should be able to have this conversation with her without feeling embarrassed.
“I… I thought it was a given that I might conceive when we…” Jo was a deep red now. It had gone from a cute pink to a slightly alarming cherry color. The blush on her chest had spread down her upper arms as well.
“There are ways to prevent pregnancy if you wish to. None of them are completely foolproof…”
“Well, nothing in life is,” Jo interrupted him glumly.
“But at least they have worked so far for me,” Robert told her, knowing he had to keep a level head in this conversation.
Jo carefully placed her utensils on her plate and sat up straighter to assess him. The seriousness of the demeanor made Robert put his own silverware down and regard her with an open expression.
“Would you like to… wait?” Jo asked as she gulped.
Robert had given it little thought before.
Like her, he assumed that they would start trying for a child as soon as Jo’s list told them they could consummate the marriage.
His mind had only been focused on what it would feel like to be close to Jo, to finally kiss her and touch her.
Wring pleasure from her body over and over again. But…
“Perhaps it would not be the worst idea,” he said hesitantly to gauge her reaction. “We could give it three months to just… become acquainted with each other, then we could… reevaluate.”
Jo was nodding along as he spoke, seemingly agreeing, then her eyes narrowed as a thought evidently occurred to her.
“Would this… give me any discomfort or pain? Because it seems that when it comes to this topic, it is always the woman who must bear the burden.” Her tone turned almost a bit angry at the end, which Robert could not fault her for.
“No discomfort or pain on your part,” he assured her with a smile.
“But on yours?” Jo asked with wide eyes, as if she could not believe he might go through either to prevent having children, if it was what she wished.
“Well, no pain, but a slight discomfort perhaps.” His eyes strayed to his plate of half-eaten food, and it was his turn to blush slightly.
Heavens, he had never spoken to an innocent woman about this.
It was more difficult than he thought. “I would either… withdraw or need to wear a French letter. Unless you are using a sponge, but that takes some planning and…”
Jo was blushing so much that he felt the heat radiating from her across the table.
“Perhaps…” she said in a strangled voice. “Perhaps we should revisit this, when the… ehm, when the time arises… For now…”
“For now,” Robert repeated and nodded. Right, it was not the fear of pregnancy that made her want to wait to sleep with him.