Chapter Nineteen
She was beginning to understand.
All this time, it wasn’t that Eden didn’t want to swive her. It was that he wanted to swive her too much.
It didn’t have to be a problem, spilling quickly. She could certainly help make him last or at least find ways to make his eagerness erotic. But convincing him of it might take a bit of vigor, by the looks of him. He was standing over the washbasin wiping away his seed with his shoulders slumped and his head bowed. When he turned around, he kept his eyes trained on the floor.
It took a lot of self-disgust to make an earl stand in shame before a whore.
Poor man.
“Alastair,” she said gently, “is this what happens when you’re with a woman? You spurt before you want to?”
He nodded.
“It’s quite normal, you know,” she said. “To get overexcited.”
“For a twelve-year-old,” he muttered.
“For all sorts,” she said. “I would know better than you, I reckon.”
“You don’t have to comfort me. The pity makes it worse.”
“It’s not pity,” she said. “It’s fact.”
“The fact,” he said in a correcting voice, “is that I’ll never be able to make love to my wife, because I can’t last half a minute.”
“That’s why I’m here. To teach you. And I will.”
“Some things can’t be taught.” He gestured between them. “This was a mistake.”
“No. Hiring me was smart of you. Stop pacing. Come back to bed and talk to me.” She patted the sheets next to her.
“We’ve talked enough,” he said, collapsing down beside her. “Let’s go to sleep.”
She propped herself up on her elbow and frowned down at him. “Afraid not, milord. You hired me to give you lessons, and I have an important one to teach you.”
He pulled the covers up to his chin and closed his eyes. “Teach me in the morning.”
“In front of Hattie? Very well, if you insist.”
“Fine,” he said, opening his eyes. “What is it you wish to impart?”
“First of all, when was the last time you were with a woman?”
He shook his head. “I told you. About a decade. I can’t quite recall.”
“So you’ve got ten years of randiness burning up inside you.”
“No. I see to my own needs regularly. As you were kind enough to witness when you barged in on me in the act.”
She ignored this.
“Does it happen when you’re alone? Spilling so quick?”
“No.”
“Well, any person who hasn’t been touched in ten years—who hasn’t gotten to kiss or hold a woman he wants—is bound to be a little more eager with a girl than he is with his own hand.”
“That accounts for a fraction of it, maybe. But most men can fuck without humiliating themselves. I can’t.”
“I’ll be deciding that. You’re my lowly pupil.”
He closed his eyes again. “Good night, Tha?s.”
She poked him in the ribs.
“You know,” she said, “when you want someone very badly, you get more excited. And you want me very badly, don’t you?”
She might have said this boastfully if she was in another mood, but she wasn’t trying to needle him. She just wanted to make him see the truth of what was happening to him without the haze of shame.
Tha?s did not believe in shame.
“Well, of course I want you,” he said. “I would think that’s quite obvious, given the circumstances. I devised an elaborate scheme to hire you. I paid a fortune for your time. I can’t look at you without—” He gestured at his cock, which was half-stiffened even despite his ill temper and the fact that he’d spilled his seed not ten minutes ago.
“And I like all that,” she said. “I see the way you look at me, and where your eyes are always glancing. I know how much you love my breasts and arse, how much you like to feel them. And when you let yourself touch me, I see how it affects you. How you tremble and swell for me, treat me like I’m precious. And I love it, Alastair. And your wife will too, if you pick her right.”
He was quiet.
“Even if all that is true,” he finally said, “it doesn’t change the fact of my affliction. I can’t have children if I can’t stay erect long enough to spill inside a woman. I can’t give my wife a family, nor have the chance to be a father. As it is, it would be unfair of me to marry at all. If I can’t provide children, and I can’t provide pleasure, I won’t wed.”
Her heart squeezed for him.
She knew that fear so well—the longing for a family, and the worry that you’ll never be the right kind of person to have one.
But Eden was wrong.
He could have it. She would give that to him.
“Well, giving pleasure needn’t be a matter of rutting,” she said. “You can make a woman sweat with your hands and mouth, if you know how. And I’m going to teach you that too. But first, we’re going to work on making you last, so you don’t feel so bloody terrible.”
“Good luck with the impossible.”
“Oh, don’t you test me. When I’m done with you, you’ll be fucking for hours. Your ballocks will be so hard and full you’ll wish you’d never met me.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Well, that’s what you have me for. And look—you’re nearly hard again, and you’re in a miserable bloody temper and I haven’t even touched you. I’d wager that if we go again, you won’t reach your peak so fast.”
“I doubt it,” he said. “You excite me tremendously, Tha?s. You’re at least right about that.”
“Well, let’s try it and find out.”
He shook his head. “I can’t tonight. It’s been too much.”
She understood this, though she wished he’d be a bit more willing to try things, even if they might not go perfectly the first time.
“You could also see to yourself alone, before you’re with your lover. To make yourself less lusty. Or let her watch you have yourself. Or help you.”
He laughed darkly. “I can’t imagine anyone would want to do either of those things.”
“You have a piss-poor imagination.”
“Thank you. May I sleep now?”
She sighed. He was awfully stubborn for a man who claimed to want to learn.
“You needn’t be so gruff with me. I’m only trying to give you what you paid for.”
He let out a long breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Tha?s.”
He was sincere, she could tell. Her men didn’t usually apologize for their ill temper—or if they did, it was only to mollify her to get another frig. She’d never been with a man like Eden, who was so nice even at his worst.
She wanted—truly wanted—to help him.
And the only way to help was to get him used to her. Make him feel manly about himself, if that’s what he needed.
“I’m cold,” she lied, feigning a shiver. “Will you hold me until I fall asleep?”
“Hold you?”
He wasn’t being ornery. He seemed not to know what she meant.
She picked up one of his arms and draped it over her body. “Like that, see? But use both of them to cuddle me up.”
“I want to make you comfortable,” he said. “But if I touch you that way, I might...”
“And who cares if you do? You’re here to practice. And women like sweetness.”
“Very well,” he said. “If you’re certain.”
He put his arm around her, and she snuggled into his side.
It felt surprisingly nice. She was fibbing about women wanting to be held—certainly not all of them did, and she wasn’t often one of them. Too much of a man made her feel trapped.
But not Eden.
“Put your other arm around me,” she whispered.
He did.
His body was tense. He held his hips apart from her, so her skin wouldn’t brush his prick, now fully hard again. He was trying to please her, despite his roiling feelings and bad mood and—she suspected—the agony of craving another orgasm and denying himself.
She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, but Eden’s tension made it hard to drift away. She felt him straining, his muscles rigid, his heart beating hard and fast.
She couldn’t take it. Neither of them would get a wink tonight if this went on.
“Alastair?” she said.
“Yes?”
“You’re dying. Let me help you.”
And he must have been more desperate than even she knew, because he trembled at the mere words and grazed his cock against her leg. It was slick. His body was weeping with desire for her.
It made her own loins quicken.
Slowly, lightly, she brushed his belly with the tips of her fingers. He moaned and shook, pressing himself more firmly against her bare leg.
“Make yourself feel good,” she whispered.
He groaned and thrust himself against her leg again.
That was all it took. He cried out, clutching at her so desperately she knew he was not aware he was doing it. He buried his face in her neck as he yelled out his pleasure, squeezing her like she was the only thing between himself and sanity.
Blessed boy, he’d needed that. She’d never been so happy to cause a man to come.
She leaned over and kissed his brow. “Now sleep,” she said.