Chapter Eight #3
“Oh, I’m quite miffed still, but I’m coming ’round to the idea, especially when you’ve presented me with such a lush playground.” He gave one of her nipples a light pinch, grinning when she squeaked. “It makes up for losing the attentions of potential mistresses.”
“Truly a rogue.” She smiled up at him even as her stomach knotted with anxiety.
Would he pledge his fidelity to her? But there was such heat in his gaze, need circled through her insides.
Then she laid a hand atop his and pressed his fingers to her mons.
“Continue, Lord Wolcott. I believe you stopped just here.” She parted her thighs to give him easier access.
“Quite right, Miss Primrose,” he responded with a graveled voice. “Your sense of adventure is heady stuff indeed.” When he furrowed his fingers through her feminine curls, a moan escaped him. “God, you’re already so wet.”
Apparently, that was a good thing? “William?” When she met his gaze again, she wanted to tumble into those green pools. “Please, show me that you desire me beyond what we did yesterday, for you’ve done that to countless other women. Just because we came together like that doesn’t mean I’m special.”
More’s the pity.
“Nonsense. Everyone has an innate uniqueness to them, and after all, I am engaged to you.”
“Not by choice.” Unfortunately.
“Isn’t it enough that I’m here at all instead running off to the Continent?” Again, he sucked a nipple into his mouth while rubbing his fingers over that tiny, hidden button at the center of her being.
“Oh, yes.” The word shuddered out of her throat.
She didn’t care that her spectacles were dangerously close to slipping off the end of her nose.
“This I remember from yesterday.” Charlotte kept her hand on his, guiding him, directing him, showing him exactly where she wanted him to touch.
Her eyes opened wide; she bumped her hips against his palm, and it was simply lovely.
“Do you know how wonderful that feels?” she whispered in a choked voice.
“I have a fair idea.” The faster he rubbed that nubbin, the more her breathing became labored. “Fixate on what I do to you.”
“How can I not?” He was everywhere, it seemed, and his ministrations were an everyday miracle. Tiny moans and sighs left her. When would the torment cease?
William chuckled but kept his focus on her.
Her thighs trembled. The fingers of her free hand clenched and relaxed into her skirting as he continued his quest. “Mmm, oh…” She writhed in a restless rhythm. The hand holding his relaxed, and she moved it to one of her breasts, plucked at a nipple.
“Fall over the edge for me, Charlotte. Let me see you hit release,” he murmured like a man possessed. “That is where your true self is found.”
“Almost, I think.” She panted, her hips gyrating into his hand. “William, I need, I need…”
“I know.” He bent his head and kissed her—hard and deep—and at the same time increased both the friction and the intensity on her swollen button.
Her body stiffened as the inevitable crept up on her.
She put her hand on his and pressed him tight against her button, and then her back arched, her eyes closed, and she screamed as she hit bliss. “William, yes!”
“I am not nearly done.” As she trembled in his hold, the earl moved down her body and put his mouth on the place where he’d just bedeviled with his fingers.
“Oh, ah!” When his lips closed on that swollen, sensitive nubbin, suckled it, teased with rapid swipes from the tip of his tongue, she was once more gone. There was no doubt in her mind that she indeed began to fly, just as that book said.
No longer did she inhabit her own body; instead, she was ethereal, like what an angel probably was, and it was the most glorious thing, this heated throbbing, this lovely wave of pleasure that briefly took over.
Eventually, Charlotte stopped floating. She collapsed into the sofa, melted into William’s arms, and with a wholly satisfied sigh, she blinked open her eyes to find him staring down at her with the devil’s own smug grin on his face. “We are going to need to do things like this much more often.”
His chuckle sent tingles dancing over her skin. “I quite agree. You are wildly beautiful when you’re lost to the throes of bliss.”
Heat seeped into her cheeks, but it wasn’t from embarrassment.
There was no shame in what just happened; it was heaven-sent.
“Also, I want to explore you.” Tired, she drew a hand over his hip to dare and cup his engorged length through his breeches, giggling when he groaned.
“I wish to see you, touch you, know everything now that we’ve embraced scandal together. ”
A wash of ruddy color climbed his throat and neck above his collar. “That can be arranged. I am, after all, quite a rake.”
“But now you are my rake.” She made a point of emphasizing her claim.
“Quite.” Yet his grin didn’t reach his eyes this time, which meant he was, indeed, still cross about their engagement. “I have something for you.”
“What?”
From his waistcoat pocket, he withdrew something so small she couldn’t immediately see it. “I was going to give this to you during our drive today anyway, but it might make more of an impression on you now.”
“Oh?” Charlotte struggled into a sitting position while he did the same. “What is it?”
“This.” When he opened his palm, a ring sat on his skin.
Made of delicate silver filagree, a large round sapphire winked in the dim illumination.
“It’s from a parure, that is also yours, but it’s upstairs just now, and with this cockstand, I don’t wish to try and navigate going from here to there.
” At her snort, he shrugged. “I chose this one because it had belonged to my grandmother and it was the closest stone I could find that nearly matched your eyes.”
“It’s so lovely,” she said in a small voice as she pushed her spectacles back onto the bridge of her nose.
The second he slipped it onto the fourth finger of her left hand, tears slipped to her cheeks.
“No one has even given me anything so nice. The fact that you have… when you don’t even want this engagement to begin with… ”
For long moments, the earl regarded her as if he couldn’t quite puzzle her out, then he took her into his arms and encouraged her to rest her head on his shoulder.
“I can feel anger alongside responsibility and wish for companionship. If you want new gowns in brilliant, jewel tones, I’ll pay for them.
If you need fripperies, tell the shop owners to invoice me.
After all, you will eventually become a countess. You should look the part, hmm?”
Warmth filled her chest. Usually, she was forgotten by everyone. “It’s not necessary—”
“It is.” His tone brooked no argument. “Enjoy the engagement, Charlotte, for it is yours as well.”
“And after that?”
He shrugged. “We shall discuss it that at time. For now, there are books to catalogue, scandal to chase, and conversations to pursue.”
For the moment, it was enough, and more than she had a week ago.