Harry released her breast, and suddenly his tongue was lapping at her clitoris. She bucked against his face and fingers, desperate now to come. She was on a path that led directly to pleasure without stopping. When he sucked her clit hard, Ophelia came and came and came.
She slowly opened her eyes after she’d regained her senses. Harry was kneeling between her spread thighs now, watching her face, his fingers still wedged inside her, his lips damp from kissing her sex.
He carefully removed his fingers, but only to rub her dampness over her sensitive pussy. When he parted her folds, leaned down, and blew lightly over her sex, Ophelia was rocked by another tightening of her inner muscles. “Harry!”
“I have you,” he promised. There was a decidedly large bulge pointing toward her from his breeches. She watched him curious to know when he would take off everything that separated them. He seemed in no rush, though she was aware of his hunger.
He removed his upper garments with painfully slow movements, watching her through hooded eyes. A slight smile turned up his lips but he said nothing as he continued to torment her with his slow strip. As his shirt hit the floor, Ophelia groaned.
Harry was big all over, hard-muscled and taut-skinned. The dark hair she’d glimpsed at his throat continued down in a line to his groin. She stared at the buttons on his breeches, and then lifted her head as he continued to unbutton himself in his slow fashion.
And then he moved his hands aside so she could see.
Her cunny gave a surprisingly enthusiastic twitch at her first peek at his impressive cock springing from his loosened breeches. She would feel very stretched when he was deep inside her. She’d never had a cock that big, but she wasn’t afraid. Not of Harry.
He would take care of her.
He always had.
Harry shoved his breeches further down his thighs and wrapped his hand around his cock at the base. He stroked himself, and his lips twitched. “Do you think you can take this easily?”
Ophelia widened her legs and tilted her cunny up. “Not easily at first, but willingly. Come to me.”
“Not yet,” he said as he lowered his hand between her legs again.
When he slapped her there, she gasped from the unexpected pleasure. “Oh!” she cried. “That felt so strange.”
“Good strange?”
“Yes, Harry. Very good. May I have another?”
He growled and did it again. Then he grabbed one of her hands and forced it between her legs. “Open yourself to me.”
Moisture gushed from her sex at his bold demand, and she did as he asked very eagerly, playing with her sex a little, too—the way she’d only done when alone.
Harry leaned down for a close-up view of her cunny. After a moment, he looked up along the length of her body, and he finally smiled. “You’ve a pretty thatch, Ophelia. I’m going to take great pleasure in sliding my cock into you all night long.”
Ophelia quivered both from his use of her first name and from his intentions. His coarse way of speaking might have offended another lady, but she suspected Harry was finally being himself, in a way he’d never dared before. She liked this side of him. He was exciting, and she found his coarseness arousing. She hoped he meant it, too. Ophelia had never been entirely satisfied with making love but once in a night.
She pinched her lower lips hard, pulling them wider, but then reached for Harry’s cock instead. He was thick and hot against her palms, and he moved closer so she could fondle him without stretching. Using both hands, she stroked him over and over, bringing her thumbs up over the ruddy head and back down again to the base. She made him moan when she spread his moisture around the tip and then licked some from her fingers.
Although she would have willingly taken him into her mouth, she was desperate to feel him inside her cunny. She ached to have Harry come apart the way she had. To give him the pleasure that would sate him. She wanted to make him as happy as he was making her tonight.
She wrapped her fingers around the base of his cock and guided him to join with her.
He was big, but he was careful. He claimed her slowly, even when she begged for more. He never once took his eyes from hers.
And in that moment, she realized what he’d been trying to tell her, show her, in his own strange way since she’d woken with her fingers tangled in his hair. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. They had both been afraid.
When he was fully inside her, but remained still, Ophelia clawed at his back. “Harry! Don’t make me wait.”
“You belong with me, now and forever.” His jaw clenched a moment. “Do you understand? You are mine.”
Her pussy clenched around him. She wanted that to be true. “Yes, Harry. I want you just as much, I swear.”
He chuckled darkly against her ear. “I doubt that. I want you panting and desperate now, and sated and soft after. I want you tonight. Tomorrow. Until the day I die.”
“I need that too,” she promised. “Please make love to me.”
He drew back his hips and began to thrust into her, slowly at first, and then when she had grown accustomed to his size, he became less gentle. Ophelia encouraged him until he was slamming into her—chanting her name with each thrust.
Ophelia raised her hands to the headboard to steady them. Harry took advantage of her position to claim her nipple and suck hard.
Ophelia came again, and he did, finally, as well.
Harry collapsed atop her in a sweaty tangle of heavy limbs and hard breathing. Ophelia wrapped her arms around his head, her legs about his hips, and thoroughly enjoyed the pleasant weight of him pressed against her.
Being with Harry in her bed was better than any fantasy she’d ever conjured up.
Her cunny pulsed still, squeezing around his softening cock.
She clung to Harry, unable to believe how much he excited her even after all they’d done together. She already knew she wanted more of him tonight, tomorrow, and forever. She wanted everything he promised, and so much more. He hadn’t spoken of marriage or love, and she did not assume he ever would.
This was enough for now. For once, finally, they understood each other perfectly.
Harry seemed in no hurry to move off her, so she rocked her hips, making him move inside her again. He was coming along nicely, and then he began flexing his hips into her again, too.
After several pleasant minutes of grinding, he rolled onto his back, dragging her on top of him.
Ophelia struggled into a comfortable position and looked down on his flushed face. She touched his cheek as she continued to rock on his stiffening cock. “You asked what happened today that changed my mood,” she whispered. “I thought of what it would be like to have you under me like this.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “Then you read my mind, too. I was moments away from attempting to seduce you.”
“I would have liked that. We were so alone.”
“I’ll take you to the lake tomorrow. Strip you bare, open your legs and kiss you till you come on my face. And then I’ll drag you atop me like this and let you take me all the way in until you come again.”
She bit her lip as he bucked under her, and they began to make love with her on top. Just the way she liked to have her Harry. Smiling and handsomely disheveled. He didn’t seem to mind that she was setting the pace. He skimmed his fingertips over her skin and seemed content to watch her cunny take him in.
Yet when it came to passion, it did no good if only one partner got to make all the decisions. She pushed his hair from his face and regarded him though narrowed eyes. Harry had a dirty tongue, and she imagined him more adventurous in bed than ever her late husband might have been. There was much he could teach her about passion.
She leaned down, close to his ear to whisper, “Tell me what you desire?”
“You,” he promised as he squeezed her bottom firmly.
She grinned. “Would you like me on my knees so you can take me from behind, Harry?”
Harry stilled a moment.
Then with an inarticulate roar before Harry withdrew, flipped Ophelia onto the mattress, onto her belly, and then her knees before she could laugh at his haste.
He sank into her again, and his hands were clamped on her hips, steadying her as he drove into her repeatedly. She gasped as her inner walls tightened and quivered anew as he dominated their lovemaking and made his enthusiasm for the position quite plain.
Ophelia put her fingers to her clitoris and brought herself to orgasm just as he found his second release. It seemed, in the secret dream she’d kept close to her heart for so long, that in Harry, she also might have found her true match in passion.
Chapter 8
Harry sat up in a strange bedchamber with a start and looked about the dark room in a state of confusion. It took him a moment to remember why he had fallen asleep in Ophelia’s bedchamber.
When he remembered the night of passion that had passed, he reached for her, eager to start all over again.
When he didn’t find her beside him, he jumped out of bed and threw open the heavy drapes, confused even more that it seemed to be nearly midday. She should be here with him even now. He might have slept longer than he usually would, not surprising given the erotic exertions of the previous night, but this was her room. She should have at least woken him when she’d risen.
Harry had lost count of the number of times and ways he’d made love to Ophelia last night, but he could remember that each and every time, she’d snuggled up to him afterward. She had undoubtedly enjoyed what they’d done together. He’d promised to continue their amorous activities by the lake where they’d picnicked.
He looked about her chambers, saw that his clothes had been laid out neatly for him to find, and he rushed to get dressed before a servant discovered him naked. Once dressed, he snatched up the mantle clock, squinting at it as he confirmed the exact time. Three minutes to noon, and he was lucky that no one had found him here yet.
As he raked his fingers through his hair to straighten it, he wondered how long ago it had been since Ophelia had left him. There were things they needed to discuss today. He was keen to have a date decided for their marriage.
He checked no one was about and slipped out to her sitting room. His papers were all still as he’d left them, and he scooped them up before striding boldly back to the side of the house he’d typically inhabit. From tomorrow, he decided, it would be their house: no more sides, no more separations.
The only small matter that gave him pause was the location of the master bedchamber and the number of difficult stairs Ophelia might be required to attempt every morning and night, after spending the night together. She was not particularly agile on stairs, and that had always worried him. He couldn’t always be around to carry her down.
He would figure something out; perhaps an inventor he’d heard of recently might devise a way for Ophelia to move about more easily between the floors. Enough money could usually inspire anyone to create something new.
He rushed up to his own chambers, found fresh clothing in his dressing room to put on, and returned below to begin the hunt for the woman he would marry.
It was nearly an hour later when he heard a carriage on the drive, and Ophelia returned with a maid by her side. He hovered just out of sight as the butler took her hat and coat from her in the hall, handed her a letter, and only when the servants were gone did he rush out to confront Ophelia about her disappearance.
She turned as she heard him approach. Her lips parted, and then she swallowed before attempting to curtsy. “Your grace.”
“None of that,” he warned. He would not have Ophelia attempt curtsies anymore. She might fall. And since he hadn’t seen her in hours, he moved closer.
Harry didn’t fight against the hardening of his cock or the impulse to touch her. He pulled Ophelia into his arms and looked down upon her upturned face. A blush was slowly climbing her cheeks, and her lips parted on a pant. “You weren’t there when I woke up.”
“No.” She moved away, into a chamber that he’d thought of hers since she’d come to live with him. It was a comfortable room, with a long wide chaise Ophelia often reclined on when she was weary. The chaise was big enough for them to share actually.
He put his hand under her elbow, ready to lead her there to sit and perhaps make love again if she was agreeable.
But she set her reticule on a nearby side table, her brows drawing together in a frown as she glanced his way. “I had something I needed to do in the village.”
He shook her gently. “And it couldn’t wait until I woke up, and we’d spoken about what happened between us last night?”
Ophelia pulled out of his grip. “No, it could not.”
“I would have driven you myself. I told you I would look after you.”
“It was because of last night that I had to go alone.” She sighed. “There are some things you cannot help me with. Sometimes I will need a moment of privacy to speak with other people, too.”
He narrowed his eyes on her, not liking that answer. “Judging by your frown, you spoke with the bloody vicar again. What could you possibly need him for that couldn’t wait?”
She stared at him. “Yes, I went to speak with Mr. Drayton. He asked something of me that I needed to give him an answer to. It couldn’t wait.”
“Another charitable cause? A donation of men and money to fix another leaking roof? Or was it the parish orphans again?”
“It was nothing like that. It was very personal.” She sighed. “While you were away, Mr. Drayton asked me to marry him.”
Harry could not have been more shocked. His first instinct was to rush out of the mansion and go down to the village, find the vicar, and punch him right in the nose for presuming himself good enough to ask Ophelia such a question. “Why, that grasping, underhanded—”
“He’s nothing of the sort, and you know it. He’s a kind man.” She shrugged. “I owed him an answer.”
Harry didn’t want her to feel she owed anyone, least of all the vicar. “I hope you told him to go to hell?”
“I said what was kindest.” She turned away. “He was disappointed.”
Harry smiled. “He’d better get over it quickly.”
“I hope so.” She opened her letter, and she then nodded. “Cousin Miriam is increasing again.”
“Another brat to murder our ears when it cries,” he grumbled. “Wonderful.”
Ophelia didn’t respond to that.
Harry moved to stand behind Ophelia and set his hands on her shoulders. She was stiff, and did not turn to welcome his attentions. Had he been too demanding in bed last night? He’d imagined their morning quite differently from the way it had turned out so far. More kisses, and a decision about how long she’d make him wait to bed her again. He was under no illusions that Ophelia didn’t have an opinion on that.
They ought not to have anticipated their wedding night. There was any number of people in the district who could count the number of months from wedding night till the birth of their first child. He would rather not involve Ophelia in any unsavory gossip if he could help it. She might have a hard time when they returned to London next spring. He would shield her from as much of the unpleasant reception they would get if he could.
He took a steadying breath, eager to begin negotiations for their marriage. Time was passing. “If Drayton carries on, I’ll find someone else to marry us.”
Her head lifted. “Are we getting married, then?”
Harry blinked, then spun Ophelia around to face him. She regarded him with a great deal of astonishment. Surely she couldn’t have thought he’d no honorable intentions when he’d taken her to bed? He frowned. “Of course we are.”
“You never asked.”
Harry threw up his hands. “I warned you I was no good at this sort of thing.”
“A lady likes to be asked,” she replied, refolding her letter. “It might seem unnecessary between us now, but I would like to tell our children about this day. And yes, they will cry
, too, and you cannot be cross about it, either.”
“I’ll try,” he promised, but he liked the idea of a dozen of his own brats running about the estate yelling at each other in a way he’d never been allowed to do. He’d watch from a safe distance with Ophelia, out of harm’s way. There would be very few rules for their children.
He raised her face to his, and she leaned into his touch. “You’re going to need to be a little more obvious about what you want from me if we are going to get along. I wasn’t brought up to share my innermost thoughts with anyone.”
“You must confide in me. Hold nothing back. I won’t try to manipulate you or betray your trust. Hurting you is the last thing I will ever do.”
Her words made his eyes sting, but he forced the strong emotions away. He wasn’t able yet to be the man she expected. But he would try to change—to meet her halfway if he could. He would try hard.
He sighed. He would have to start today. Nothing less than a grand proposal to make her feel his love would do. He’d already made her doubt her place here, and now his intentions, too. He was probably going to have to make their wedding more of a fuss than he could stand, because she would secretly want that, too.
He squared his shoulders. “You are the last woman I’ll ever ask to marry me, so here goes.”
He swept her up into his arms and carried her back into the empty front hall. He set her down on her feet carefully, made sure she was steady, and then whistled loudly.
He whistled again, and the servants came at a run.
Good.
He wanted this moment to be as widely reported as possible. “Gather round,” he ordered. “Gather round.”
Ophelia tugged on his sleeve. “What are you doing?”
“The right thing.”
He waited for even the gasping cook to finally arrive. By then, enough had gathered around the room or hovered overhead on the stairs to provide sufficient witnesses.
Then he sank to one knee and held out his hand to Ophelia.
The servants drew in a collective gasp and started to mutter amongst themselves immediately.
His Perfect Bride Page 8
