“I will not lie with you.” Anna shook her head. “It would be… dishonest.”
“I will not lie with you then, either.” He kissed her again, more lingeringly. “But I would pleasure us both. Don’t for the love of God argue with me, Anna.” His arms slipped around her waist. “You need pleasuring almost as badly as I do, and there’s nothing to stop us.”
“There’s me to stop us,” she said, but she was kissing him back between her protests.
“Stop me later, then,” the earl suggested, shrugging out of his waistcoat while his lips cruised her neck. “Preferably much later.” He kissed her more deeply, but to her eternal consternation she was less committed to her protests than he was to his seduction.
For days she’d told herself physical pleasures were fleeting and an undesirable entanglement in her circumstances. She’d told herself she couldn’t miss something she’d shared with the earl on only a handful of occasions—a few kisses, some caresses, unimaginable pleasure and intimacy.
But she’d missed him like the land misses spring and the flowers miss the sun. She’d missed him like a soldier misses home on the night before battle and the night after. She’d missed him so…
“That’s it,” the earl coaxed when Anna’s arms went around his waist. “No more words, Anna. Unless it’s to tell me how to please you.”
He kissed her long and deeply, stilling her protests, stealing her will and making it his. She did want to share these pleasures with him, with him and no one else, ever. She did not want to leave him, and yet leave him she would.
She rose up to press her body more closely to his, and he gathered her more tightly in his arms. All of her reserve and self-control went flying out the window, and in their place was need. Need for him, for closeness with him.
“Your clothes,” Anna breathed, arching against him.
“Yours,” he whispered back. Deftly, he began to undo the buttons down the back of her dress, even as she continued to drink in his kisses. He pushed the cap sleeves of her dress off her shoulders and bent his head to worship her neck with his lips.
“I love that,” she said. “The way you touch me there.”
“And here,” he murmured, shifting lower, “you taste like sunshine, and sweetness, and female.”
She was trying to get his shirt out of his waistband but couldn’t kiss him and make her hands work at the same time. Gasping, she stepped back.
She eyed him in frustration. “This isn’t working. Please take your clothes off. Now, Westhaven.”
He smiled an I thought you would never ask smile and pulled his shirt over his head, letting her watch. He arched an eyebrow, his hand going to the fall of his trousers, and Anna nodded, holding his gaze the whole time. With deliberate movements, he got out of his boots, stockings, and breeches, standing before her naked, aroused, and unselfconscious.
“Oh, dear…” Anna’s eyes went wide as she surveyed him. “You are very interested.”
He stalked toward her, his erection curving up against his taut belly. “While you are very overdressed. Clothes off, Anna. All of them.”
She nodded, knowing it would represent new territory for them. She had never been naked before him, not in the broad light of day.
“Lock the door,” she said, swallowing. His smile became feral as he complied with her command. He’d told her to strip for him; she deliberately used the imperative on him, as well.
“Quit dithering, love.” His tone was gentler, amused but only so patient. Slowly, Anna let the bodice of her dress fall forward then shoved it below her hips. She stepped out of the dress and stood in the middle of its billows, like Venus rising. While Westhaven watched from just a few feet away, she bent to undo her boots and stockings then let her chemise join the dress on the floor.
“Better,” he said, holding out a hand to her. “Much, much better.”
She took a step toward him then hesitated. He closed the remaining distance and caught her against him, letting her press her face to his throat.
“Shy?” he asked, amusement back in his voice.
“We are… very undressed,” Anna said as a blush rose up her chest and suffused her face. “This is new.”
The earl bent his head to kiss her, then slid his hand down to cup her derriere. Before she could react with even another blush, he lifted her and tossed her onto the middle of the bed.
“Stay right there, shyness be damned,” he said to her as she rose up to brace her elbows behind her. “You look adorably dazed, thoroughly kissed, and much in need of my company, as you, my dear, need to be relieved of a certain ignorance. Not your innocence, as no man can divest you of that, but your ignorance. I fault Mr. Seaton for not seeing to this.”
“My ignorance?” she said, watching him climb onto the bed. “Westhaven…”
“That’s talking, Anna,” he chided. “You are only to talk if it’s to tell me what pleases you.”
“It pleases me not at all,” she said sternly, “to be handled like a… oof!” He straddled her and gently pushed her onto her back. “What are you about?”
“Hush, sweetheart.” He nuzzled her neck, crouching over her. “It’s too hot for lecturing. We must conserve our strength.”
The bed, Anna realized, took some of the urgency from him. When he could loom over her this way, passively rest his erection against her stomach and know she wasn’t going to squirm away, he was easier to deal with. The pace of his kisses slowed, and the quiet of the house settled around them.
“Someday,” he said, grazing his nose down her sternum, “you will want it fast and almost rough. You’ll want me to shut up, and you won’t care if we tear our clothes or leave the door unlocked or make a racket.”
“Can you promise me such a day?” Anna arched her back, trying to get closer to him.
“I can promise you as many of those days as you want.” He flicked his tongue over her nipple and rested his cheek on the swell of her breast. “I can promise you nights when we get no sleep but rise with more energy than had we slept soundly. I can promise you long afternoons spent in sensual abandon, when we both have places we must be, things we must do, but we let them all go hang.” He turned his face and took her nipple into his mouth, and the pleasure he brought her was almost unbearable.
“Yes,” Anna breathed, not sure if she’d spoken aloud or simply felt the word in every part of her body. The earl drew more strongly on her and used his fingers to tease the other nipple. He paused and raised himself enough to meet her gaze.
“Take your time, Anna. We have hours if you want them, and my appetite for you is without limit.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, letting her hands stroke through his hair. “Take my time?”
“Our time,” he said, closing his eyes. He bent his head to her breasts again and spent long minutes using his mouth to arouse and please her. Her breasts were wonderfully sensitive, and she unabashedly reveled in the nudity that allowed him unfettered access to them.
“Westhaven…” Anna arched restlessly some minutes later. “It’s too much.”
“It’s not enough,” he said, easing a hand down over her stomach. He kept his movements deliberate, as if reminding her tacitly they had all the time in the world. Slowly, he caressed her midriff, occasionally letting his fingers tease at her nipples or drift down to tease at the curls above her sex.
“You are losing flesh,” he said, leaning over to kiss her breast. “You will please stop this, as I require you to be sturdy.”
“I always drop some weight in the summer,” Anna said, realizing he was in a different mood entirely from when he tossed her onto the bed. “You are over your chicken pox.” She ran a hand over his abdomen, marveling at how perfectly his skin had healed.
“I had good care”—the earl smiled up at her—“and I’ve been conserving my strength.” His hand dipped lower, into her curls, and Anna felt her frustration spike. Well, turnabout was fair play, so she sent her own hand drifting down to explore
his erection.
“How long can you stay like this?” She circled him with her fingers and sleeved his length.
“Many men are in a state of near perpetual arousal for much of their adolescence,” he said, closing his eyes. “Myself included. It got better at university, when I could actually do something besides pleasure myself several times a day. Hold me tighter, love. Like that.” He sighed, gave up, and rolled to his back.
Anna smiled, pleased with herself for getting the better of him. She pushed up and sat cross-legged at his hip then resumed her exploration.
“Are all men as well endowed as you?” she asked, her free hand slipping up to brush over his nipples.
“I am the most well-endowed man on earth,” he said, eyes still closed. “You are to be envied among all women; you’ll be bowlegged when we become lovers in fact.”
“Be serious,” she chided, tugging at him gently.
“Serious…” he breathed. “God, that feels good… It’s hard to say really who is well endowed and who isn’t, as one seldom sees another fellow aroused. We peek, certainly, but I’ve seen very few cocks other than my own ready to do the deed.”
“You’ve seen other men in this state?”
“Most men wake up in this state,” he informed her. “Slow down, sweetheart, or I won’t be able to maintain it much longer.” She slowed her hand, fractionally, but leaned over and swirled her tongue over his nipple.
“Anna.” His hand came up to cradle the back of her head and to contradict the warning in his tone.
“Hmm?” She began to suckle him, and he groaned, his hips moving to complement the stroke of her hand.
“I will get even.”
“Shall I stop?” She stilled her hand and brushed his hair back from his forehead. His eyes opened, and she was relieved to see humor in his expression.
“I’m going to use my mouth on you, Anna, and you will scream for me and forget your own name, so much will you like it.”
She frowned at that. He’d been very explicit about this threat before. Thinking about it had kept her awake more than one night.
She met his gaze soberly. “What if I want to use my mouth on you?”
“Come here.” He wrestled her down to his side, wrapped his arms around her, and tucked her close. “When you are with me like this, there is nothing you can ask of me, nothing you can want or do or think that will earn my censure. I would love to feel your mouth on my cock; I would love to take you in any position you can think of. If you wanted to tie me up, blindfold me, paint my cock blue, I would not deny you.”
“Why?”
“I trust you,” he said, and his words left her stunned.
“You shouldn’t,” she replied, her voice small. She felt the impact of her honesty go through him and wondered if she’d destroyed his regard for her in those two little words.
“Why shouldn’t I?” His question came slowly, in the same tempo as his hand moving over her body.
“Because I will disappoint you, and then you will feel ashamed and angry, and so will I,” she said against his neck. She shifted to straddle him and felt his arms go around her when she curled down onto his chest.
“You will disappoint me in bed?” he asked, his tone tentative.
“Probably there, too,” she replied, pressing her nose to his sternum.
“You still think you’re leaving me,” the earl concluded, his hands stroking along her spine.
“I know I am,” she said more firmly, teething his nipple for emphasis. There, she’d said it; she’d been as honest as she could be.
“Because you will not marry me, and so you must take your virtuous self off when you’ve endured the requisite dose of my importuning.”
Anna rose up and surveyed him balefully. “I did not say I enjoyed an entirely consistent position, nor one that makes sense in all circumstances, but I can’t marry you.”
“Cannot or will not?” the earl asked, catching her eye and holding it.
“Cannot. Absolutely cannot. Ever.”
But she also could not stop toying with his nipples.
“If you could choose, Anna”—he reached down and tugged gently on one of her nipples in retaliation—“what would you choose? This duty that confidentially holds you, or the alternative?”
“You.” She leaned up and kissed him. “Were I free to do so, I’d choose you.”
Not marriage, not freedom, not the title, not security. She would choose him. Her kiss, when she brushed her lips over his again, was different, sweet, wistful, but also the kiss of a woman who felt deeply about the man with her.
She would choose him. She could tell him that—give him that.
Anna peered up at him. “Earlier, you said—”
“I say a lot of things.” He smiled at her, and to Anna, the expression was tender, a little like the way he looked at Her Grace.
“You said…” She looked abruptly away, flummoxed to find she was still capable of shyness when she was naked, straddling his rigid cock. “You said you would love to feel my mouth on your… on you.”
“I did.” His hands went still. “I would.”
“How does one do this?” she asked, a blush rising over her for him to see. But to her relief he didn’t tease, he didn’t remark on it, he just waited until she was facing him again.
“However you please,” he said levelly, “and only if you please.”
“Show me. I want to do this with you.”
“Get comfortable,” he said, shifting over to one side of the bed. “And stop whenever you aren’t comfortable. Take your time, and do what pleases you.”
“What if I hurt you?” Anna shifted to rest her cheek low on his abdomen and took him in her hand.
“You can’t, short of biting me and drawing blood, but even that can have a certain erotic appeal.”
His hand settled on her hair, and she took a moment to inhale the scents of clean sheets, clean man, and anticipation. She licked delicately at his erection, as if she were trying to decide what flavor he was. When his hand sifted through her hair to caress her nape, she relaxed and put her focus on the task. Tentatively, she licked him all over, little teasing swipes of her tongue, like a mama cat patiently grooming a kitten. Inside her own body, she lit fires with that tongue, his permission to indulge her curiosity as incendiary as the naked length of him in the bed.
And then she slipped her mouth over him, and brush fires instantly converged into a wildfire. She experimented, taking him deep into her mouth then more shallowly. Without a word, his hips began to move, slowly, as if he didn’t want to startle her. She was content to spend long minutes learning how to coordinate her movements with his, to let the fires rage and warm places in her gone cold longer than she’d realized. When her fingers wrapped around his wet length, he expelled a soft, pleased groan, as if passion was as much a relief to him as it was to her.
“Not much more, Anna,” he cautioned hoarsely. “I’ll spend…”
Well, that was the point, wasn’t it? When he was thrusting smoothly through her hand into her mouth, and his breathing was coming in short, deep breaths, she closed her lips around him and drew firmly.
“Oh, God… Anna… No…” His thrusts grew stronger, despite his words. His hand cradled the back of her head, holding her close; his cock actually pulsed in her mouth, and Anna wasn’t about to show him mercy.
“No…” he whispered again, even while his body shouted to the contrary for long, ecstatic moments. “Jesus…” He hissed, eyes closed, head thrown back, hips moving in convulsive shudders of pleasure. “Jesus, God… Anna…”
He went quiet but not quite still, his hand moving slowly over her scalp.
“And you say,” he whispered, “I should not trust you.” She let him slip from her mouth, and felt tears welling. He should not trust her, but he just had, profoundly. Even in her inexperience, she could divine that much.
“Come here.” He leaned up and tugged her to lie along his side. “I can’t believe you
did that. I can’t believe I did that. A man doesn’t spend in a woman’s mouth. It isn’t gentlemanly.”
“But it is gentlemanly to spend on her stomach?” Anna asked in puzzlement. “Or to spend in her body, getting a bastard on her?”
“What was it the great philosopher once said?” He kissed her nose. “The position is not entirely consistent, nor does it make sense under all circumstances?”
Anna continued to frown. “Do you mean you yourself do not spend in a woman’s mouth, or that it’s like pissing in a well, a civil wrong?”
“Good heavens, you did have a brother, didn’t you? It isn’t quite like that. It’s like eating the dessert set aside for company, or stealing the crown jewels and seeing another blamed. It’s just… It’s too good,” he said. “Too selfish.”
“Of me?” Anna asked, still confused. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to stop, and you said I should stop only when I pleased.”
“Love,” he sighed, “you could not have pleased me more profoundly if you’d told me Val had sired legitimate twin boys. I have never experienced such generosity, never, and as soon as I recover my wits, I am going to get very, very even indeed.”
That was enough to settle her down and put a period to her questions. She closed her eyes and drowsed on his shoulder while he drifted into sleep, his hand still tangled possessively in her hair.
When Anna awoke, she felt replete with the same sense of sweetness she’d had after her encounter with Westhaven in the library. He was wrapped around her, her back spooned to his chest, a sweet breeze wafting in from the open window.
His hand closed gently around her breast, though his breathing did not change. Anna closed her eyes and let the pleasure of that single, soft caress drift through her body. He did it again, and she sighed audibly. A few moments later, his thumb brushed over her nipple, then again.
Take your time, he’d said.
As the earl’s hands began to wander—up and down her back, over her buttocks, back to her breasts—she thought over their last encounter in this very bed. She’d lain still, feigning sleep then, too.
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