Chapter Six
Sophia had no idea what to expect once she was alone with Dante in the cool and enshrouding privacy of the rose-shrouded arbour they had found as they strolled together amongst the shrubbery. Although his silence, his air of expectant stillness, dictated that she must do or say something!
She swallowed before speaking. “This is all completely new to me, Dante.”
He gave a rueful smile. “Me too.”
She shook her head, dark curls dancing against the pale alabaster of her neck and nape. “But—you have had many lovers—”
“Have I?” he murmured softly.
She gave him a startled look. “I thought so, yes…”
“Then you thought wrong, Sophia.”
She gave a pained frown. “It is really none of my business—”
“On the contrary, it is completely your business,” he mused.
“Do not play games with me, Dante, when I am so obviously all at sea in regard to what I am supposed to do next!” She looked up at him in mute appeal.
Dante felt some of his inner tensions ease. “What would you like to do, Sophia?”
What would Sophia like to do? Everything! Everything that was physically possible between a man and a woman. No, not just any man—between herself and Dante. Only Dante.
“You—When we were together before, you—you allowed me to feel the hardness of your—er, your arousal, pressing against me.”
“Yes?” he breathed.
Her gaze flew up to meet his before quickly lowering again as she saw the bright burn of passion in his eyes.
Dante drew in a sharp breath at her silence. “And would you like to feel it again, Sophia? To touch it? Without the encumbrance of any clothing between us?”
That was exactly what Sophia wished! What she had hungered for night after night this past week as she lay awake and alone in her bed, her own body alive and throbbing with the need to know the pleasures Dante had promised could be hers.
“You need say just one word of assent,” he confirmed softly. “For I will not force anything upon you that you do not want.”
She could barely breathe, the bodice of her gown suddenly feeling so very tight and restricting, her breasts full and aching. Could she—Dare she— “Yes,” she breathed raggedly. “Yes, that is what I want, Dante.” She spoke more firmly as she once again raised her lashes so that her gaze might shyly but steadily look up into his.
A gaze that blazed hotly in response as he prompted almost harshly, “Shall I unfasten my breeches or will you, Sophia?”
It was impossible for Sophia to stop herself from glancing down at the front of his breeches, to prevent herself from drawing in a sharp breath as she saw the hard length that strained insistently against material, twisting her fingers together in her longing to reach out and release that hardness to the eagerness of her touch.
Could she—Dare she—
“I may very soon expire from anticipation, Sophia!” Dante urged achingly even as he tried to keep the fierceness of his need in check.
There was a choked sob beneath the softness of her laugh. “I would certainly not wish that upon you!”
“Then for lord’s sake release me, Sophia!” Dante’s teeth were gritted. “Take off your gloves first so that I might feel flesh against flesh,” he encouraged as she reached out tentatively, watching through narrowed lids as she slowly did as he asked, revealing the pale length of her arms and the slenderness of her hands and fingers before dropping the gloves at her feet. Hands and fingers he now ached to have wrapped around his throbbing shaft!
He drew his breath in sharply as she knelt down in front of him before she slowly, one by one, unfastened the buttons at the sides of his breeches and allowed the flap to fall downwards, hearing her sharp intake of breath as, free of all confinement, his cock sprang forward in invitation.
Sophia was fascinated, had never imagined Dante’s manhood to be so large as it leant against the muscled flatness of his stomach, and rested mere inches in front of her face. Mere inches from her lips…
She slowly reached up to curl her fingers about that long length, and was instantly surprised and intrigued by the velvet smoothness of the flesh encasing, containing, that throbbing hardness, her eyes widening as she saw a small bead of moisture escaping the tip, quickly followed by another, and causing that first bead to lead slowly downwards towards her encircling fingers.
“Lick me, my pet,” Dante encouraged huskily. “Taste me.”
What did…? Could Dante possibly mean for her to…?
There was only one way for Sophia to find out!
“Ah…!” Dante’s knees threatened to buckle beneath him as the heat of Sophia’s lips came over and about him as she took him deep into the heat of her mouth. “I shall need to sit down if we are to continue…!” He staggered back to sit upon the stone bench at the back of the arbour, Sophia moving with him as he splayed his legs wide apart to allow her to kneel in front of him and once again take him inside the heat of her mouth.
He must have died and gone to heaven, where all of his dreams were made possible!
There could be no other explanation for the level of pleasure, of pure bliss, Dante was now experiencing, his hands falling uselessly to his sides on the bench as he watched the darkness of Sophia’s head as she took him fully into her mouth, slowly laving him, licking him with her tongue. Over and over again, until Dante thought he would go mad with the need he felt to release into her mouth.
His hands moved up, fingers tightly clasping her shoulders. “Unfasten the front of your gown and bare your breasts for me, Sophia…!”
* * *
It took several seconds for his request to pierce Sophia’s enjoyment. The power of pleasuring him was intoxicating and one she was most reluctant to relinquish.
“I need to see your breasts, Sophia!” Dante’s voice was now hoarse with that need.
She flicked her tongue across the tip, tasting him once more, before releasing him reluctantly as she raised her head to look up at Dante quizzically. His face bore almost a look of pain, those handsome features appearing all harsh angles and contours in the moonlight. “You did not—enjoy, what I just did?”
“Enjoy does not even begin to describe how it felt to be in the heat of your mouth, my dear Sophia,” Dante assured her huskily. “But if you will but unfasten your gown then you will allow me to know an even greater pleasure…?”
Her slender and elegant fingers moved hesitantly to begin unfastening the tiny pearl buttons at the front of her russet-colour gown. Dante found it impossible to look away from the firm swell of creamy flesh slowly being revealed by the unfastening of those buttons, aroused and rose-tinted nipples visible through the fineness of her white chemise. “For mercy’s sake, dispose of the last barrier, Sophia!” he prompted huskily.
Her hands visibly shook as she unfastened her chemise before pulling the material aside and baring herself to him completely; full, firm breasts, gently sloping upwards, and tipped with the most deliciously ripe berries.
“Take me in your hands and place me between your breasts, Sophia.” Dante moved forward on the bench to better facilitate the movement.
“Between my…?” She looked up at him doubtfully.
“Between your breasts,” he encouraged gruffly, releasing a shaky sigh as he felt her heated flesh surrounding him. “Now cup your hands beneath them and push up and against me. Yes, just like that,” he groaned as he began to
slide his cock between those two delicious and silken orbs even as he lowered his head and his mouth laid claim to hers.
They kissed deeply, hungrily, and all the time they did so Dante thrust between the deep well of her breasts, those thrusts becoming faster, harder, as he felt the rapidly spiralling heat of his imminent release.
Dante wrenched his mouth from Sophia’s, breathing deeply, raggedly, as he rested the dampness of his forehead against hers. “Did you do as I asked, Sophia? Are you wearing drawers this evening…?”
“I—no. No, I am not,” she acknowledged, her breath warm against his lips.
Dante drew his own breath in sharply. “Then raise your skirts and straddle me. Please, Sophia,” he groaned at her look of uncertainty. “Before I totally embarrass myself by releasing all over your pretty gown like a callow youth unable to restrain himself!”
Her breasts bobbed and swayed temptingly as she rose slowly to her feet before hitching her gown up to her waist to settle herself across Dante’s thighs, the parting of her legs exposing her arousal to Dante’s avid gaze.
He took himself in hand, running his cock slowly against the length of her centre, parting her with the fingers of his other hand to reveal the throbbing aroused tip of her now visible. Hearing her soft and breathless gasp, Dante expertly, relentlessly, stroked his thumb across that sensitive nub.
* * *
“Lift up slightly now, and let me in,” he encouraged hoarsely minutes later, knowing that Sophia was now also close to release, and wishing more than anything for them to reach that moment together.
Sophia’s legs quivered and shook as she lifted herself up and over the length of Dante’s velvet hard cock, parting as he instantly gained entry to her pulsing channel, inner muscles contracting as she slowly lowered herself further in order to draw him deeper inside.
“I cannot—dear God in heaven, Sophia, I am so aroused I do not believe I can hold another moment longer…!” Dante groaned low even as his hands reached out to firmly grasp her hips to hold her firmly in place as he thrust up and into her, totally filling her to the hilt in one hard, claiming thrust. “Sophia…?” Dante instantly stilled, froze, as her slight gasp of pained discomfort, at the force of his entry, pierced the haze of his own desire.
As he acknowledged—unbelievably, incredibly!—that he had just ripped through the barrier of Sophia’s virginity!
“Do not move!” Dante instructed hoarsely as Sophia shifted slightly, no doubt in order to ease her own discomfort, his gaze searching as he looked down at her. “How is it possible…?” he finally murmured in stunned disbelief. “Tell me how—how is it you are still a virgin when you were married for eleven years…?”
Sophia had not thought—had not considered—
In truth, she had been too aroused just now, too needful of having Dante ease the throbbing, pulsing ache between her thighs, to give any thought to the fact that their lovemaking would also reveal her innocence to him!
Her previous innocence, for Sophia was innocent no longer, had now given her virginity to Dante Carfax, the man she had desired, hungered for, from the moment she had first set eyes on him all those years ago…
Chapter Seven
“Talk to me, Sophia, please!” Dante prompted again gruffly. “Explain to me how this is possible.…”
How could she be expected to think, let alone talk, when Dante was still deep inside her, buried so deep it felt as if he touched her very core?
Her throat moved as she swallowed before speaking. “Perhaps we should…disengage, first, before I—before I attempt to explain my marriage to you?”
Dante’s thoughts were scattered, incomprehensible, but not so much that he did not know he wished to remain exactly where he was, with his cock buried inside the woman he had long desired to be his. “I would rather we remained exactly as we are, Sophia,” he murmured softly.
She moistened her lips. “It does not seem…entirely proper, to talk of such things when we are still—” She broke off to look up at Dante enquiringly as he gave a humourless laugh.
“We passed all attempt at propriety between the two of us some time ago,” he explained tautly. “Obviously you and Simon did not…enjoy, a proper marriage…?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Sophia chewed on her bottom lip, but ceased doing so as she became aware of how swollen and sensitive it was from the force of Dante’s kisses. “Simon was my father’s friend, and once I was left alone in the world he felt an obligation to offer me his protection.”
“By marrying you?”
Sophia frowned at the disbelief in Dante’s tone. “Can you think of another way in which a single and eligible gentleman of the ton might offer his protection to a young woman thirty years his junior?”
Dante frowned. “He had one ward in James, why could he not have taken another—”
“On what basis?” she prompted heavily. “He was not related to me but was a friend of my father, a man who had long been shunned by Society. For Simon to have taken me into his household, as anything less than his wife, would not only have set the ton’s tongues awagging but no doubts reopened the details of that past scandal.”
Dante was still stunned, numbed, by the irrefutable knowledge that all this time Sophia had not been Simon Rowlands’s wife in anything but name. By the realisation that, for ten long and painful years, Sophia had been married to a man who had never taken on the role as husband in her bed.
Something Dante still did not understand. “Perhaps it would be better if we were to, as you suggest, disengage whilst we finish this conversation?” He frowned darkly as he saw Sophia visibly wince as he helped her lift up until he slid from inside her and she was able to rise shakily to her feet. He stood up to turn away to discreetly adjust his own clothing whilst Sophia did the same with her gown, his own thoughts still tumbling over each other as he did so.
But only one of those thoughts had any real significance for Dante; Sophia had never been Simon Rowlands’s wife in anything but name.
All these years of torturing himself as he imagined Sophia’s intimacy with Simon Rowlands, of driving himself almost to the point of insanity with those images. And it had not happened. Had never happened. He was Sophia’s only lover.
Strange—unbelievable as these circumstances undoubtedly were, Dante was nevertheless aware of a heavy weight lifting inside him, of a lightness, followed by a feeling of fierce possession as he looked across at the now pale Sophia. “Why, Sophia? Why were you and the duke never truly man and wife?” he prompted.
Sophia lowered silky dark lashes. “Do you recall Mrs Hooper, the lady who was housekeeper at Clayborne Park?”
“Yes, of course I remember her.…”
Sophia nodded. “She was Simon’s mistress. Had been so for many years. Being a duke, of course he could not marry his housekeeper. There was no deceit,” she hurried to reassure him as Dante frowned. “Simon explained the situation to me fully before we were married, and I married him in the full knowledge that he would never truly be my husband.” She drew in a shaky breath before raising her gaze to look across at Dante as he stood in the shadows, his expression unreadable. “To be asked to become the Duchess of Clayborne, even in name, was more than I could ever have expected, when my father had been shunned by Society for so many years.”
Dante gave a shake of his head. “I have no idea of the details of that old scandal…?”
She smiled sadly. “My fa
ther was a physician of some repute, and was asked to attend the king himself when he—when King George became ill. My father’s diagnosis of an illness, one he could not name but assured must exist, rather than the madness of every other physician consulted, was vilified, as was he.” She gave a shake of her head. “I was a young child at the time, and do not know all of the details myself, I knew only that afterwards my father was scorned by Society, both professionally and socially.” She raised her chin proudly. “Simon saved me from the same fate by marrying me and making me his duchess. And for that I shall be always and forever grateful to him,” she added firmly.
“You wasted ten years of your own life!”
“I was pleased to do so,” she answered softly.
“Did you love Simon, after all?” Dante growled.
Her expression softened. “As a friend and surrogate father, yes I loved him very much.”
“But never as a lover?”
Sophia gave a humourless smile. “You can still ask me that after what has just occurred between the two of us?”
Dante had so many questions still that he did not know where to start. Or whether to start at all…
Did any of those things really matter? The reason for her father’s disgrace. Her platonic marriage to Simon? All of that was the past, and it was only the future, his own future and Sophia’s, which now interested Dante.
He drew in a deep breath before speaking. “Do you have any idea,
my dearest Sophia, how deeply, and for how long I have loved you?”
Her eyes were wide with obvious shock. “Dante…?”
He gave a rueful smile. “I would have married you myself ten years ago given the chance.”
She gasped. “You were only eighteen years old!”
Some Like It Scandalous Page 4
