She trailed kisses down his face from forehead to chin, then down his throat until she came level with his nipples. She swirled her tongue over each of them in turn, and got an answering sigh of contentment as he lay prone, too excited to move a muscle, wanting to see where this relinquishing of control was going to take him.
Her kisses went down even further, over the rock-hard plain of his abdomen, and down further still.
"No, you don't have to. I don't expect-"
"You're so beautiful, my darling Matthew. Let me worship you as you deserve to be. I wouldn't do it otherwise. I always have a choice. I'm free now. I always have been, even when I was in the brothel and tied. I could have said no, do you see? I knew it was you through the veil, and I could have said no. But I wanted you. I think I always have. And I want you to want me. To let go of the idea that you've hurt me in any way through making love to me, Matthew."
He began to twist even harder at the silken bonds now, but she soothed, "It's all right. You're lovely. I'm not afraid. In fact, I'm looking forward to putting into practice what I've learnt about the male anatomy. There's so much more to life than thrusting and twiddling."
"Oh Lord, Althea," he gritted out, feeling his climax roaring through him already. "I want to please you, but I can't last more than-"
He was shocked to find the tumultuous sensation had subsided in an instant, as soon as she had pressed on the base of his penis and pulled his gathered scrotum away from his torso with a firm hand.
"What on earth?" he gasped, for she had already begun circling the huge head of his manhood with the thrilling glide of her lips once more.
"I can keep you like this for hours, or release you in an instant. Which would you like?"
"Oh, hours," he begged, soaring again, only to be cut off once more.
Matthew almost had cause regret the request, for each time she stoked his fires and tamped them down, he could feel his desire soaring up to an even more giddy pitch. Her hands and lips were never still over his body. He was astonished that even after she moved away from the centre of him, his pleasure roared in his veins.
"Any part of the body can be orgasmic," she said with a smile when he stared at her in confusion and with some alarm.
A massage of his feet and ankles had already started to elicit another awesome response. She planted each foot on her breasts, and rubbed herself against the soles of his feet as she massaged his ankles. He was sure he had died and gone to Heaven.
He who had bedded some of the most experienced women of the world in London, Paris and Brussels now felt like a mere puerile lad who had only played at love before. But in a very real sense Matthew only ever had, for any notion he'd had of regard for any of the others dwarfed in the face of his overwhelming need to have his incredible wife by his side day and night.
"I worship you, my darling. I know what you're trying to do, and I adore you for it. I'm trying to let go of the past, really trying. I'm just so frightened for you," he confessed, the tears springing to his eyes unbidden. "And frightened of you. The passion you unleash in me is uncontrollable."
She pressed and released him, and with a thump and sigh he fell back upon the pillows.
She slipped back up him slowly, using her entire body for one vast caress. "But I've just proven I can control it, darling. You can too. But we don't need to any more. I'm fit and well, and would very much like," her voice had by now dropped to a sultry whisper, "a son with turquoise eyes."
He almost swallowed his tongue. "Are you sure? Really sure?"
She nodded and said without hesitation, "Completely. I always have been, you know. I've never loved anyone but you. I always did tell everyone we would fall in love and marry. You all thought it was the foolish dreaming of a young girl. But no one else completes me the way you do, Matthew. And I think it's the same for you."
"It's true," he confessed, opening his whole heart to her, and himself at last. "Just like in Plato's Symposium, I spent all my life looking for the other half of myself. The better half. I just couldn't believe it was right under my nose the whole time. You were so very young, my dear. And I thought about offering for you, really I did. Last year, and again a couple of months ago when your father died. But things were so difficult with Matilda, and I didn't want-" He bit his lip and sighed.
"Didn't want what?" she prompted gently, whispering her lips over his in a way that made him ache to possess her whole body with one blistering thrust.
"I didn't want to be selfish. I wanted to give you time. Time to fall in love with someone else if that was what you were destined for. And time to become your own person. I thought if you were eighteen and a bit more independent I wouldn't feel so badly about selfishly pressing my suit."
She smiled as she stopped his surging orgasm by squeezing the head of his cock as Eswara has instructed, leaving him still sizzling but in control. "Not exactly the mark of a true rake, now is it? Being noble enough to give up your conquest? You see, darling, what a good, decent man you are? You made one error in judgment, but no one was hurt in the end, least of all me.
"Please let go of all the sorrow and upset over than night, and remember only the joy. That we became the most incredible lovers, and you saved me from a fate worse than death at the hands of my abductors."
"But still, you were a virgin, and I--"
"Darling, I've told you, I never did say no that night. I could see you, knew who you were. I could have talked you out of it quickly, tried to explain things a bit better. Told you I was a virgin, struggled against my bonds. But I did none of those things because I knew you, trusted you. You asked me if I wanted you, remember? I told you the truth. One kiss and I was truly lost. One touch from you and I was on fire."
"Oh, God, I know," he groaned, twisting his wrists in a futile attempt to free them. "I am too. And I want to touch you, so very much."
She moved her hands over his body purposefully, caressing the sides of his chest from underarms down to waist with a sensuality which made him shudder to the brink.
"Just wait until we do this with massage oil."
His mouth went dry and he stared at her, a trembling mass of the most tempestuous yearnings which could scarcely be put into words.
"But not now. We have so many more nights to explore each other. For now, since you've been such a very good little slave, I think we might have a few more treats for you."
"Oh, yes, please," he said eagerly, twisting in the bed to try to brush against her.
"But first you have to service me with your tongue," she said suddenly, taking him by surprise as she put her back to him and locked her thighs on either side of his head.
Matthew gladly complied, her rich aroma of arousal setting all of the veins in his body bulging with need.
Her pattern of enticing and releasing him never faltered, not even when he began to buck and squirm as she renewed her thrilling attentions to his far too sensitive velvety tip. He was sure he was going to explode in her mouth, and couldn't even dissuade her since his own mouth was firmly locked against her engorged flesh.
Althea was not so ruthless in denying herself, and reached several pinnacles before finally giving him one last long lingering lick and stopping him.
When she turned to face him again and glided onto his surging cock, she was so hot he was sure his flesh would be left scorched. She sat astride him, and moved against him sitting straight up, causing the most incredible friction between them.
Then slowly she leaned forward and angled her body and legs until each thrust caressed her from the tip of her peaked womanhood to the opening of her gate to paradise. As she pressed against his hard abdomen, her inner muscles clenched fiercely.
Only a few strokes rendered him on the verge and incoherent with need. He could feel the perspiration bead under his arms, between his thighs, even spring up on the soles of his feet and the tips of his fingers.
"Oh, Althea, what's happening?" Even his own manhood seemed to have a mind of its own as it surged
almost frighteningly into her.
"It's the tea I made you drink," she said, sensing his change deep with her own body. "It increases the blood flow."
"You need to stop me now," he groaned through gritted teeth. "I'm going to expire if you don't. Literally."
For indeed the swirling sensations within him were so powerful he could feel the void reaching up for him, threatening to drag him down.
But Althea had a different place to press now. Stretching one hand behind her back, under his tightly-gathered orbs, she depressed the small dimple at the flat section of the juncture of his thighs with her thumb.
His passion crashed through him, leaving him deaf, dumb and blind. The pure pleasure and near-pain of the joyous explosion was his only thought as he poured into her hot sheath, his essence wrung from him in great shuddering bursts, yet leaving him still wanting even more.
"I want you so much, Althea. Even inside you like this I can't get enough of you," he panted when at last he could speak again.
"Did you enjoy that?"
"Enjoy?" he laughed incredulously. "A pathetically weak word which doesn't even come close to what I feel. No, no, don't untie me!"
She looked at his suddenly alarmed expression in surprise. "Why not? Don't you want to touch me, put your arms around me?"
"That and so much more. But I'm still so on fire, I'm afraid-"
"All the more reason to let you have whatever you want now," she said, freeing both wrists.
He immediately cupped her buttocks with both hands and rolled her under him, pressing his again-burgeoning flesh into her with one bold stroke. He set a deep, rhythmic pace which had her aching for more.
But Althea had other surprises in store for him, moving her hips so that he could only penetrate her entrance with the smallest of strokes. She did this about five times, then rammed down, sending him surging so deeply he was sure she would split in two.
"Althea, what are you-"
"You can control it. Small strokes just at the edge, about five is fine, one deep. Five, one deep. Oh, Matthew."
Her face, already flushed, darkened to crimson, and with his next deep thrust she raked her nails down his back and let out a keening cry.
Her body curved upwards, breasts thrusting against his crisp chest hair. Clasped tightly in his arms, her delight went on and on.
Matthew wanted to follow along with her, but also needed to gift her with all the pleasure he had given him, and more besides.
He continued to count to six, and suckled her breasts like a starving man. Moving one hand up to her face, he gentled her tousled blond hair back. At the end of one of her paroxysms he just paused and held her for a moment.
"Is that what your uncontrollable pleasure looks like?" she asked breathlessly.
"Mmm, pretty close," he admitted. "Yes. I love losing myself inside the bliss only you can give me."
"Yet we're both still in control, aren't we? No one's hurt, no one's afraid. And even now I can tell you're already looking for another way to make me reach my zenith."
He smiled at her in sheer relief, an open, happy smile such as she had not seen in years. "I can see it all now. I'm sorry for everything, my darling. I've been a fool. I promise to try harder, to trust in our love. Believe you when you tell me what's in your heart. Just so long as you know I never meant to hurt you. That everything I've done has been for love."
Her eyes shone as she stroked his face tenderly. "I know it. Believe me. Never in one second of the time we've spent together have I ever doubted your love for me. I only ever doubted I could be enough for you."
"Always enough, Althea, and in fact, quite a little handful."
"Big handful," he amended, touching the sides of her breasts reverently. "You didn't have to ask Eswara about all sorts of exotic sexual practices and nostrums to be enough for me. Just being here kissing you like this is enough."
He illustrated his words by giving her one of the uninhibited kisses she so longed for but seldom got to indulge in.
Now it filled her world, and he sensed the change in her, and himself. It was as though both their entire souls were laid bare in an instant. Any doubt or unease or fear of the future left them at that moment, and there was a spark of new hope, new life as he poured into her.
She surrounded him shimmering, her soul fusing with his in an endless dance of desire and delight.
"Althea!" he cried out, his passion, gentle though it was, overwhelming him, tearing him apart, yet still leaving him whole.
More than whole--complete.
He tumbled at last into the darkness of absolute peace and contentment, safely cushioned in his fall by Althea's strong supple body, her loving soul.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Matthew awoke with the most remarkable sense of well-being, and stretched in the early morning sunlight bathing the bed. He halted suddenly as he felt the feather-light brushing of his penis against one silken thigh.
He looked down in consternation, until he realised it was indeed his wife in the bed bedside him. He had not been dreaming, not got drunk and done something he would forever regret. Would never again have to be revulsed by his own passions and the emptiness of his life as the consummate rake.
His recollection of how they had ended up the evening before caused a smile to play about his lips. He rolled half onto his side to face her, and saw her long lashes flutter slightly. He swept his hand up her back to stroke her hair and shoulders.
"Good morning, darling Matthew. Did you sleep well?"
"The best ever, my love."
It was no lie he told. He couldn't recall ever having felt so tranquil and fulfilled. Certainly not since they had met in such appalling circumstances in London.
"I'm glad." Althea snuggled into his embrace, trying to match all of her body to his long frame. She arched against his manhood, rendering herself breathless in anticipation as it kneaded her outwardly with a satiny caress.
She moved herself up the bed slightly, and threw one leg over his waist.
He knew a brief moment of panic, but his unease was assuaged as she brought her lips up along his neck and chin to kiss him. As the kiss deepened, his movement within her did as well, and she let out an ecstatic little cry as he filled her.
"Mmm, that is so nice."
"Mmm," he agreed. "Lovely. You're lovely, Althea. But are you sure-"
"Please, darling, I'm sure. I have a choice, free will. I want you. I love you. You're not hurting me. And I don't want to hurt you."
He opened his eyes, halting mid-stroke. "You could never hurt me, love, except by leaving me."
"No, I meant hurting us together. I don't want you to hold back all the time, treat me as though I'm fragile and constantly in need of nursing and care. What happened to me was terrible. I may never forget it in my odd times, my worst nightmares. But this," she said, rolling her hips until he saw stars, "this is real. It's warm and loving and safe and kind and generous, not greedy and grasping and brutal."
He sighed and confessed, "Oh, I'm not so sure I'm any better than those men. My lust is barely contained where you're concerned. You do that to me and I want to roll you under me and skewer you until you scream. Sorry to be so crude, but-"
"Then do it. I want to be skewered by you until I scream, and you scream too," she said, a little spark in her eyes telling him she was in earnest.
"No, you're my wife and-"
"Did you do it with Matilda?"
"Pardon me?" he gasped, his face suffusing with colour.
"Skewer her until she screamed," she said in a tone devoid of all emotion or judgment.
"Er, well-"
"I'll take that to be a yes."
"But she was only a mistress! You're my wife. And she never, like you- And I never wanted any of them so badly, the way I do with you."
"What matter mistress or wife? I'm still the one being skewered. Or not."
"But darling-"
She rolled him onto his back and rammed her hips down hard.
>
"If you won't do it, then I will."
"No, please, I might hurt you, and I couldn't bear-"
She smiled and shook her head. "I thought I proved it to you last night. Even in the throes of the greatest passion, we can still control this. You're not going to hurt me. But I can see I'm going to have to prove it to you again, you naughty, naughty lad. Mistress is most displeased, and thinks you need to be taught another lesson."
Each word of her last sentence had been punctuated with the most alluring undulations of her hips. He tried to raise Althea off his clamoring cock, but her body was angled into his with her legs out straight.
She had one arm firmly locked around his waist, the other around his neck. She kissed him hard, driving the breath from his body as her pace grew ever more urgent and his own hips rose to met each of her frantic rotations.
The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection #4 Page 69
