His other hand pressed her buttock and pressed her to his loins. The hot, hard ridge of his erection invited the most lascivious, desperate of longings. She moved up as high on her toes as she could manage, using him for support. She writhed, rubbing her softness against the slight scratchiness of his fine worsted wool trousers.
She was wet. So very wet for him. Her nub throbbed, no matter how she pressed herself to him, her flesh still ached for more direct contact.
A soft moan escaped her. She heard the deep longing in the sound.
“You want to come?” He licked the hollow beneath her ear. “Now, without any further delay?” He nipped her earlobe lightly. “Could you?”
“Oh, yes, yes…”
He put his hand between their bodies, flattened it against her stomach then moved it swiftly lower. His fingers brushed her erect, straining nub.
The pleasure of his touch went trembling through her. She tossed her head back and moaned, deeper and longer this time. There was something unbearably arousing about doing this standing.
On the second stroke of one finger, he found that sweetest spot, the one that made her cry out.
“There?” he asked, his voice deep and sensual.
“Yes,” she said her voice breathy.
He rubbed her gently at first, increasing the speed and pressure with at a measured but steady rate.
The tension in her pelvis, her loins rose quickly.
“Oh, oh, oh!” She cried out, clutching at his shoulders as her legs went weak.
He fastened his mouth on her neck, low groans vibrating in his chest, all of it thrilling her.
The tension that had been building within her shattered, a thousand silvers of intense pleasure exploding within her. Her body shuddered and she would have collapsed if he had not held her.
He was kissing her neck, sucking hard enough to leave love marks and telling her how beautiful she was in the most beautiful of words. His voice resonated with unmistakable affection. And just when her breathing had slowed to almost normal, he swept her up into his arms and took her to her bed.
He laid her sideways on it with her legs hanging over the edge. He bent and placed a kiss on her stomach.
She laughed, softly, a little breathlessly. She reached for him. “Be inside me,” she pleaded.
“No,” he said. “This is all for you.”
He knelt between her legs, taking her by the ankles and pulling them over his shoulders.
“Be inside me,” she begged again, as she stroked his face, enjoying the smooth shaved cheek.
He placed two fingers at her entrance then thrust into her gently, hooking them into her forward wall.
Exploring.
He found a sensitive spot. She cried out, arching her hips.
“Oh God!” she cried, as his tongue touched her nub.
He lifted his head. “That’s just beginning, my love.”
Every flick, lick, swirl and suck he gave her sex-sent her into a maelstrom of bliss where one climax blended into the next. He did not cease until she was clawing at his head, begging him to stop.
He had rolled her to her pillow and she had immediately fallen into a deep sleep. When she woke, in the circle of his arms, around noon. More tea was brought to them with a variety of cakes. He must have sent out for them. And then his servants brought her a steaming bath.
Now, a little past two in the afternoon, she stood before him on legs still weak from intense satisfaction. A patch of flesh, high up on the inside of her thigh ached with a bruised feeling, for he did mark her there, just as he had threatened. He done so in the moments after he had ceased, when she was weak and panting helplessly with the pleasure-pain aftershocks of the excesses he had given her. She was clad in the purple wool dress he had selected for her, which happened to be her favorite. She had purposely avoided selecting it because she didn’t want to associate any of today’s friction between them with it.
But now that he had picked it, she wanted to wear it.
That particular dress made her feel modest and feminine. She could pretend for a little while, at least, that she was some tradesman’s daughter and Adrian had met her, loved her. Been mad for her and she for him.
But he could never marry a commoner.
So, she was his cherished mistress. And he her first ever lover.
It was a pleasing fantasy.
She sighed.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked, his expression now distant, touched with his characteristic arrogance.
She was frustrated with him for he had not allowed her to give him satisfaction.
He had not allowed her to give him any direct pleasure at all.
And when their bout of love had started, she had intended to seduce him. How had he so deftly turned the balance of power between them? She had become the seduced, the pleasured, the dazzled, thoroughly sated.
It was a way of dominating her.
She knew this.
Was it also a way to keep control over a cherished possession? Had Winterton dazzled her mother with such pleasures?
No.
She had to press her hand to her mouth to keep from expressing a cynical laugh. Winterton was far too selfish to have the control to even attempt to dominate a woman through excessive carnal pleasures.
“Come, my love,” Adrian said, reaching his hand to hers.
She took his hand, promising herself that soon he would be just as helplessly in her thrall. She would give him back all that he had given her today.
And a little more.
Chapter Seven
The look on Miranda’s face as she surveyed the garden was priceless. Adrian reminded himself that he would need to give his man of business a hefty increase for the month. He had told the man what he wanted and somehow he had found a house here in Chelsea, just perfect as though it had been built to order.
A most beautiful example of medieval architecture.
She kept studying the cherub fountain with its pond, surrounded by brilliantly colored autumn flowers. She clapped her hands. “Oh, God, Adrian, it is such a lovely house. So romantic.”
To have pleased her so thoroughly brought him a satisfaction so deep, for a moment, he couldn’t speak. He smiled at her, pulled her close and placed a kiss on her forehead.
“It is so perfect,” she said, her face shining with joy. She looked so young and free of care. To see that expression on her face, it made the house worth every penny-piece he was spending.
Did it make up for being so reckless with his personal wealth, which was the larger part of his sons’ future inheritance?
Probably not, someone else, anyone else would say.
But that look on her face, God.
“What do you think of it, my lord? You are so quiet.” Her face crinkled with concern, yet, her eyes sparkled with happiness.
He glanced over his shoulder at the house then scanned the gardens and then turned his attention back to her.
“Well?” she said, in a breathless tone that reminded him of a much younger girl, one who was near to bursting with impatience.
He leaned down and brushed his lips on her forehead then smiled, looking into her pale green eyes.
“Here, we will spend our shared hours,” he said. “All the hours of our love.”
He put his mouth to hers and kissed her, tasting deeply of her mouth.
Miranda’s mouth fell open as she took in the main hall of the house. Highly polished wood and gleaming brass accents, wonderful mullioned windows illuminated the open space.
“I have only furnished the bedchamber. I have left the remainder for you to furnish and fill with those things that you like most.”
His deep voice echoed in the empty chamber. She whirled to face him. “You can’t possibly afford this.” She sighed. “I know I can’t.”
He came to stand behind her, embracing her from behind. “It’s no longer your place to worry about financial concerns. That’s why I am here, to protect you against such worries.�
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He pressed his face into the crook of her neck and kissed her.
She shivered, whether because there was no fire yet built or because she was overcome with the haunting, romantic beauty of the house or because she was awed by his generosity.
She was such an emotional girl. He had hated when she’d said those cruel things about Jane and Dorothy, calling them plain. He hated to think that Miranda possessed such a mean side. But then he’d realized she’d said those things in a blind anger born of jealousy. He hated jealous women.
But he couldn’t deny that he loved the fact that Miranda was that jealous of his previous lovers, of his wife
Was that all he would have of her? Her passion and her jealousy? He wanted more. He wanted something that he had never believed in before.
He didn’t have a name for what he wanted. All he knew was that Miranda created a fierce gnawing hunger in him. She gave him moments of happiness, but when he was away from her, he ached inside.
She had peeled back all his layers of self-protection.
Was that the price of love? The price he must pay to share those precious moments of joy with her?
As he led her about the house, Miranda watched the brooding expression darken Adrian’s face. What was he thinking?
She was beginning to learn what a complex man he was. He carried sadness, deep inside himself.
She seemed to bring this sorrow out in him. Why? She was his mistress. She was supposed to bring him joy.
Over the past two weeks, he had visited her daily, spending the late night and morning hours with her in her rooms. In her bed mostly. He had told her that he spent the bulk of his evenings visiting various clubs and attending balls, where he gambled to increase his personal wealth and thus to increase the inheritance he would be able to leave his sons.
Then he would come to her. He would sleep all afternoon and begin the whole business again in the evenings.
She understood of course. She accepted his strange hours and adapted herself to them.
Her own days took on a strangeness she had never experienced before.
When she was with him, she felt alive like never before, every moment filled her with joy like she were floating in the clouds.
When he left her, she was thrown back to earth, left alone to sleep and count the hours until he would visit her again. She began to understand Mama better. In Miranda’s childhood, her mother had lit with joy upon Winterton’s arrival and even Miranda had ceased to exist for her then.
When Winterton would leave, Mama would throw herself into gardening and sewing garments for all of Miranda’s dolls and making the most enjoyable and entertaining of games and parties for Miranda and the servants. Mama always had a touch of the child about her and the times when Winterton were not in residence with her, she had created fun and pleasure and novelty with an almost frantic obsessive need.
Now Miranda understood that need.
She also understood the term “half-life” for a mistress truly shared only half—or even less—of a nobleman’s life.
Adrian, despite his failings of excessive pride and possessiveness, was like a prince dropped into her common girl’s world. Making everything shining and new.
There was something quite wrong and unbalanced about the situation but now Miranda followed her prince as he showed her the palace he had purchased for her, at great personal sacrifice to himself.
He called this a “modest house.”
Miranda called it a palace. It made the cottage by the sea of her childhood that Winterton had provided Mama seem paltry by comparison.
There was a part of Miranda that couldn’t bring herself to ever reject this magnificent provision. In her world, a nobleman’s regard and affection for a mistress were always measured by the value of the presents he gave to her.
The bedchamber was grandly furnished, the windows, upholstery and bed all draped in shades of purple, blue and cream.
She turned back to Adrian and found him staring distantly out the window. It seemed to be his way to slip in and out of moods of deep contemplation and brooding. If she had been his wife, his social equal, would she simply have been able to accept it as part of his nature and not take it so personally?
Had Jane Sutherland been able to cheer him with her ever mirthful personality? Certainly not in the bedchamber from what Adrian had said.
Had Dorothy Chadwick been able to lighten his brooding moods?
Miranda didn’t know, couldn’t know.
All she did know was that such moods drove her to wonder if he were already becoming bored with her. That she couldn’t do what was needed to make him happy, to take his mind off his cares and woes. That she was an inadequate mistress.
For that was what a mistress was meant to do.
A mistress was meant to be a sweet distraction.
But what was a woman like her to do with a man who resisted such distraction?
Would he eventually compare her to Dorothy Chadwick and regret his decision? Did he prefer Dorothy’s more practical approach to life? Did it mesh better with his own somber approach? Had he simply been beguiled by Miranda’s undeniable beauty?
Was beauty all Miranda really had to offer a man?
The past proved that Adrian didn’t need great beauty to find pleasure with a woman. His long string of conquests among the plainer examples of noble widows, something which others had often remarked upon, proved that.
Miranda shook off the darker mood. She hated dwelling on darkness. Life offered enough pain. One had to find pleasure and joy where one could. Perhaps not to the extravagant extent that Mama had done.
But today, Miranda wanted to celebrate.
“Adrian,” she said, softly. Her voice echoed louder than she expected in the space.
Adrian turned from the window and she reached out her hands.
He came to her and took her hands but his expression didn’t lighten.
“Can we ask the servants to bring us some cakes and champagne?” she asked, all smiles. “Of course we can,” he said, his expression turning tender.
She wanted to show her gratitude.
She wanted to bind him to herself forever. To always hold him thrall. For surely he held her under his spell.
She watched his tall, lean frame with pleasure as he walked from the chamber to go speak to the servants.
When he returned, she had something more to suggest.
“Will you make love to me, here, now in this bed?” She cringed at the pleading, submissive tone in her voice.
But that was the way things had become between them. In the bedchamber, he took control. He did only what he wanted, in his own time, and way. And she had tried, several times to seduce him, to drive him out of his mind with pleasure.
And each time, he had taken all the control, driven her mad with pleasure and it had been she who had begged him to stop, her body drained and sated.
Even though it always ended up being the stuff of a naughty girl’s dreams, his determination to completely control their carnal interactions had begun to eat away at her confidence.
She’d always held a measure of control with Carrville, always been able to keep insecurity at bay by keeping him suitably enthralled with her sexual skills. She could always get her way with Carrville. Was that a way of saying she had known how to manipulate him with sexual pleasure. Perhaps. It was the way of her world. Of women like her.
Adrian gave her no chance to even show him just how skilled she was.
He turned to her and his slow, sensual smile made her belly flip over. Her knees went weak.
“Of course I am going to make love to you, here and now, on that bed.” He gave her a quick, light kiss. “What else shall we do while we wait for the servants to bring our feast?”
His blue eyes burned more vividly. His mood was becoming lighter.
A wave of relief washed over her. She began to lose her self-consciousness and she laughed. “Feast? Just cakes and champagne?”
“I asked them to bring us beefsteak and pudding and fresh baked bread.” He touched her nose with a fingertip. “And pineapple and strawberries for my lady’s fancy, if they can find them.”
She laughed again, her spirits soaring with the heady joy of being with him, of sharing pleasures with him. “Pears and raspberry preserves would do.”
“That’s what they will bring if there are no pineapples to be found.”
“Some music would be nice too.” She wheedled, shamelessly, for she had discovered Adrian could play a mandolin decently. He would not sing, of course, but the fact that he played such an arcane and romantic instrument had shocked her greatly, given his prideful, dignified personality. She caressed his chest through his satin waistcoat. “Did you bring it?”
“Yes, I did,” he said, “But later.”
The note of command in his voice, the sensual promise, made her shiver with the first tingles of true arousal.
“Turn,” he said.
She obeyed. He began unfastening her dress.
He had finished unbuttoning her and the garment slipped down her arms and sagged. She faced him, considering his distant expression.
Perhaps he was frustrated because for all her sexual skills, she couldn’t bring herself to perform that act which men wanted most.
“I wish I could bring myself to please you.”
He frowned and gave her gaping dress a push down and he quickly unlaced her stays then pushed them down as well so that she stood only in her shift and petticoats. “You please me.” He cupped her breast through the thin muslin and the light of desire ignited in his gaze. “God above how you please me.”
“No, I mean in that way.” She leaned closer. “On my knees.”
She choked on the words and was immediately sorry she’d tried to even speak them for they brought disturbing images to the fore.
Mama being forced by Winterton.
“It’s not necessary.” Adrian caressed her hair. “I don’t need it to feel satisfied.”
“All men want that. I of all women know what lengths they will go to in order to sate their hunger for it.”
“Hush,” he said, in a rough tone and then he pulled her head to his shoulder. “Don’t think about it or anything else associated with Winterton.” He rocked her within his embrace for a few moments.
A Most Demanding Mistress (Fashionably Impure Book 2) Page 8
