One for the Rogue

by Charis Michaels

  Beau sat in a chair, pulling off his boots, while Emmaline lounged in a window seat that overlooked the garden, considering a cart of food. She nibbled on a quince. The fruit was halfway to her mouth when he asked this, and she paused, thought about it, and took a bite rather than answer.

  Beau smiled. “I only ask because you’ve said the old duke did not consummate your marriage. And we’ll both enjoy ourselves more if no one is . . . ” He searched for a word with less impact than shocked. “Taken by surprise.”

  Of all the beds in which Beau had lain since he was but fourteen years old, he had never been in bed with a virgin. He felt some responsibility, not to mention there was a certain sensuality in explaining it.

  Emmaline took another bite.

  He prompted her, saying, “Duchess? What did your mother tell you before your marriage to Ticking? Or your friends?” Perhaps it would be easier to discuss what she did know.

  She swallowed but would not look at him. “I am loath to reveal how little I know, to be honest.” She shrugged and glanced at him. “Must we discuss it? May I simply follow along?”

  He thought about this. “All right.” Not for the first time, he marveled at how her previous husband had resisted her. The carriage ride had been an exercise in exquisitely painful restraint. He could barely keep his eyes off her, even now, and she did little more than perch in the window, fully clothed, eating fruit.

  He stood and shrugged from his jacket. He had her full attention, he noticed, and her chewing slowed. The waistcoat came next, and he tugged his shirt from his trousers and jerked it over his head. She stood up. She left the window one step at a time, staring at his chest.

  He cleared his throat. “I would be negligent if I did not go over a very few basics.” He went to her, and she watched him. The wide-eyed wonder on her face was almost too much to bear.

  “Are you . . . still hungry?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  She held a forgotten hunk of bread, and he took it from her.

  “Good. Here’s what comes next. We will get you out of this dress. You already know this bit from your dip in the canal. Although you may not have enjoyed it quite as much, considering the cold and wet and smell of fish.”

  Without hesitation, she turned and offered him her back. “Enjoyed it as much?”

  “If you did not enjoy yourself when I removed the wet dress, then I have a very inflated view of my technique, indeed.”

  “Well, we know it couldn’t be that.”

  He chuckled and gave the refreshment cart a kick. She watched it roll away, bending her neck and pulling the thick fall of her hair over her left shoulder with deft, efficient hands. His mouth watered in anticipation. A few strands of hair slipped from her shoulder and dropped down her back. He swiped them away, grazing her neck with his fingertips. She took in a small breath.

  He cleared his throat. It occurred to him that, in a way, this felt like his first time as well. His eyes kept drifting from the dress to the arch of her neck, the slope of her ear. More hair dropped down her back, and she reached to pull it back. Without thinking, he caught her wrist. “Let me.”

  He was reminded that he hadn’t finished his cautionary explanation. It had seemed so necessary just five minutes ago, but functional thought was rapidly slipping away. He cleared his throat again. “I’ve been told it may hurt the first time, but, if done correctly, it has the potential to feel very good indeed.”

  “Very tastefully put, sir,” she said.

  He paused. Did she tease?

  He bent to whisper in her ear. “I can explain it in more explicitly specific terms, if you feel it might be useful.”

  She breathed in. “I cannot say what I find useful.”

  “If you enjoyed what we did in the carriage, it is . . . more of the same.”

  “Oh. The carriage. Yes, that was simply awful.”

  He smiled. So she would not play the frightened virgin. All the better.

  When he reached the last fastener at the back of her dress and flicked it open, the slouching bodice drooped and fell. She made no effort to collect it. It snagged on her petticoats and hung.

  The petticoats came next, one tug and two clasps, and then he reached for the strings of her corset. His hands shook. He took a deep breath and pulled.

  He asked her, “You’re not afraid?”

  “No. Am I meant to be?”

  Beau’s breath hitched at those words, and the languid, heavy desire in his body hardened into an urgent, steely point. He made the indistinguishable sound that could have meant anything, really, and yanked at the corset, jerking the laces free. “You will have to remind me to go slowly, Duchess,” he heard himself tell her. My God, was he already short of breath?

  “Unless I remind you to go faster,” she replied.

  Here, Beau paused again, gritting his teeth from another surge of desire. He swallowed and returned to the corset. She wobbled from the force of his pulling, and he mumbled an apology, jerking the last lace free. One slow, steady slide of the silk-and-whalebone panel, and the corset was gone. She sighed in relief.

  “Drop the dress, Duchess,” he rasped.

  She did not hesitate. The ruby silk and petticoats beneath slid to the floor like a puff of smoke.

  She turned to him. “Should I be excited or concerned by your proficiency with women’s underthings?”

  “Double-edged sword, sweetheart,” he said.

  He sank into a crouch. He ran his hands up her legs until he came to the top of her stockings and slid them down. Next he grabbed the hem of her chemise and tugged it up.

  “Raise your arms,” he grunted, coming up. The light cotton slid over her head, and he tossed it the way of the corset. He sucked in a breath and took a step back. “I would see you,” he said.

  When she turned around, she was smiling. This was the second thing he noticed. Or third. First, he devoured the sight of her bare perfection exposed to him. She was . . .

  She was thin, and lithe, and proud.

  And mine.

  He’d been so focused on taking her that he had not realized how much he wanted to simply look at her. The day she’d fallen into the canal, they’d stopped short of her corset and chemise, and he had never recovered from the denial. How had he managed the restraint not to press on to . . . to this?

  He dared not speak, dared not even blink. He thought he would never forget every color and texture, every dip and swell, every roundness and hollow. He would see her naked body every time he closed his eyes for the rest of his life.

  He must have looked half-mad, because now her smile was an earnest laugh, and the movement spilt her hair over her shoulder, falling down her breasts to her waist. Just like that, he had a new image to never forget.

  But now he had looked enough, and his fingers itched to touch her. His body strained against his trousers, and he fumbled for the buttons, desperate to be rid of them.

  “Wait,” she said, and he went still. No more waiting, he pleaded in his head.

  She asked, “May I?”

  Beau thought in that moment he might well and truly expire. His hands rose out from his sides, and he watched in a lust-filled haze as she reached out to gently pluck the first button from its hole.

  “Is this wrong?” She looked up.

  He laughed, and swore, and breathed out a long breath he didn’t know he’d held. Wordlessly, he watched her pluck the next button, and the next. His body was uncomfortably thick against the wool, and every flutter of her fingers was sweet agony. He dropped his head back and squeezed his eyes shut.

  When she finished one row of buttons, she slid her hand to the next. It was perhaps the most exquisite torture he’d ever known.

  Her hair fell forward as she worked, grazing his bare chest, blocking the captivating view of her diligent hands. His arms were still outstretched at his sides, frozen where he’d moved them when she stepped up.

  He dropped them to clasp her waist. “Enough,” he growled, and h
e hunched down, swept her legs out from under her, and picked her up. She yelped again, and he kissed her, locking in the sound and striding to the bed. She kicked a little, exaggerating the feel of her naked body against his bare chest, and he scooped her harder against him.

  When his thighs hit the bed, he broke the kiss and tossed her into the center, sending pillows flying. She’d barely righted herself before he’d peeled off his trousers.

  She looked up, eyes bright, hair spilling everywhere, and he could but laugh at the futility of his ridiculous preamble. She required no primer. She was a bloody natural.

  He dove into the bed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Beau landed with a bounce and caught Emmaline up, rolling them in the same movement. Now she was on top of him, looking down, her hair creating a curtain around their faces. She laughed—laughed out of the sheer, buzzing pleasure of it, out of her love for every part of him, especially the part that would toss her onto the bed and then pounce on top of her. She would never be bored with this man, she knew. After a lifetime of boredom—lessons and rules and greetings and meals and running a house, and on and on it went—finally, she could envision adventure and passion and challenge.

  The plans to sell her father’s books had been her first taste of purpose and industry, and it had been a heady draught indeed. And now this.

  Beau smiled back and then jerked his chin up—the undeniable gesture of kiss me. Emmaline laughed again and waited a beat, two beats, reveling in the feel of his rock-hard body beneath her, reveling in the handsomeness of his face. When she finally lowered her mouth to his, she was smiling too broadly to properly manage the kiss, and he rolled them again, landing her beneath him.

  Now he lowered his head, kissing her expertly, employing his whole mouth, his tongue, the changing angle of his face. She discovered that a lying-down kiss had an entirely different quality than a standing-up kiss. Longer, more fluid, deeper, hotter. A lying-down kiss allowed unlimited access to so much of him.

  But her conscious brain was rapidly sinking into a swirling haze of desire. If she wished to explore his body properly—which she absolutely wished to do—she should do it now, while she could still think.

  His body was like an Italian marble statue she’d seen in the British Museum but with warm skin, a sheen of sweat, and a dusting of golden hair. She thought she would never grow tired of touching him.

  Even so, there were parts she hadn’t touched. She could feel his hardness pressing against her, but their bodies were fused together so tightly she could but slide her hands against the seam where his hip met her thigh.

  He broke the kiss and chuckled at her insistent fluttering and snaked a hand down to capture her wrist. “Ah, ah, ah,” he warned. “Be careful what you ask for, Duchess. I would recommend that we stay your dizzying exploration for now. I can generally be counted on to last several hours but not tonight.” He kissed her. “Not with you. If you touch me, things may come to a very abrupt end.”

  “But—” she protested.

  “Shhh,” he soothed. “This only seems selfish. I promise, you will enjoy the alternative.” And then he shifted a little, falling to the side, and he buried his face in the area behind her ear and trailed the index finger of his right hand from her lips, over her chin, and down her neck. This tickled, and she laughed, but it was a strangled, breathless sort of laugh as her body skittered into a quivering new awareness. Each of her heartbeats became indistinguishable, one from the next.

  The riot of pleasure that followed made her alternately writhe and go taut. She called his name or no name at all, simply a wordless sound of assent. Soon the one finger became his entire hand, and then two hands, and she thought she would surely perish from the heart-pounding, thrashing thrill of it.

  And all the while, he maintained a slow and steady kiss, sometimes to her mouth, sometimes to her neck. When he fastened his mouth to her breast, she cried out with such enthusiasm, he laughed and clamped a hand over her mouth. She had licked him then, a quick lash of her tongue to the palm of his hand, and he had stopped laughing and replaced his hand with his mouth.

  Through it all, she nearly forgot to touch him—nearly. But her ministrations were little more than glancing, floppy half touches and swipes, the occasional grab and hang on. He groaned with each contact, and she loved the power of this. She had the fleeting thought that, thank God they were married so she could have another go, and another, and another.

  With no warning, the torrent of sensation became less of discovery and more of a steady, rising need. She began to anticipate exactly what she could expect from the way he touched her—nay, she began to demand it. Crying out, or surging up, or bucking her hips to meet him. Beau answered her pleas by deftly smoothing her out against the mattress and then replacing his hands with his body, rolling them back where they had begun.

  Emmaline protested the shift, but then, suddenly, this felt just as good; no, this felt better—this felt exactly right—and she raised her hips off the bed to seek out more exact rightness, pressing her need to the incredibly hard and urgently attentive body. He groaned. “Yes, Emma. That’s right. You have it.”

  She pressed up, again and again, marveling at how much better this felt, even better than his hands. And then “better” was insufficient; it surged into “necessary,” and then “urgent,” and then “essential. And then . . .

  Her body was shot through with a surge of culminating pleasure so intense that Emmaline froze. The breath left her lungs, and she blinked up at Beau’s face but saw only a bright, hot light. Her body hung there, suspended in the pinnacle of sensation . . . ten seconds, twenty—she lost sense of time . . . and then his face swam back into focus, and he smiled down at her.

  When the pulsing finally ebbed and she could breathe again, he dropped his face and kissed her once, hard and fast, and gritted out the words, “Thank God.”

  Then he rose up, planted a knee between her legs and lowered his body down slowly, so slowly she watched the fight for control on his face. She felt the thick invasion of him, and she realized, Oh, this. Now. Of course.

  She blinked, still trying to recover her wits, but she wanted to be useful; she wanted him to feel the pleasure she had felt, so she endeavored to accommodate. First she spread her legs wider, but that did not seem to help, so she raised her knees. He gasped at this and sank lower, so she raised her knees higher still. She watched him. She wanted to ask, but he seemed wholly focused and disinclined to speak.

  Next she burrowed down, feeling for the proper angle. He hissed and squeezed his eyes shut, and she knew she’d found it.

  To her own body, the pressure and fullness was new, and tight, and not entirely comfortable, but also it was not unpleasant. She was intrigued by the pressure. She was also intrigued by the look of rapture on his face, but also the strain for control. Working on instinct, she rose up to kiss him. His lips were still, and she kissed him again. This time he caught her mouth, but his body sunk a little deeper, and he ended the kiss on an oath.

  Emmaline understood now, and she hooked her heels at his waist, canted her body, and bit down on a wince as he slid all the way. There he remained, entirely still and (if his expression was any indication) totally agonized.

  After a moment, she whispered, “But is this . . . it?”

  He opened one eye and looked down at her. “No.”

  She thought about this. He had been so much more forthcoming before they’d begun. How much more useful that information would be now.

  She could but ask. “What will we do next?”

  “We will not have a conversation. Typically.” He let out a ragged breath and closed his eyes. “Are you in pain, Emma?”

  She considered this. “No. Are you?”

  “Yes.” He dropped his head to her neck and breathed in.

  She gasped, not wanting him to hurt. “What can I do?”

  “Hold perfectly still. I’m waiting for your body to become accustomed to mine.”

&nbs
p; This was the wrong thing to say. Disobedience had become second nature in the last year. She wiggled her hips experimentally.

  Beau groaned into her neck. “Emma.”

  She smiled and wiggled again, more this time, and he answered with what she would describe as a gentle thrust. This, she found interesting, far more interesting than the stillness or the wiggle, and when she moved again, she copied the movement. A thrust, less gentle but still not forceful.

  Beau dragged his face from her neck, grabbing fistfuls of her hair on either side of her head. “May I take this to mean you are ready?” he asked, panting.

  “Ready for . . . ?”

  He answered her with another thrust, a real one, and she gasped, shocked by the fullness and command and possession of it.

  The muscles worked in his neck; his eyes were closed. He held himself in check, still. Emmaline’s heart wrenched at his restraint. Taking a deep breath, she answered his thrust with one of her own and said quietly, “More.”

  His eyes blinked open. “What?”

  Another thrust, longer this time. “More,” she said on a breath.

  “I won’t hurt you.” He gritted out the words.

  “Not hurt,” she assured him, and then she realized it was true, and she thrust again without thinking about it, her body moving of its own accord. She closed her eyes, reveling in the first stirrings of another slow burn of sensation.

  Beau must have seen the proof on her face because he groaned and dropped his head again, moving his hips—slow at first, and then faster, and then faster still—and Emmaline’s own tentative thrusts were caught up with the stronger, harder rhythm of his powerful body. They moved together. His breathing increased, and hers matched it. She felt the urgency building inside her again, and she wanted to pause to understand this entirely new function, but she was too swept up.

  She could not stop, and the urgency culminated in another pop of warmth and sizzle and radiating pleasure, somehow better this time.

  Her body went taut just as Beau cried out and stiffened, stricken in the same moment. They hung there together, a levitated joining of minds and bodies and hearts.