by Gina Conkle
Breathing heavy, Edward stepped back. His predacious eyes, pitch black with sensual fire, narrowed. “I want you more than I’ve wanted anything or anyone in my life.”
Anger and desire twined together in those words. She smiled. His lordship didn’t like intense wanting.
Lydia leaned on the wall, arms spread out like some maiden in Greek stories left as a sacrifice for men and monsters. At the bottom of her vision, twin white curves, plump and high, pressed her low neckline, straining the fabric with every breath. Everything was too tight. Edward’s smoldering gaze dropped to those soft, round parts. His nostrils flared over the offered sacrifice.
“But I know well enough”—breath surged from his chest in heavy doses—“not to take you in the hallway.”
He grabbed Lydia’s hand. They sped into his room, locking the door firmly behind. Then for good measure, he locked the adjoining door. There’d be no escaping this night.
Lydia leaned against his bedpost, thrusting her bosom and rocking back and forth like some kind of tart. Her brazen motion wasn’t lost on him. Edward’s head snapped to attention where she waited, but control, for the moment, was his. He stood in the middle of the well-lit room and removed his brown velvet jacket, letting it drop to the floor.
“This is a first,” he said, loosening the cloth at his neck. “I’m more talkative than you.”
“I want to watch.”
His fingers froze on the knot. All of him tensed, showing muscle and sinew under his breeches in relief. A moment passed. Edward fought for restraint, and she loved witnessing the battle. One corner of his mouth kicked up, and he finished working the tie.
“Aren’t you full of surprises.”
Her fingers stroked high on her embroidered bodice. “More than you know, my lord.”
“Lucky for me, one evening of sex doesn’t necessarily make a child.” His neckwear dropped to the floor.
“Neither does getting a woman with child make a father.” Her gentle rocking slowed against the bedpost. “Is that all you want?”
“A child? No.” His dark stare swept her from head to hem. “I want all of you.”
Pewter buttons slid from buttonholes on his waistcoat, donned for the formal occasion. She swallowed hard. By the wicked smile playing on his face, Edward enjoyed giving her the display. His fingers slowed, moving over one tedious button after another. The controlled Lord Edward was back, relishing this power over his new countess.
Lydia’s lashes lowered, half over her eyes. “Please hurry.” Her body’s gentle undulation increased. “I liked the beast who almost devoured me in the hall.”
His chuckle was deep and full of sensual promise. But those tanned fingers took their time until the last button slipped free. Down went the waistcoat.
“Patience, Lady Greenwich,” he said softly. “You wanted to watch, remember?”
Her head lolled back, rubbing the wide bedpost. More of her meticulous hairstyle came undone, slipping to her shoulders. A star pin dangled from a curl, skimming her right breast. He sounded triumphant and in control, yet Lydia smiled…a secret, feline kind. Patience was hers. The reward was coming.
He approached, untucking his shirt from his breeches. The carved shape of his chest, the view of his flat, muscled stomach, enticed her from his open shirt. She reached for him. A solitary finger grazed firm flesh from sternum to navel, making a slow, meandering trail to the brown hair low on his navel. Edward’s warm skin quivered with waves of gooseflesh from her touch.
“Edward?”
“Mmmm?” He inched closer, kissing her mouth tenderly, as if he’d put away the beast and would take his proper time with her.
“Untie me?” She rotated, presenting her back.
His hands moved across the silk, loosening the tie that trussed her. His fingers worked the myriad rows of back-and-forth lacing with even, methodic attention. She didn’t want that.
When the gown slackened, Lydia whirled around and licked her lips. Her clothes couldn’t come off yet, but she wanted him out of control and senseless with wanting.
She rubbed her bottom against the bedpost, and her upper teeth nibbled her lower lip. Edward’s head canted to the side as if she were an unknown creature.
“Lydia…” His voice trailed off.
“Please, my shoe.” She almost bubbled over with laughter from the long evening of waiting, but Lydia covered her mouth. Anticipation had tortured her all night. The time had come.
Edward obliged, dropping to one knee. He made a fine sight, kneeling before her with his shirt open, glancing up at her in all his dark-eyed glory. Her new husband was beautiful with his blade-straight nose and sculpted lips. He gave her a tolerant smile and brushed back her hem. Both his hands bracketed her shod foot. The bow untied, and his thumb skimmed her upper foot.
Bare flesh, pale and delicate.
He pushed her skirt higher, checking her ankle. His hand explored the slender, convex curve of her nude calf. She gloried in his light, investigative touch. Her eyes shuttered with pleasure when he made soft circles behind her knee.
“Lydia,” he said, thick-voiced, “you have no stockings on.”
He leaned closer and kissed her knee, shrouded behind ample silk skirts.
“Please…please…” she said, her words coming in huffs. “Go higher.”
His gold-brown head touched her skirt, her legs, an inviting place to rest as his fact-finding fingers caressed her. His queue for once stayed neatly tied. The only civilized part of him. Edward’s eyes sparkled when he looked up at her. His hands stayed hidden under her dress. The beast’s dangerous light glowed dark again in his eyes.
Her new husband did as she bade and went higher, his hands discovering her bare thighs for the first time. She moaned. Anticipation melted her in the right places.
When would he get there?
He gripped her hips, and standing up, slowly pushed volumes of silk with him. Blue fabric puffed and pillowed between them. His hand traced a slow caress the length of her from knee to hip. Edward’s nostrils flared, as did his eyes, when his roving hand slipped behind her, grappling bare skin. She quivered from tantalizing male touch exploring forbidden flesh.
Lydia read Edward’s face, the flush of tanned skin and mouth unable to close, as knowledge seeped into his brain: she’d said her vows, eaten dinner with the utmost decorum, and chattered politely with all and sundry in this secret state of undress.
Edward groaned and jammed her body hard against his.
“You’re naked under your skirt.”
Twenty-two
Some identify Happiness with virtue, some with practical wisdom, others with a kind of philosophical wisdom, others add or exclude pleasure…
—Aristotle
In that second, Lydia became his belladonna. Few ever tasted the small, sweet berry of the dangerous plant and lived.
Memories of a reckless university prank haunted him right then. Edward’s heart banged fast and hard in his chest tonight, same as it did after savoring the lethal fruit then. A single foolish lick proved enough to fulfill the dare. Any more, and he would’ve died, yet living to see another day, provoking fate, made a dangerous snare. Temptation lured the best of men that way. Made a man think he could walk to the edge of a cliff in darkness and not fall.
Now, he tested Lydia, tasting her neck, not getting enough. She became sought-after piquant fruit and he the hapless adventurer in an unknown land. Her smell invaded his senses. He wanted to take her right there against his bedpost.
“I want you, Edward,” she said, as though she’d read his mind. Her hand slipped lower to his breeches, stroking his erection with her artist’s hands.
His hoyden wife knew exactly what she was doing. Dark green eyes glittered back at him with triumph when her fingers scratched his bollocks and trailed slowly up his rock-hard erection. His body convulsed, Edward had to brace one hand on the bed for support.
“Lydia…” he whispered. “The lights…the bed.”
&nbs
p; Two feminine fingers gave careful ministrations, scratching low between his legs, dawdling over his placket, rubbing his pulsing flesh. Her husky laugh was pure sex.
“I don’t require darkness or a bed.” She leaned forward and kissed his neck, hot and openmouthed. “Don’t you want to see?”
His body shook at her intoxicating question. He throbbed against the restraining placket. Everything spiraled into a cloud of heady sensuality. This was supposed to be about her comfort, her pleasure, about…
He lost all sense of thought.
Lydia’s fingertips swirled high on his placket and loosened a pewter button. Edward’s forehead dropped to her sweet-smelling shoulder. His lips found the moonlike roundness of her left breast and sucked. He’d mark her as his. Yet that intent felt feeble when her capable hands slipped two more buttons free. He shivered like an untried lad.
Who marked whom?
Edward opened his eyes, and knowledge of being well dosed by a woman’s touch danced at the edges of his sex-dulled brain.
“Lydia…” His left hand clenched the coverlet. “This was supposed to be done right.”
Her head lolled against the bedpost, and the bodice slipped lower. Tender nipples poked over elaborate embroidery. He had to suck. She breathed deeper, freeing more flesh.
“This is right,” she whispered.
His mouth clamped down on that pinkish point, pulling soft and hard. She arched against him, and her cry of pleasure sated him. ’Bout time she was as uncomfortable and bothered as he was. But Lydia started more undulating against him. A faster rhythm.
He looked down, and lots of blue silk bunched intrusively about her waist. Roundish white breasts stared at him over her bodice, and the softest, bare white legs, with one shoe untied, stretched to the floor. He couldn’t imagine a more erotic sight.
“Take me,” she demanded. “Now.”
Those three words. Potent. He bent to kiss her other breast, lingering there. An offering like that couldn’t be ignored.
“Lydia…I…” His voice muffled against her chest as his lips grazed and nibbled her breasts.
She said something, but the opiate’s haze of sex pulsed stronger, rushing through his ears. His belladonna spoke. Or was gentle laughter shifting her breasts under his mouth when he slavishly kissed their softness? Her fingers slipped inside his shirt, and somewhere in the fog, words…
“The stool, Edward. Get the stool.”
He did as she requested and brought the stool, unsure what she had in mind, but all parts of him were game.
Lydia shimmied out of her bodice and then her skirt. She tossed yards of shimmering fabric aside and stood there naked, save for one tied and one untied shoe. He placed the stool at the base of the bedpost, and her shod feet stepped onto the square cushion. Her seductive, impish smile touched him. He reached out and plucked the gleaming star that dangled from a lock of hair onto her breast. He tossed the jeweled piece atop the skirt. She needed no adornment.
With hair a tumble and naked splendor in candlelight, Lydia hooked two fingers inside his breech’s placket, pulling him closer, loosening another button. And with that button, his erection sprang free.
Lydia’s hands tugged on his breeches, and the placket opened in a wide V. Her artist’s hands moved up his abdomen, pushing open his shirt and exploring his flesh like a practiced sculptor. Lydia’s fingernails skimmed his flat nipples. She took control, and he was the recipient of her attentions—a novel sensation to simply feel.
Her lips parted, tasting his upper lip, his lower lip, moving to his scarred cheek. She kissed the marred flesh, small kisses soft and sweet, and the flame that had stirred his earlier fogged haze came roaring back. And when he looked down, her fingers slipped inside the glistening sable curls at the apex of her thighs. Feminine flesh, slick pearled pink, opened to him. With her other hand, Lydia angled his stiff flesh, poking the head into those dark curls.
This was her plan.
Shocks of pulsing intensity, ripped through him, powerful as any ocean wave knocking down a lone swimmer. Edward grabbed the bedpost behind her, breathing hard and holding on for dear life. Lydia guided him to her opening, a safe, wet place.
Whatever threads of logic and control he wanted to maintain evaporated the instant Lydia opened herself to him in life’s most intimate of ways. Edward pushed up, and in one freeing moment, slid inside her. They moaned. Together. A symbiosis of pleasure and fulfillment, rocking slowly against each other until they found their bodies’ cadence.
He gripped the bedpost with one hand and her ass cheek with the other. He squeezed her hard. There’d be tiny marks. Mouth to mouth they rocked, crying their satisfaction as wonders built from one frantic stroke after another. There’d be no languorous sex tonight. Edward couldn’t feel the floor beneath him. All faded in the sensual shroud that wrapped them both. When their peak of pleasure came, and it did come fast, Lydia clutched him as tightly as he held her. Her sex pulsed around him, the aftermath as sweet as the orgasm.
And he was lost.
She was virtually naked, and he was half-clothed. He ought to see to her comfort, her warmth. He started to pull away.
“Lydia, a blanket—”
She held him tight. “No,” she whispered against his neck. “I want you inside me. Please. Please stay…just as you are.”
Lydia rested her head on his shoulder, an act of trust that undid him. Tenderness surged through Edward. Candles blazed around the room, turning into melted wax columns. Like him.
Nothing went as expected tonight.
He held Lydia, stroking her tangled hair. He tasted her on his tongue and reveled in the wonderful newness that she was his. Yet an altogether different tremor shook him as their connected bodies recovered. His belladonna did something hazardous: she freed him from his mind, his plans. All that remained was potent sex and emotion.
Very alarming indeed.
Twenty-three
I hope that I may always desire more than
I can accomplish.
—Michelangelo
Is it possible that a man you’ve shared mind-muddling kisses with is the same one you’d want to throttle? A fortnight of marriage, and Lydia bounced between heights of pleasure and vexing irritation. That mad pendulum of emotions came from the man shuffling papers across his desk in that distracted man’s way of his. But she wanted all of his attention, thus her leaning forward to plant her palms on the mahogany.
“I’m sorry, did I misunderstand?” she said, trying for calm. “Because I distinctly heard you request that I hold off on selling my paintings until you return from your voyage.”
Never mind that I’m still working on you staying.
He held two papers up and glanced at her over the edge. “Misunderstand? Yes, that wasn’t a request; that was a command.” His topaz gaze flicked back to the items before him.
Lydia jammed her arms across her chest. “And once again, a man impedes my progress.”
He frowned at her outburst and stacked the papers, tapping them on his desk. “Convenient for you to blame men for your lack of progress in life.”
Her mouth moved, rather like a fish just caught out of water, when he said that. His words, delivered with matter-of-fact directness, were as good as a slap on the face, but she was speechless at his blunt pronouncement. Edward set the papers in a folio and stood up, dispensing more of his problem-solving insight.
“You had three years before you became the Countess of Greenwich to make things happen. What stopped you?”
He set his hands loosely at his hips, and she was quite certain he had no idea the damage he inflicted with his pearls of wisdom.
“Lydia, if you want something, think it through, balance both sides of an argument, then act.” He raised his hand and tapped unseen points in the air. “Make your progress from step one, step two, step three with clear logic until you reach your destination.”
“You mean such as spending the past two weeks working madly on your diagrams an
d illustrations, so that your pamphlets are completed in your timeline.” Her voice rose in volume, but she kept control. “At the exclusion of my own plans to paint.”
He sighed and linked his arms across his chest. “I see where this is going, and I adore you Lydia—”
“You adore me?” That shocked her.
The horizontal line between his brows showed up. He was cross at the interruption. “Yes, I have some fond affection for you, but while you have a lot of passion, you lack a certain discipline. Whereas I’ve developed both.”
She snorted at that as much from his arrogance as his decided edict about her. He’d given her some thought, and she’d come up lacking. “You wouldn’t know passion if it hit you in the head.”
His eyebrows raised a challenging notch. And when he was arrogant, he didn’t even see it as arrogance. That was the exasperating thing about him.
“I don’t refer to passion in the marital bed,” she sputtered.
But even as she was ready to continue their battle, part of what he’d said rang true in a painful way. A twinge of discomfort made her shift in her seat like a scolded child. She smarted from the fact that hit a truth: she went into great bursts of enthusiasm for her art, and then could be distracted by aiding others with whatever were their pursuits and their needs. There was no discipline and order about her process. Sitting there, she wanted to pour out excuses that he had so many advantages, while she did not. But that didn’t stop some of the female artists she admired greatly. Rosalba Carriera was a lace-maker’s daughter, and that good lady was single-minded in focus.
Edward walked around the desk and planted a kiss on top of her head. He couldn’t be too awfully upset with her. But then why should he? He was getting everything he wanted and more. Right then, the countess breezed through the doorway.
“Greetings, I haven’t missed anything, have I?”
