She was surprised. "Again? Can we?"
"Ah, yes, we can. Again and again, if you like." He lowered himself beside her, still toying with her nether curls. He pressed a firm kiss against her mouth, slipped his tongue inside to probe and stir. His finger began a circular motion around the small nub of her sex.
She covered his hand with hers. "No, stop, don't – don't touch me there."
He nuzzled her neck. "Why?" He pulled back and looked at her eyes. "Are you still bleeding? Are you in discomfort?"
"No, yes, I mean – "
"You mean, a little, not very much? It doesn't matter," he said and continued his teasing between her legs. "When we finish you'll feel infinitely better."
"But you can't – we – we can't – during my courses."
This time he jerked back, stilled his hand. "You're jesting. Who told you that nonsense?" His lips thinned. "Never mind. I think I can suppose. The baron finds you – inappropriate to be around at this time of the month. Am I right?"
"He finds me disgusting."
"I find nothing about you disgusting, so I assume your husband is completely out of his mind. Let me show you," he whispered, resuming his ministrations, "how wonderful this can be."
She felt the rising of tension between her thighs, another gathering of intense sensation when he slipped a finger inside her, pushing upward toward the front of her body, searching, caressing, pressing until – oh, God, yes – he'd found the spot. She bit her lip to hold back a scream.
He inserted a second finger and pressed harder, slipping in and out and forward. "Let go, Chastity. Let yourself go." He covered her mouth with his and swallowed her scream as her body bucked against his hand and her fingers clawed at his shoulders.
"Again, my love, come again," he urged her. "Let go."
His invasion of her mouth was ruthless while his other hand roamed her breast, rolling her nipple between forefinger and thumb. His rough beard scraped against her neck until she couldn't bear the exquisite pleasure.
Another rolling climax trammeled through her and she felt her inner muscles clench around his long slender fingers inside her like a vise. Thomas rolled over, covered her slick body with his own, and collapsed on top of her.
Chapter 10
Slowly Thomas removed his fingers, wiped them on a cloth lying on the small table by her bed. "See, not so messy," he said. "How do you feel?" He braced his weight on his forearms so he wouldn't crush her.
She couldn't help thinking how Charring often lay on her after the act like a heavy log, oppressive and smothering. Once she'd swore she heard him snoring until she shifted and he awoke to return to his own chambers.
"Lazy." She smiled and dipped her face into Thomas' shoulder. "Good." Her voice sounded girlish and embarrassed to her own ears. "Wonderful."
"Ah, then my efforts are rewarded." He reached again, this time for a glass on the table and took a deep drink. "Making love is thirsty work." He laughed and rolled off to the side, scooping her against him, her bottom pressed into the still-hard, thick shaft of him.
Was it over then? Surely he didn't intended to spend the night?
"Don't worry, m'lady," he murmured as he wrapped his big brown arm around her and firmly enveloped her breast. "I won't do a thing to embarrass you." He yawned broadly. "And we're not nearly finished with our notion. I've still a lusty itch for you."
He pulled the warm duvet over their naked bodies and settled his face into the hair at the back of her neck. She inhaled the strong, masculine scent of him and let it wrap around her as she drifted off to sleep.
#
Thomas woke several hours later when he heard the stirrings of the staff below stairs. Time to leave. He certainly didn't want to be discovered in the Baroness's bed.
The maid Marianne would soon rise and set the fire for her mistress, but he wanted to cherish these few moments of intimacy with Chastity. He still had a rock-hard cock, realized it hadn't relaxed through the last several hours. His staff was alert and ready to engage with Chastity again, he thought wryly.
He yet had so many things to teach her, so many ways to initiate her into the heady arena of love making, the sensual pleasures of the body. And, selfishly, he didn't want to leave her bed unrelieved, having never entered her luscious body.
He rolled over and covered her with his large body. She was so fragile compared to him, he mused, as he began to awaken her with moist kisses to the tender spot behind her ear, making his way down the column of her neck to the mound of one breast.
"Hmm." She stretched languidly beneath him, bringing his erection to even stiffer attention. "What are you up to?" She smiled and took his face between her hands. "Haven't we – joined in every possible way?"
"Copulated," he corrected. "Fucked. And, no, not nearly." He nipped at her nipple.
She gasped so that the words came out ragged. "Wh – what nefarious plans have you in store now?"
"Let's explore, shall we?"
Thomas made his way down her torso to her navel where he swirled his tongue and made her moan. He continued to the curls between her legs, found the button there, laved it with his tongue and made her writhe.
"I'm going to fuck you with my tongue," he murmured from between her legs as he inhaled the strong womanly scent of her, "lick your twat until you convulse with pleasure. I'm going to make you come with my tongue plunging inside you."
"Don't talk," she begged.
"Ah, my words arouse you to fever pitch."
"Yes, God damn you, and I want you to do all of those things."
Using his thumb to circle her clitoris, he sucked hard on the folds of her sex, sucked and licked until he felt her bucking. He slipped his tongue inside her, exploring, jabbing in and out until she grasped his head, pulled at his hair until he nearly lost his grip. He inserted his finger to assist his tongue, circled his little finger around the opening of her bum.
"Oh, God, Thomas. You must stop! It's too much. I can't bear it."
"You said you wanted this," he reminded her. "And, yes, yes you can," he muttered while stopping for a breath. "You can take so much more. Tell me you want it. Harder? Say it," he demanded.
"I want it harder," she gasped. "I want you inside me."
"Yes." He laughed, feeling the sensation of joy as her climax started to build. He slid up her slick body and poised at her entry. "This – is this what you want? My cock inside you? Pounding and thrusting until you go mad with sensation?"
"Yes, yes, damn it!"
"Then you shall have it." He slipped slowly, agonizingly into her, felt her muscles clench around him. His standing ware was larger than most, he knew, and his cock was not something he took for granted. "Is this what you like, Chastity? More? Harder?"
"Yes," she bit her lip to hold back a scream. "Harder, faster, deeper."
He lifted her hips and drove himself hilt deep into her. He paused and looked down at her. Her eyes were closed. "Look at me," he growled. Her eyes fluttered open, opaque with delirium. "Is that hard enough? Deep enough?"
"More," she said, a look of challenge entering her eyes as she thrust her hips toward him. "Pound me – fuck me as hard as you can."
He laughed wildly at the impropriety of such words from a lady's lips and shoved himself in and out of her, gathering rhythm, feeling the glorious build of his own orgasm as she went over the edge. "Again," he muttered. "Come again for me. I'm not yet finished with you."
And she let go again, biting into his shoulder to keep from shouting as another climax rolled over her, and he emptied himself into the tight, heavenly tunnel of her sweet jampot.
Thomas collapsed on her, heavy, hot and still hard inside her, breathing fast. His heart beat wildly in his chest, a pounding of drums that threatened to burst from his body. He felt her heart gallop in concert with his own. "Does the warmth and pressure of me inside you comfort your cramps?" he asked, knowing the answer already.
"Yes," she said wonderingly. "My – my parts – down there. They feel �
� much relieved."
After a moment he raised his head, kissed her mouth. "Ay, fucking during a woman's courses is very salutary."
She giggled. "Apparently, you are correct, Dr. Thomas."
"I live only to serve my lady." He kissed her again, more deeply, and felt his cock stir inside her.
"What? Again?" she exclaimed.
"God's great joke on us males is that we only experience that glorious release once – and then we're quite done, I'm afraid – but the female of the species, as you've just learned, has the better part of the bargain."
Chapter 11
Thomas nuzzled her neck. "However, if you're interested in another lesson, give me fifteen minutes and I'm sure I'll be able to perform quite nicely." He grinned down at her. "I've quite a bit of stamina."
She smiled as he rolled off her and they lay side by side. "I suppose we have no more time for – dallying," she said at last. "The servants are stirring." She glanced at the chair propped beneath the knob of Marianne's tiny sleeping room.
"I'm afraid you're right," he said as he sat up on the bed, reached for his trousers. He looked at her over one shoulder. "I can return tonight, however. One cannot have too much practice in such matters."
She smiled again, but remained silent
Thomas finished dressing and slipped from her chamber, carrying his shoes. She levered herself up on her elbows to catch a last glimpse of him as he grinned from the doorway.
When he'd gone, she collapsed back on the bed. Lord, she was exhausted. She never knew such physical activities could be so draining.
With her husband he conjugal act had been tedious, often brief, and usually perfunctory, but never so ... illuminating, she decided. She felt like a new woman and leapt from the bed to gather her gown from the floor.
Now, how to keep her nightly activity from her maid?
As it turned out, Chastity needn't have worried about Marianne. The girl put fresh bed sheets on the bed and discarded the soiled ones as if she had no idea of the tussle and exchange of fluids that'd transpired there. Likely, she was as virginal as she appeared and attributed the slight stains to her lady's monthly courses.
No, it was Mrs. Griffin, the elderly housekeeper, who requested permission to speak with her ladyship in private. They met in Griffin's private sitting room.
Chastity assumed the exchange would entail the counting of silver, the purchase of new bed sheets, or approval of the menu to be served when the Baron returned, but she was seriously mistaken.
Griffin fidgeted – an unlikely action which Chastity had never before witnessed in the housekeeper's usually reserved demeanor.
"Surely, the problem cannot be so irksome, Mrs. Griffin?"
Griffin cleared her throat delicately and stiffened her spine. "I shouldn't wish to speak out of turn, my lady."
Chastity nodded for her to go ahead.
"Well then, I simply wished to point out that Marianne is a young and – shall we say – untutored girl who has little knowledge of the – of the vagaries of the upper classes."
She looked sharply at Chastity. And Chastity knew – she knew that Griffin was aware of Thomas and her. She had no idea how, but the knowledge was clear in the older woman's faded gray eyes.
"And," the housekeeper continued after a pause, "you might be interested to know that the Baron's property has a guest cottage. It is some distance from the house, but not too brisk a walk for – for someone much younger than I."
She smiled thinly and Chastity realized there was no judgment in the woman's voice. She'd been with Lord Rockham for many decades and Chastity had expected loyalty would prompt the woman to rush straight to Charring with the discovery.
"Well, then." Griffin stood and smoothed the surface of her dark skirts. "Shall I have the cottage readied? In the chance that we might entertain a guest sometime before the Baron returns?" She paused a moment. "Or after he leaves for London again?"
Chastity felt a catch in her throat. She didn't quite know what to make of this sudden awareness and the unexpected bounty.
"Yes, yes, please do." She turned toward the door, hand on the knob, and looked back. "Mrs. Griffin, thank you for your – your foresight."
#
The Baron arrived late that afternoon in the same rather vulgar display of pomp as his arrival a week ago. When they were alone in the foyer, as before, he bussed his wife's cheek and spoke into her ear. "I trust the difficulty that awaited me on my last trip home has been concluded."
His grip on her hands tightened and Chastity understood the warning that lay beneath – warning and announcement. He would visit her tonight.
She merely nodded and he strode away. She thought of Thomas and last night's wild, but tender, ministrations. She did not think her husband would demonstrate such restraint. Christ, let it be brief, she prayed.
Before time to dress for dinner she had an hour to spend with Ginger at the stables, so she slipped from the house and into the mare's stall. She patted the sleek reddish coat and pulled a carrot from her pocket.
"You like that, old girl, don't you?" she murmured, stroking the horse's nose.
"She's not such an old girl." Thomas' voice behind her held a hint of mockery. "She's got a lot of life left in her yet."
Chastity wondered if he spoke of the mare or her. Many days she felt as if her life were near its twilight, and after tonight, she feared she'd be even closer to the end.
Yet Charring fully expected to get a child on her. How odd and ironic.
She turned slowly and looked about the stable.
"You needn't worry," Thomas said. "There's no one about just now."
He stepped closer, set his hands on her waist, and kissed her lightly on the forehead. Then took a step back, picked up a brush and set to grooming Ginger's shiny coat.
"Lord Rockham's returned," she said abruptly.
"Ay, I know."
"You cannot come to my room tonight."
He peered at her over one shoulder as he continued his work. "And what makes you think I've a mind to visit you tonight anyway? Are you that cock-sure of yourself."
"Don't," she protested, hating that he'd pulled that Irish veneer over him, that he tried to make her think last night meant nothing.
"Don't what?" he snarled. "Don't think that only a few hours ago I had my cock hilt-deep in your sweet, slick cunny? Don't think that you came nearly a half-dozen times in the few hours we were together? Came like a volcano exploding, by God!"
"Why are you so angry?"
He cursed and threw down the brush, reached for her roughly and pulled her against him. He ravaged her mouth, explored her with his tongue.
She felt the harsh scrape of his morning whiskers against her cheek and neck, but she couldn't help herself. She responded with heady passion.
Here, now, she thought. I want him now.
Chapter 12
Intuiting her thoughts, Thomas lifted her skirts and shoved her against the wooden stall. "I'm going to have you now," he ground out, "before he – before he ... " His voice trailed off as he unbuttoned his trousers and released himself.
He drove into her hard in one quick thrust and then continued to pound into her again and again. Chastity felt the pleasure-pain sensation rising between her legs. She hadn't thought she could respond to such violent need, but she met him thrust for thrust, and just as he emptied himself into her, she screamed low in her throat and matched his climax with her own.
She collapsed against him, spent, drained of every drop of energy, and wonderfully satisfied. In a stable. In the afternoon. Surrounded by the smells of hay and horses and ... Thomas. How could she return to being a proper wife after this?
#
The Baron came to her shortly after she retired for the night. She'd bathed, washed her hair, perfumed her body, and donned a sheer nightgown at Marianne's insistence. "His lordship will surely want to see you in something quite romantic, ma'am.
Chastity sighed. The little maid had stars in her eyes
. Charring didn't care a whit how she was dressed. He wanted the coupling quick and efficient, and she knew he'd keep at it until he impregnated her. She was little more than a mare matched with a prized stallion – all for good breeding lines.
She resigned herself to the inevitable. God, please keep her from entertaining thoughts of Thomas during the encounter. She didn't think she could bear it. She tried to strip herself of all thought, all emotion, all sensation. She'd do her duty as she'd always done as the Baroness of Charring Manor.
She'd almost fallen asleep when she heard the fumbling at the bedchamber door. She opened her eyes, saw the broad, squat frame of the Baron. He crept like an interloper to the edge of her bed. "Awake, are you, m'dear?"
His voice held hearty affection and his breath the scent of liquor. Charring was not a bad man, she reminded herself. Whatever she owed him, he deserved compliance in this one thing.
He was dressed in a long nightshirt that covered his barrel figure to mid-calf, and when he pulled away the covers and lowered himself on top of her, she felt his cold feet brush her ankles. Without another word he grappled with her gown, pulling it up to her waist.
He reached between them, prodded at the dryness between her legs, and grunted. "Hmm." She felt him reach for himself and heard the grunts as he pumped his manhood for a moment. Then he licked the flat of his palm and transferred the wetness to her. Just a bit, she thought, to make the entry smoother. She felt a slight tug of appreciation for this small consideration.
Charring was not a bad man.
Then he drove into her without warning. She nearly yelped, but forced herself to remain still. Should she wrap her arms around him? She'd never done so before, but guilt swept over her like a rainstorm. He continued his frenetic pumping into her unresponsive body until finally he groaned loudly and collapsed heavily as he ejaculated into her.
After a moment of heavy breathing, she felt the shrinking of his shaft, and couldn't help thinking how long Thomas had remained huge and comforting inside her. How he'd cuddled her warmly in his arms. She forced the wicked thoughts from her mind.
Improper Seduction Page 4
