Pleasure. She mistrusted the very idea.
For one, she had not been raised to pleasure. No lady was raised to sensual pleasure, of course, but she had not been raised to indulge in pleasures of any sort. She had no memory of anyone dissuading her from pleasure, but, in the absence of encouragement, she’d simply tucked the concept into a trunk marked Not Useful. Duty, competence, grace, and purity. Those had been the instructed ideals, and indeed, the ideals she aspired to embody.
Leave it to Sophia, Lady Scandal, to argue pleasure as a virtue—Sophia ordered her world in terms of aesthetic appreciation. Thea might not agree, but one question Sophia posed had struck a chord: How can you expect Wynchester to guess how to bring you pleasure, when you do not even know?
So here she was, unpacking that secret pleasure trunk. …Parties were a pleasure. As was a new, modish dress. Gambling could be included, provided one was winning. And a fine-spring saunter on a handsome mare.
Sophia, however, had not been speaking of clothes, or cards, or horses. She’d been speaking of an answer to the restless yearning that followed Wynchester’s visit. And there was only one way to discover such an answer, absent assistance.
Touch.
On one hand, the concept seemed vaguely defiling. On the other…was it not her duty to, um, be “fruitful and multiply”? She exhaled and pressed her head back into her pillow.
Enough. She was not, as was the pretty Bow Porcelain Factory figurine she so admired, completely incapable of feeling.
She bent her knees and shimmied her shift up her thighs. Had removing her stockings been unseemly? Was seemly even possible when exposed in such a position? The whole was unseemly.
…and a bit exciting.
The summer night’s damp edge was eased by the smattering of lit coals in the fireplace. A whisper of gentle air passed over her exposed skin. She spread her legs in the manner she remembered. She spidered her hand down her stomach until she reached the place between her legs. Cold fingers dipped into soft folds, sending shivers up her spine.
Well, that would not do. However…
She touched those same fingers to her arm. No shiver. To her shoulder. No shiver. Over her breasts and—
Ah. Shiver.
So, she thought triumphantly, shiver was good. She covered one nipple over her sheer cotton shift. The warmth of her palm was pleasant, but no shiver. Hesitantly, she made a circle. Wynchester-tightness coalesced between her legs.
Also good. More than good, really. Very…very pleasant.
She closed her eyes and conjured the hot look in Wynchester’s gaze when she’d asked him to misbehave for me. His imaginary lips caressed hers—his taste neither sweet nor bitter, but wine-like and lingering. Her other hand crept to her folds and she stroked until she found a satisfactory angle.
Ah and ahhhh.
Awareness of what she was doing—wrong or right—slipped to oblivion. Only, she, sensation, and her imagination continued to exist. She murmured Wyn’s name as she increased the tempo of her strokes. She brushed her cheek against her pillow and, with curious fingers, sought the touches that would produce ahs.
Something was happening. Something supremely good. A feeling was growing as if she were climbing a mountain. Climbing, climbing, climbing and just over the rise—
“May I be of service?” Wynchester’s very real voice broke through her reverie.
Both hands flew to her face and a far less pleasurable ah shuddered though her body.
She rolled onto her side. If she pressed hard enough, perhaps feathers would swallow her up into permanent gray-white nothingness. Oh, yes. Please. Anything to avoid the red-hot mortification flooding her senses.
Another not-good, full-body shudder.
Run. Run away from the voice. Away from the mocking glint that likely flickered in his eyes. Or away from even worse. Shock. Chagrin. Or the ultimate humiliation—disappointment and revulsion. She’d been an embarrassment from the start and now she’d proved a wanton.
Very well. She would never, ever look at Wyn again. That was possible, wasn’t it?
The wooden bed protested as the mattress gave way under his weight. Unwillingly, she slid into the indentation made by his thigh. The exposed skin of her bum met his leg…his hard, hot, naked leg. Her eyes flew open.
The sound of his groan ricocheted through her body, winding her tight as a laced boot.
He set warm hands against her back and nudged her over. His uneven breath—and hers—broke the silence as he settled into her bed. The bed protested yet again as he slid next to her, his sizzling chest to her shivering back. His chest hair tickled. Hair! She’d been right when she thought she saw hair. Hair meant his body was different, now—larger, more manly—although her response to him, clearly not.
He lifted her heavy braid from her shoulder. He was silk and hardness. Muscle and warmth. His lips met her neck and she shuddered in a very good way.
“Well.” From the angle of his breath’s path across her cheek, he’d propped up his head. “What an intriguing surprise.”
She whimpered.
His guttural sound of sympathy reverberated against her spine. “Poor duchess, I’ve caused you embarrassment, have I? I am disinclined to apologize, but, if I called my ambush unintended, would it help?”
She whimpered again.
“One could argue I have every right to be here.” He nipped the spot he had kissed and her body flushed with delight. “After all, you called my name.”
“Out loud?” Mouse-voice small.
“Uh-huh” A noise of certain assent. He ran spiral circles down from her shoulder to her side. In the wake of his light touch, tingles scattered. His large hand came to rest on her hip. “Aren’t you a clever duchess?”
She managed to scoff, part laugh and part snort. “Confounded.”
“Like hell.” His tone hinted a smile. “Not my Thea Marie.”
He’d left a candle burning on the nightstand at their backs. Weak orange light flickered through the gloom.
“You are not,” she wet her lips, “revolted?”
“No.”
“Displeased?”
“Let’s settle on astonished.” He took another taste of her neck. “Agreeably astonished.” His cock’s silky hardness slid against her thigh “You see?”
The thought of him hard and ready and frustratingly close set loose another whimper.
“I assure you,” he drummed his fingers on the apex of her thigh, “I can help.”
His baritone alone brought her nipples back out to play. A flash of hot awareness made every sense tingle and rush down between her legs. He was willing to touch her. There. …If she gave him permission. Now, she understood what Lavinia meant by a readied body. Her answer, however, remained stuck behind a nettle-sharp lump in her throat.
Without looking his way, she sat up just enough to slip her shift over her head and not enough to merit the loss of his hand’s comforting warmth from her thigh. She stuffed her shift beneath her pillow. She settled back into the mattress.
“Let me see you,” he demanded with a disquieting level of need.
“Not yet,” she said with a pleading note.
He groaned, tucking his chin against her shoulder and his cock into the cleft in her bottom. “If you will not let me see you,” his cheek rested lightly on hers, his breath heightened with anticipation, “at least show me what you want.”
For a long breath in and a long breath out, she gathered her courage. Then, she covered his hand, still resting on her hip. His fingers were not cold at all. They were smoking-pipe hot. Ghosted by embarrassment, she bent one leg and opened for his access. Wordlessly, she guided his hand to her mound.
“S—Shall I,” she stuttered, “tell you?”
He dove into her wetness and began to move his finger in slow, searching strokes.
“Guide me,” he said against her ear, “with whimpers and sighs.”
Thank goodness. Sighs were easier than words. His fingers drifted ac
ross her most sensitive spot and she moaned.
“Umm.” His sound of approval echoed into her thighs. “You make the most arresting, womanish sounds.”
Arresting and womanish?
The moment was terrible. The moment was marvelous. Perhaps she was a minx, after all. A wanton minx. And if she was, Wynchester did not seem to mind.
She relaxed against her husband, giving herself over to the dark and his heat, enjoying the pleasure of his fingers as they moved within her folds. Even the way he ground his thick column against her bum caused furtive thrill.
She brought her hand up to cup his cheek—sparse stubble below the smoothest of cheekbones. She whimpered again, this time as her body cried more.
She dropped her hand to her breast and discovered her husband’s arresting, mannish sounds.
…
She’d kill him…a slow death, beginning with the soft sounds of delight she made when touching her breasts with her elegant, lady-like hands. By the time he brought her to completion, he’d be slayed. Vanquished. Done.
And he did not give a damn.
Long ago he’d pledged to be a proper husband to his proper wife…and he was fairly certain a proper husband would never spread and stroke his wife’s wet folds with unabashed glee. But her scent—Saint bloody, damnable Swithin—her scent shrouded his dogma, and unleashed coarse instinct instead.
Another moan shivered through her body. Dark, liquid gratification pooled inside his groin. Damn proper precepts. He slid his cock against her cleft. Such things were ordinary. A duke—he licked her neck and caught her shudder—need never be ordinary. Especially not when holding his extraordinary, naked duchess.
“Wyn.” A muffled sound of desire. “I want… I want…”
She did not know what she wanted. He was at once heavy with shame and light with elation. If she did not yet know, first rapture was his to grant. He’d not been sure, until this moment, her pleasure was still his to discover. After all, she had said, I’ve been no saint. She had not had intercourse with another man—but he’d wondered if perhaps she’d permitted a kiss—or more? Just the thought made possessive jealousy shoot through him like a gush of warm blood.
If she had, he’d muffle, strangle, and scourge any memories she had of others.
“Please, Wyn,” she lashed her cheek against her pillow. “Pleeeease.”
His lips spread against her salty-sweet softness. He could no longer say she’d never asked anything of him. She may not know what she sought, but she knew whom to beseech.
“Shhh.” He made sure his breath skated across the most sensitive parts of her ear. “I have you, little minx.”
She trembled—artless, abandoned.
Insatiable.
The word burst forth, unbidden. And an unwelcome memory followed.
In his youth, an admired gentleman had warned him against introducing carnal delights into the marriage bed, saying such knowledge would render a wife insatiable. Wynchester glanced down at the dark rose of his wife’s nipple, peaking out between her fingers. He savored the way her labored breath rocked her back against his chest.
Insatiable, devil take it, was more than fine with him. He—hands, cock, mouth, and greed—was more than a match for insatiable. He wanted his minx to hunger, deep and clawing. He wanted her to shiver and shake and moan and beg. He was confident he could match insatiable.
“Wyn-n-n.”
Her mewl caught him in his groin; his cock’s tip moistened in response. Sweet, illicit friction.
Another night his lips would explore her flesh. Another night he’d prove a more restrained and leisurely guide. They were now well-past subtle…and not occupying the most advantageous of positions. He was unwilling to abandon the now-slick cleft that held him tight, though his only free hand prowled between her thighs.
But he was not in this alone, was he?
“Wet your finger,” he breathed out, heavy and low, “and then touch your nipple again.”
She complied. His cock released a second smattering of seed.
“Pinch it,” he said, grazing his teeth against her shoulder. “Pinch it until you moan.”
She pinched. A rising gasp, a longer ahhh. She rolled her nipple between her fingers and rocked her hips against his hand. A long, gritty cry followed a coiled-spring quake. He cupped her heat while sliding his length against her. Her body shook in waves, heightening his pleasure.
She murmured his name as he used her body, thrusting purposefully until, he, too, cried out completion, and spending wetness, sticky and warm, between his stomach and her spine.
As breath and thought returned, her scent mixed with the pungent smell of semen and musk. Perhaps the longer the abstinence, the greater the release. The urge to sleep pulled strong. He could die, in fact, and die happy. Already, however, his body cooled, hastened by night air working in tandem with a sheen of sweat.
His sweat or hers?
He rolled onto his back and draped his arm over his forehead. He did not know, nor did he care. She stirred by his side.
“Be still,” he said. “I will find a—”
Her rumpled shift wafted down over his face. He pulled it down past his chin.
“Won’t you need this?” he asked.
Her words were muffled by her pillow, but he made out have others.
Hmm? Decadent, indeed. As if shifts of fine cotton grew on trees. Only—cotton did grow on trees, did it not? Or bushes. No matter. The fine part had been his point. All-at-once the sheer absurdity of his thoughts became apparent. He’d just used his wife’s ass to masturbate. The audacity of such a thing left him stunned.
Yet not quite ashamed.
He sighed. Careful to be gentle, he wiped her clean. As he started on his member, his appreciation for fine cotton underwent transformation. To hell with rags. He twirled her shift and dropped it in a neatly-coiled pile onto the floor.
His limbs were satisfaction-drunk and his wits draped with a heady something far more soothing than drink. His duchess remained on her side, eyes shut, cheeks red, and knees pulled up as if to protect her breasts. He shook out the sheet and bedcovering from their tangled pile at mattress-end. Gently—and reluctantly—he covered her.
“Thea, darling,”—he’d never used the word darling in his life, nor had he ever called her Thea without the Marie—“you would be warmer next to me.”
She was, to be precise, already next to him. But, though “darling” had slipped passed his lips, the phrase “fancy a cuddle” would not. A man had to retain some standard. He peered over her shoulder. She’d paid him no heed, in any case.
“If you were asleep,” he accused, “your eyes would not be so tightly shut.”
One eye opened. “Go away.”
“Very well.”
He moved as if he intended to depart and oomphed as she latched onto his back. Not leaving, then. Her forearms made a startling contrast against his darker skin and smattering of dark hair. Her lips moved against his shoulder.
“I misspoke.”
“May I…” He cleared his throat. “May I lie down?”
He felt her nod and then was free. He eased back against the pillows and she came into view. She remained in the center of the bed, her legs curled beneath her, chin low, and lashes on the same angle. One arm was turned out and stiff at her side, holding her balanced. Her skin was marble-pale and her thick braid snaked over her shoulder and down between her perfect breasts.
With wonder, he realized he’d never seen her naked. How could he have thought he was preserving some ideal of modesty by coming to her in the dark? Youth was surely wasted on the young while stupidity liberally lathered.
Perceived ancestral sin had haunted his decisions and he’d been certain—so certain—all excess would lead to folly. Both reasons still rang true, but how could strengthening their bond be folly? And surely—wise or unwise, proper or no—they had strengthened their bond tonight.
She raised her eyes to his. The vulnerable beauty of her ga
ze left webs in his lungs.
He suspected his current role was to comfort—but how to do so when equally discomfited proved a challenge. Reassurance, on the other hand, he could deliver.
“You are decidedly fetching without clothes…” He extended his fingers and they barely grazed her knee. “…and well-suited to candlelight and shadow.”
The look in her eyes turned lulling, an erotic sight he’d not soon forget. Whatever she sought in his face, she found. Braver now, her shoulders eased. She visually caressed him from face to cock. Had he not been fully spent, her look would have had her on her back.
“Drink your fill, and then,” at his hip he gave the mattress a lazy double-smack, “come here.”
“A request?” she asked.
“A command.” He smiled crookedly. “I require my duchess’s warmth.”
Her return smile drifted across her lips. “Yes, Your Grace.”
She brought sheet and bedcovering with her, her skin sliding like palm-heated oil over his as she found a comfortable place at his side. He groaned in sleepy felicity at the pressure of her breasts against his chest. Right there. Good. He draped a heavy arm over her shoulder. There were things to think. There were probably things to say. But, not now.
“Sleep, Duchess.” He closed his eyes.
“Yes, Your Grace,” she repeated.
Ah. If only she were always so agreeable. Then again, if bed sport was what it took to render her compliant, complaining was nonsense. He rubbed his cheek against her hair and exhaled through the pleasure of his last, waking thought.
…
Sleep delivered Wynchester over to deep, even breaths. Thea rode each wave to the sound of his steady heartbeat.
As a man, his body was an excellent specimen—decidedly fetching without clothes. And, she needn’t have worried he did not know how to bring a woman pleasure. He had talents he’d never shared. Why had he kept such passion hidden?
She frowned.
Emma had once told her once that a young duke was a parcel much in demand, married or not. At the time, she’d been girded by her carefully enameled world. She’d not wanted to think of Wyn. To wonder. She’d swatted away Emma’s warning as if it had been but a buzzing fly. Now Emma’s words came back to menace. A young attractive duke, she supposed, could have his pick of any wanton.
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