The Stanhope Challenge - Regency Quartet - Four Regency Romances

by Cerise DeLand

  “Folderol. You’re coddling me.” She pouted.

  He arched a brow, slithered off his cravat and shook his head. “Not in the least. May I take my coat off?”

  She pressed her lips together. “Do.”

  “And my waist coat?”

  She wrinkled her nose at him and stuck out her tongue.

  He captured her, cradling the back of her head in his large palm. “I have better uses for your tongue, my darling.” He sat up, and in one swirl, had her under him on the couch. “Let me show you with mine.”

  The kiss stole her mind. Sweeping inside the warmth of her mouth, he took her with a breathless impatience. Plundering her, he defined the scope of her inner recesses and plunged into the depths of her consciousness. He pulled back. His dark eyes startled and searching.

  She knew he asked for permission or guidance. She knew only that she needed more of the same. “Jack,” she whispered as she cupped his jaw and drew him forward. “Jack, again.” The sweetness of his kiss undid all her senses. “Again,” she begged when he pulled away once more.

  “Emma.” His lips were on her cheek, her lower lip, her shoulder. All as he had promised.

  She pushed him away. His midnight hair was mussed, his eyes clouded, his shirt gaping open to reveal the contours of his naked chest. And on his face was the question, shall we go on?

  “Yes, let me up.”

  He pulled her to her feet. “Emma?”

  She presented her back. “Undo me.”

  He groaned, muttering something about ties and seamstresses as his fingers worked at the fastenings and his lips took a journey down her spine, pressing kisses to her flesh. “God, you are lovely.” He twirled her around. “Take it off.” His eyes sought hers. “Take it off, Emma.”

  She had wanted to lead. She was. He required it. She tried to smile but the need to be rid of the gown was her most urgent goal. She crossed her arms and tore at the bodice to tug the gown to her waist.

  His eyes narrowed. His breathed quickened. His nostrils flared. “Step out.” He retreated. “I want to watch you.” He lifted a finger to point to her chemise. “The rest.”

  She swallowed hard. Mad to have him now, she pulled at the tiny ribbon threaded through her thin cotton bodice, knowing beneath, save for her thigh-high stockings, she wore not a stitch. “Are brides always…?”

  “Naked?” he asked. His gaze went from hers to her fingers. “They should be.”

  “Right you are,” she agreed on a surge of daring and lust, then pulled the last of the ribbon through her garment. The thing fell and she was free, the cool air caressing her breasts and making her nipples pucker—and her nether regions pulse in need of whatever her husband would provide.

  How long she stood there staring over his shoulder at the wainscoting she could not measure. But from the corner of her eye, she could tell he toured her body like a man intent on making notes. Making maps. Making journeys she knew not of.

  “If you don’t say something soon, I shall leave,” she threatened him.

  “You are gloriously made, my darling Emma.”

  She gulped back some of her fear he would reject her. “Truly?” she prodded and he affirmed her beauty once more. “My breasts are not too small?”

  “Each will fill the palm of my hand.”

  She ventured a glance at him then. His eyes, dark slate and heavy with lust, drifted to hers and back down her body. “And my hips are not too thin?”

  “Svelte as a siren, darling.”

  She cleared her throat. “And my legs are not ugly?”

  “Straight near your thighs, curvy little knees, long calves. And delicately boned feet.”

  “I am acceptable?”

  “More than, sweetheart. Any man would prize you.”

  “Oh, Jack,” she cried, her voice breaking in nerves, “no need to say that if you don’t think it. I have no need for compliments. Really. If you will just please stop looking at me like that.”

  “On one condition.”

  “Ask it.”

  “May I hold you?” he asked, a reverence in his tone she’d not yet heard there.

  “Oh, yes. And kiss me, too. I want to be kissed. Make me warm like you did in the coach.”

  He opened his arms. “You need to be near me, then.”

  Stepping over her wedding dress and chemise, she took a step toward him. “You need no clothes, either.”

  “Shall I discard them?”

  In a flood of reason, her mind declared he must be naked to make love to her. “I want to help you.” She stood ever so near again, her fingers to his shirt, his buttons, his flies, his small clothes while he stepped out of his boots.

  As his breeches fell and his undergarments with them, she looked down at his body. Her daydreams of how a man’s cock might look were astonishingly inadequate. He was huge, red and standing tall. A long, thick, rigid piece of flesh she found enticingly handsome.

  He took both her hands in his. “Have you never seen a man before?”

  She shook her head, mesmerized by the sight of his assets.

  “Never known what a male animal looks like?”

  “Oh, yes!” She told him forthrightly. “Horses and dogs. Cattle, too. But none are as lovely as you.”

  He snorted. “Darling, a man’s accoutrements are never called lovely.”

  “But you are,” she felt quite taken with the length of him. And the girth. She reached out a hand.

  As she snatched it back, he caught her. “Want to touch me?”

  Her eyes, she knew, must be large as melons, but she nodded and said, “I do.”

  “Then, here.”

  “Oh, my.” His skin was soft as down. She stroked his length. “You’re hard as iron.”

  He gulped, then clamped her hand, his breath rasping. “Darling, you must go slowly.”

  “Really?” She stared at his cock in amazement. “Does it not like to be caressed?”

  “Most definitely.” He inhaled deeply. “But you see if you…ah…stroke me too long or hard, then I wish to proceed too quickly.”

  “Mating is not a moment’s passion?”

  He looked appalled. “It should never be only a moment’s. But hours.”

  “Hours?” she could barely say the word.

  “Who told you less?” he asked with sad amusement as he led her to stroke his shaft in languid ease.

  She lifted a shoulder. “My mother. And the maids I overheard said it took minutes.” She examined how she seemed to make his cock grow larger, redder. And a drop of fluid now appeared on his tip. “They never said anything about how beautiful a man is. And you are.”

  He caught back laughter. “Emma, never say that.”

  “No. Why not?” She stroked him softly.

  He gulped. “That’s not the commendation a man seeks, my dear.”

  “I shall tell you in private then. Will that do?”

  “Yes. Anything you wish. Anything at all.” He put a hand atop hers. “May I touch you now?”

  “Hmm. No. If you do, I shall have to stop stroking you.” She tossed him a saucy look. “I rather like this, Jack.”

  He set his jaw and narrowed his eyes at her. “I’d rather like spanking you, Emma.”

  “You wouldn’t!” She stopped her caresses.

  “Never spar with me. Let me touch you. It is not fair to let you have your pleasure whilst I have nothing of you to sate me.”

  “Mmm. Perhaps you are right. But then, I wonder.” She grinned and squeezed his long, hot rod. “Will this go away?”

  “Dear god.” He rolled his eyes. “I am quite certain that is not going away.”

  “If you’re sure?”

  He gave her a beady-eyed look that made her chortle.

  He stepped against her. His gaze in hers. His long arms reaching for her and pulling her into the vise of his embrace. Skin to skin, they each inhaled as their bodies met.

  “Emma, darling, you feel like heaven,” he told her as he cupped her face and brus
hed his lips on hers.

  “Take me to bed, Jack.”

  “My fondest wish,” he whispered as he bent to gather her up and fulfill the last stipulation in their agreement.

  Chapter Five

  By god, he had promised her a gentle introduction to the art of love. As he strode toward his master bed, he vowed to do it. But in the intervening hours since he’d first agreed to her indecent offer to have her, he’d learned so much about her that he felt changed. Transformed, even noble that he might provide such a service for a woman so abused.

  His journey to the bed was only three strides, but each was filled with his newest conflict. He wanted her. Naked. He had her so. Yet to take her as she was—a virgin, willing as the devil—bound him to a finer pledge to himself. He would be gentle. Kind. The finest teacher.

  Yet as he laid her to the counterpane and pulsed at the sight of her lithe grace against the sapphire brocade, he prayed he could summon enough restraint. She was not like any of his former mistresses. She was no married lady of the ton, eager for romping. She had no concept of what a good fucking might include, yet he yearned to take this luscious body of hers and ravish her like the rake he was. Like the rake he had been?

  He loomed over her on his forearms, one of his knees intruding between her legs as they dangled over the edge of the mattress. He swooped down and ran his nose along her cheek and swanlike throat. Would he ever get enough of such innocence? Christ, that anyone would think it possible for Arrogant Jack to be so conquered!

  “You smell wonderful,” she told him, one hand drifting down his ribs.

  “Many creatures know their mates by the aroma of the other,” he told her as he caressed the fullness of one breast and had her arching into his hand. “Each marks the other.”

  She sighed as his fingers found her nipple and circled the silken nub. “Will you mark me?”

  “Aye, darling.” He shifted lower, his gaze widening at the sight of her pale perfection. “Beginning here.” He sucked her nipple into his mouth and she bucked. Smiling, he pulled away. “You like this.”

  “I do.” She clutched his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin, exciting him further.

  He grinned to himself and held her breast so that her pink little nipple pointed at him. He drew on it gently. Her areola pebbled.

  “The other one?” she beseeched him.

  He grinned at her eagerness and her generosity, moving to kiss her other appealing breast. This one he laved as she whimpered and wiggled. Then he nipped her, sucking her high and hard to come away with a pop. “More marking?”

  “Yes, yes.” She stared at him, wide-eyed and mouth open.

  He sank further down her body to her ribcage and her belly. “You are well made here, too, darling Emma. Taut waist. Flat belly.” He swept his hand over her gossamer skin, then followed his caress with his tongue. Beneath his lips, he felt her insides quiver and blessed the years he’d spent in other women’s beds so that he might now bring this sweet woman ecstasy.

  He lifted her fully onto the bed and her thighs fell open. He snuggled between them. His cock fit along her seam and she flinched.

  But then she purred. “I feel very warm, Jack.”

  “As you should.” He pinched one of her nipples and smiled, then kissed her other pert breast. “And do you feel wet?”

  Her thighs tried to close but only clamped against his hips. “I do.”

  “And full?”

  “Empty!”

  He chuckled at her. Even in the act of making love, she amused him. “I will soon fill you, sweet Emma.”

  “How soon?”

  “Impatient, are you?”

  She hummed in frustration. “You know I am, you beast!”

  “This beast has more to teach you and more to savor before I come inside you.”

  “Like what?” she demanded, petulant as he had never before seen her.

  “Ah.” He swept his hand down to her mons and toyed with her moist curls. “How’s that?”

  She froze, but blushed bright pink.

  He traced her seam. “And that?’

  She bit her lips and moaned.

  “Or this,” he sank a finger deep inside her scorching little chat and she rose right up into his arms.

  “That,” she whispered as she struggled to get closer to him, “that is divine.”

  With his lips to her belly, he declared, “I have never felt so welcomed, darling.”

  She spread her legs wider and pushed her hips upward.

  Smitten, he sank another finger inside her raging channel and then another. His cock pulsed with urgency and his balls tightened in violent need. But not yet, man. She needs more.

  He slid lower, the fragrance of her core so sweet with musk he feared he’d swoon like an untried lad. With two hands to her outer folds, he nuzzled her pubic bone with his nose, then spread her swollen lips wide. She groaned, praising him and thrashing her head. Whether she moved in modesty or need, he could not tell. Whatever her sentiment, he knew how to replace it with lust. He put his mouth to her slick flesh and licked her with the dexterity of a man who adored the taste of a woman.

  “Oh, my god! Jack!”

  He had done all he could do to hold her down and let him have his fill. She was salty and creamy, hot as a summer day and so ready to be loved he had to eat her more to keep from plunging into her. “Shhh, my darling,” he soothed her between lavish swipes of his tongue along her plump flesh. “Let me,” he crooned as he found her slick nub and nibbled on her. “Christ, let me have more. Have all. Have you mad for me.”

  “I am!” she exclaimed as he marvelled that he had said those things aloud. He growled in a passion for her that had him so raging hard he feared he would lose his control and end this all too soon.

  “Hold still or I cannot love you as I should,” he told her.

  Eager as she was, she whimpered and quieted.

  Grateful and spurred to dark madness, he parted her nether hair once more and sank to the feast he had promised himself. She was flowing with love juices, translucent white fluid running over the crest of her lovely lips and onto the curve of her thighs. She smelled deliciously decadent, wanting him, feeding him with her essences and her passion. He licked her delicately, tracing the edge of one lacy fold, up to her bulging clitoris and down the other swollen side. Pushing his cock into the bedding for some relief, he knew he’d better teach her what a roaring climax could be before he took her hymen and gave her pain, no matter his careful preparations of her sweet, hot channel. Pushing her lips together, he offered himself the tasty treat of her clit, which he titillated with the tip of his tongue. Intrigued at her rapture, he laved her nubbin with a slow rasp and pinched her tiny ball of nerves until she moaned that she wanted more. In compensation, he sucked on her while she quivered beneath his lips. Now he’d show her paradise. Plunging two fingers inside her, he massaged her wet walls as she pounded around his fingers, and he prayed for sanity to fuck her now, slowly, as she deserved.

  She rocked in his arms, gasping, writhing. Soon as her pulses ceased, he rose on his knees, hungry, famished, raging to sink inside her, spreading her lovely thighs wide, admiring the deep red of her flesh coated by her glistening cream.

  “Come now, again, sweetheart, with me inside you,” he crooned as he sank so slowly into her and felt the barrier he knew awaited him. “We’ll do away with this, my Emma,” he whispered and pushed forward. In one fervent stroke, he sank further into her lush cavern and held.

  She did not squeal, nor whimper, nor cry out, but wrapped her long arms around his chest and pressed her warm lips to his mouth. “Darling Jack, oh do give me more.”

  He nearly shouted in quick relief, but the urge to truly claim her consumed him like a storm. Sliding deeper, he caught her to him, took her lips in a desperate kiss, and moved so slowly he marvelled he had the willpower. “How’s this, my pet?”

  “Thick.”

  He paused, a laugh in his heart. “You’ll make me insuffe
rable with pride.”

  “Wonderful,” she told him, her eyelids fluttering in ecstasy he could see in every line of her lovely face.

  “And this?” He sank deeper, lodged fully inside her sopping wet core.

  “Sublime.” She undulated in her joy and hooked an arm around his neck. “Now make me pound again as you did with your tongue and your fingers.”

  “Christ, how lucky can I be?” At her invitation, he ravished her mouth. Had he ever known a lover could be so wet and wild? No, never. He hauled her legs up over his forearms, her succulent channel clutching his cock—and he took her. Took her hard. Took her fast. And slow. And damn grindingly delicately until he knew her walls quivered and he gave her every bit of his hungry shaft, every ounce of his seed and every iota of his devoted lust.

  Her nails raked his arms, her legs hugged his hips, her core pulsed around his spurting shaft, milking him, absorbing him into her as if he had never existed but to be her lover.

  He fell forward, his head to her breastbone. His breathing rapid, his hands still cupping her shapely thighs, he kissed her chest. He rested for long minutes, allowing her a respite, too. Slowly, he returned to a conscious world he barely knew.

  Astonishment swept through him at his circumstances. This was his wife. His darling. His Emma. A Stanhope. A woman he adored here in bed—and yes, out of it. A treasure he had never thought to even imagine.

  He looked up at her, curious, terrified now that their first engagement was complete that he had not enchanted her this first time. “You are well?”

  She was smiling at him, her hand lifting to stroke his cheek, his jaw, his chest.

  “More than,” she told him in a husky tone that made his cock twitch to take her again.

  He made to pull away.

  “Don’t go!” She caught his arm. “Not yet. I…”

  Thrilled at her entreaty, he moved forward inside her and she squeezed him with her vaginal walls. She was a talented lover for a lady so new to the art. That thought humbled him, stirred him to admire her veracity and her joie de vivre. “You should rest, and if you hold me here like this and caress me as you do, I will remain much longer.”

  Her eyes flashed like lightning as she hugged him. “Stay then. I like you here.”