Her husband.
If Julius were not so kind, he could demand everything from her this very moment. It was his right to have her when he pleased now. And yet, all he wanted was to see her.
She hesitated only for a moment longer before she let her dress fall and then she took off the corset. She gathered the hem of her chemise and paused once more before she began to lift the material. She didn’t look at him as she worked the gown past her knees, up her thighs, and over her head.
She had no clue where it landed but quickly turned toward his shirt and began to slide it on. She heard a groan, maybe in protest, but she wasn’t sure. In nothing more than her stockings and shoes, she closed the two halves of his skirt and looked over at him.
Julius’s eyes did a slow crawl up her body and finally, his gaze hit her face. Lust was paramount in those violet irises. He stepped toward her and took the shirt halves from her hands. She gasped when he ripped it open and drank her in once more.
He pulled in another breath and then closed his eyes and moaned. “Maura, you’re absolutely beautiful.”
She swallowed. “I’m… not as well-endowed as others.”
His eyes flashed to her again and then he opened her shirt, staring at her as though she were rain at the end of famine. His blunt hunger made the valley between her legs grow heated and her nipples harden.
His eyes widened and darkened further and then he closed the shirt. It was a long moment before he spoke again, but his voice was nowhere close to normal. “Your body is exquisite. I could prove it to you if you like.” His gaze remained fevered.
She felt the urge to give in.
And stilled.
Why not give in? She hadn’t been in the mood before, but she certainly was now, and he was her husband by all rights. She no longer felt the need to deny him. Yes, there were things that still needed to be discussed, but she put them aside as she settled her hands over his. This was her husband and nothing they did now would be wrong by anyone’s account.
Slowly, she pulled the shirt halves back once more and then allowed them to fall off her shoulders.
Julius stood still and silent, reverently gazing over her again. He clung to the parted garment and she couldn’t help but smile. When he looked at her, she felt like a present being unwrapped and prayed she’d be cherished.
Her voice was very soft, yet she knew he heard her when she said, “You can let go of the shirt now.”
He let go as though the thing were flames in his hands. The shirt joined the rest of her clothes on the ground. He held her gaze and waited for further instruction.
Yet with everything she’d read about this act, she didn’t know what to do or where to start.
“I’ll remove my stockings,” she went on. “You can remove your shirt.”
“Why?” He seemed puzzled.
She lifted a brow. “Would you rather we do this with your shirt still on?”
His eyes widened. “Do what? What are we doing?”
She smiled and then laughed after realizing he wasn’t in her head. She’d told him she wasn’t ready but hadn’t told him she’d changed her mind. “Make love to me, Julius.”
His continued bewilderment made her laugh again. “Now?”
“Now.”
He grabbed her hips and pulled her closer. “Right now?”
“Right now.”
* * *
chapter 44
* * *
Maura caught Julius’s smile and screamed as she was tossed into the air. He caught her and then settled her gently onto the bed. He crawled on top of her, his face alight with gladness. “Maura.” He shook his head. “I…” He kissed her roughly and she barely had a chance to respond to the action before he pulled away. “Thank you.”
She touched her cheeks. None of her books had ever spoken of such courteous exchanges. “Oh, you’re welcome, I suppose.”
His gaze softened, and he tilted his head. “Thank you.” The words came heavier now, and she was no longer sure why she was being thanked. She didn’t know what to say.
His body remained poised over her, an arm’s length away. There was still lust on his face, but now she saw something else. It was a look she’d never seen on Julius’s face, something that made her own desires rise.
Then she thought of something to say. “You’re my husband.” She didn’t know why she’d thought it the right thing to say at that moment, but it felt right.
He smiled and then straightened. Kneeling on the bed, he grabbed one of her legs and removed her boot before slipping the stocking down her calf. “I’m your husband,” he murmured.
Tingling started at her mound. She had no idea why the words made her so very hot. “Yes.”
He moved to the other leg and repeated his action, but his words were different. “You’re my wife.”
Pleasure spread from where his fingers gripped her thigh before he slipped her stocking off. “Yes.” She’d wanted him in the past, but she’d never wanted him so badly.
With her body completely exposed, he stood and began to remove his own clothes. His boots went and then his shirt.
Maura gasped at how beautiful his chest was. She sat up and trailed her fingers down his stomach, enjoying the ridges at his abdomen. Then she touched his shoulders, that hard part of him she’d always admired before sliding her hands down the muscles in his arms. Mine. It’s all mine.
His hands were at his trousers and she watched captivated as his undid the button and then with great haste pulled both trousers and small clothes from his toned frame.
When he straightened, she got her first sight at his erection. He was long, and she was fascinated at its curved position. She grabbed his swollen tip, wanting to tilt it down for a better view.
He groaned at her touch.
“You look different than I expected,” she said, giving his thick member a firm stroke, enjoying the pull of his skin against the hard muscle underneath. Then she did it again. “Does the angle make a difference in the act?” She looked up.
He was panting. His head was thrown back. The words seemed to come ripped from his chest. “You’ll have to tell me.” He grabbed her hand and set it aside before he looked down at her. His hands touched her shoulders and slowly he set her back on the bed, coming down with her until their chests nearly touched.
He landed at her side and kept himself up on a single elbow. Once again, his gaze stroked her body and then his hand followed, down the valley between her small breasts and over her flat belly before returning back up.
Maura closed her eyes and allowed herself to simply feel him and get used to his touch. His hand stroked her side and then crawled over her ribs before he grabbed her breast again. She gasped, an ache set to a heavy beat in her mound.
He pinched her nipple and she rolled her hips, trying to alleviate the pressure.
His voice held dark amusement. “Does my wife like this?” He tugged at her nipple again and she clenched her thighs tight.
“Yes,” she gasped between breaths.
She felt his next breath against her other nipple before his mouth closed over it and reeked madness over her body as he bit, tugged, and sucked hard on the peaks of her breast, switching from one to the other as his hand went down lower, over her stomach, and through the fine hair between her legs.
He touched her there and she would have shot off the bed had he not been there, now crowding over her. She could feel how wet she was and heard him groan as he set a light pressure over the tender point at the top of her folds.
“Oh!” She thrashed her head from side to side and fought for every breath she could draw into her lungs. Her hips began to rotate again in a way she knew to be wanton.
Then he pulled her hand away and settled himself between her legs. “I plan to be inside of you when you come.”
She didn’t mind so long as he didn’t leave her. Not now. Not ever.
She gripped his shoulders and watched as he placed his erection at the head of her mound.
He met her eyes.
She spoke first. “I know it’ll hurt, but I want you. Please.”
His eyes were hooded as he nodded and then slowly he began to sheathe himself with her body. He stretched her beyond what she thought possible and didn’t stop until every inch of him was inside. She pulled in a breath and then another.
His voice trembled. “How do I feel?”
“Big.” It was the first thing that came to her mind.
He laughed. “May I move?”
“Yes. Please.” She wanted to get to the good parts of the act.
He chuckled and then gradually slipped from her body before thrusting back in, again and again. There was no pain, just slight discomfort, but just as she knew it would, the discomfort fled and was soon replaced with vast amounts of bliss.
His strokes stayed steady and she lifted her knees to take more of him, wanting him deeper. Then, as if he could read her mind, he surged forward, planting himself down to her mound and rocking his hips at the end of every thrust.
Maura screamed in ecstasy, not even sure what she was saying or if she made any sense at all. All she knew was that she never wanted him to stop. It was glorious. She could feel the tip of his erection rubbing her inner walls, driving her to madness and making her gluttonous for everything he was giving her. “Yes. Please. Yes. Right there. Oh, yes!” She was in love with this, weeping and already praying she could have this every day. She locked her legs around his hips and her arms around his thick neck.
He movement became relentless then, his pounding as savage as his groaning. “Wife.”
“Yes.” She was here. She was with him. The brutality in which he loved her made her cry out with every stroke.
He gripped her hair, forcing her face toward his. “Mine.” He barely sounded like himself.
She was forced to open her eyes to make sure it was Julius with her, inside of her. It was. His eyes were hard and as determined as his shaft, making her weep just as much as her mound did around his ever-swelling erection. “Julius.” She moved a hand to cup his cheek. His body glistened with sweat.
“Maura.” He tilted his head into her palm.
“Yes.” She nodded around her emotion as she was rocked closer to her climax. It was right there.
His jaw hardened. “Mine.”
“Yes.”
“Forever.”
She choked around her reply as her body came undone. She felt herself explode, again and again as he continued to piston into her. She felt impossibly unreal, yet she could feel warmth shooting from her core.
Julius cursed and shuddered and then she watched with wide eyes as he clamped his teeth together and came, digging himself deeper inside of her as he shook in the remnants of his release. Then he lowered his head to her chest and pulled in a breath.
A moment later, he looked up at her with wonder. “Maura.”
She blinked and then watched him back away. His eyes fell to the sheets between them to find it soaked, as was the area around his deflating member. She bit her lip. “Is that normal?” She groaned in embarrassment. “Did I…”
“I’ve no idea what you just did, but I enjoyed it.” His face shined with utter disbelief and happiness. “God, I wonder if you do that every time.”
She’d felt when her body released and hadn’t been prepared for the vast amount of it. “This isn’t normal then?”
He leaned forward and kissed her, his mouth splitting into a grin. “Not that I’m aware of.”
She frowned. Not even in this could she be normal.
He leaned forward and kissed her. “Nothing we do is wrong. I like it and you couldn’t seem but to help doing it. Don’t worry about it.”
Maura swallowed and nodded in understanding. Julius was her husband and if he didn’t mind it, then she didn’t see why she would. “But now the bed is wet.”
He kissed her again. “You can sleep on the other side of the bed. I’ll have a servant change it before we rest tonight.” The dimples came out again. “I’ll also request extra sheets.”
Her embarrassment was forgotten when his mouth assaulted her lips.
A moment later, he stood and moved to the table. He returned with a cool cloth. He lowered himself between her legs and proceeded to clean her with tender touches. His gentle yet merry expression bemused her.
“I didn’t bleed,” she said aloud.
“That’s all right.” He kissed her inner thigh, sending tingles through her. “I know to whom you belong.”
When he finished, he stood and went back to the table.
Maura turned over, feeling stiffer than ever, and then proceeded to crawl underneath the sheets on the other side of the bed. She snuggled deeply and inhaled his scent from the pillow. She felt the lull of sleep but didn’t want to close her eyes. Not yet.
He returned with trousers on and stood by the bedside as he pulled his shirt on. She couldn’t help but feel slightly wicked at watching a man dress. She groaned sadly as his shirt closed with the final button.
Then he knelt on the floor until they were face to face. “Thank you for walking out of the study with me.” He reached out and smoothed her hair back. “I know it must have been hard to defy your father.”
The words triggered all the things she’d put away to discuss later. “You’re my husband, and I understood why you don’t wish for me to hunt for the statue.” She’d taken one look at the storm in his eyes and recalled the torture she’d put him through with her little act the previous night, pretending she would give her soul to Albion in order for him to find the statue.
He touched her cheek and her lips before he stood. “Sleep. I’ll return later.”
She leaned up on her elbow. “Where are you going?”
“Somewhere where I won’t be tempted to take you again so soon.” He grinned and then left, closing the door behind him.
Maura smiled and then closed her eyes. She thought sleep would be hard to find with the lingering worries in her mind, but exhaustion won and in short order, she slipped into sleep.
* * *
chapter 45
* * *
“Call that damned vicar back,” Julius said as he strolled into Morris’s cabinet, a large room for his personal use upstairs. He was not at all surprised to see a few other members of the Brotherhood there, along with those men who were not. Besides Frank and Francis, who were likely still back in London searching for Maura’s ghost, only Emmett and Lorenzo were missing.
Morris lifted a brow from where he sat in a wingback chair. “I thought you’d be shouting for an annulment after Lord Foxridge’s announcement.”
The other men were scattered about on the couches or leaning against the walls.
Anthony was by the window. “As did I.” His expression was cooler than usual. “I was ready to step in had you turned your back on her.”
“As was I,” Prince Garrett said with a fond smile. “Maura is an extraordinary woman.”
Julius dropped into the first chair he could find and tried to keep the irritation from his voice. “That’s Lady Darvess to you both, and I’ll thank you to take your pining elsewhere. Maura and I are married and there will be no annulment.”
“Pity.” Garrett held a glass of some dark liquor in his hand. “I knew my boys would like her.”
Julius adjusted himself in his chair at the mention of children and once again, Julius was reminded that he’d come inside of Maura. He hadn’t planned to, but her gushing climax had distracted him so greatly. He’d begun spilling himself before he realized it and already in the throes of it, he’d buried himself further inside her moist heat.
Thinking about it made him want to return to her post haste, but he needed to get some control over himself before he saw her again. Besides, Maura needed her rest for their next bout of lovemaking. He vowed to not come inside her again, but he wondered if it were already too late. He knew it only took a single act to create a child.
His pulse beat loudly in his head, fea
r gripping him.
“I’ll write the vicar and make sure he returns in the morning.” Morris stood and moved to his writing desk.
“Would you care to tell us what the meeting with her father was about?” Allen asked. “Or are we not allowed to know?”
Julius thought of what he could and couldn’t tell these men. “He wanted to pull Maura into a hunt for something that likely doesn’t exist. I said no.”
“Maura doesn’t wish to help her father?” Calvin asked, leaning forward. “She did find the Valdeston treasure.”
“What has he done to deserve her help?” Julius inquired. “He locked her away for nearly half her life. If he wants to continue playing in the dirt then so be it, but I’ll not involve myself or my wife in his matters.”
Calvin lifted a brow and then shrugged before leaning back in his chair. “If it had been Alice, I would have felt the same.”
“But Maura should have a say,” Morris said as he stood from the writing table and walked over to the bell pull. “It seemed clear that Maura still loves her father. She smiled when he came into the house. If you recall, Maura said he used to visit her when he was in the country and he seems to care for her. I don’t know what I would have done if my child had started seeing things. I pray I would have made a different choice, but what’s done is done. She may wish—”
“No.” Julius cut him off, because the very idea of Maura being anywhere near Lord Foxridge angered him. The man had locked her away and that was after her mother had given her over to a vicar who’d obviously scared Maura half to death. He would have been of a mind to cut Lady Matilda off as well, but Maura would have never been released from Bedlam had it not been for the lady. For that, Julius would remain reasonably kind to her.
“You’ve never cared for disappointing parents,” Morris said, continuing to push the matter.
Julius knew where he was going with this and glared at him.
“What does he mean by that?” Anthony asked.
“Nothing,” Julius said swiftly. He had no intentions of talking about his own family. “I trust very few people in general.”
Maura’s Special Spinster’s Society (The Spinster’s Society) (A Regency Romance Book) Page 16
