by Elisa Braden
She frowned. “Who?”
“Who do you suppose?”
Anger and panic filled her. “Not Sir Phillip.”
“Aye.”
“No!” She rushed toward him, reaching for the letter, but he held it out of reach. “You mustn’t! Sebastian.” She jumped, her fingers brushing only the corner, then struck his shoulder in frustration. “Phoebe is not yet one-and-twenty. He is still her legal guardian until January. If he suspects I have broken our agreement—”
“He will suspect nothing. He will do nothing.”
She fisted the edges of Sebastian’s coat, drawing him closer. “How do you know?” she gritted. “You do not.”
“He will suffer for what he did to you, Gus.” Sebastian’s voice was dark and deep, rumbling through her bones. “Badly.”
“Curse you, Bastian! I cannot risk it!”
“Trust me.”
“That is no answer, you giant, surprise-spoiling, presumptuous man!”
“Do you want the letter?” he taunted.
“Yes. Give it to me.”
His grin was slow and mad. “Come and take it, love.”
That was when she realized how near his mouth was to hers. How quick were her breaths, how hard were her nipples.
Good heavens. She was aroused. From the fight. What was wrong with her?
“You are a devil,” she panted, yanking him closer, pulling him down.
“And you are a nuisance,” he rumbled, crushing her against him, tossing the letter to the floor, and cupping her nape with his newly freed hand. “God, how ye plague me, woman.”
*~*~*
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“You will note the first part of the word is ‘gentle.’ The second part is ‘man.’ Though it has been my observation that wives do occasionally favor the latter over the former.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Mr. Elijah Kilbrenner in a letter discussing the complexities of wifely preferences.
He’d meant to seduce her. Lay her down upon his bed and kiss her from her toes to her navel to her beautiful, wide mouth. Make her slick enough to take him. Slide in gentle and slow. While he thrust inside, he’d intended to stroke her cheek and her hair. Tell her how precious she was to him.
He’d meant to be a proper husband, in other words. A gentleman.
He failed.
The moment she stormed his study—his new favorite room—lust hit him hard. It had been riding him for weeks, working him into a fair lather. But this was different. This was all at once.
Her cheeks were red—not pink. Red. Her nipples were little points pressing through layers of corset and linen and silk. Begging him to try them.
Her temper had caught everything on fire. Him, most of all.
He pressured her nape, bringing her mouth to his even as she jerked his coat and clawed at his cravat. Their lips landed awkwardly, then slanted into place.
Ah, God. Perfect.
He slid his tongue inside, needing her taste. He breathed her skin and breath, needing her scent. He forced her hips tighter into his cock, needing her to feel how she maddened him. Everything expanded, went tight and focused.
One moment. One woman. The need to be inside her.
She tore at him, yanking cloth and gripping his neck. She panted and moaned in staccato rhythm.
He stood and turned, lifting her up and setting her backside upon the desk. Their mouths fell apart just long enough for her to grab hold of his hair and begin kissing his jaw and his neck. She’d already torn away his cravat. He ripped at his coat, hearing a seam split. His waistcoat came easily.
She yanked his shirt free of his breeches and shoved upward with both hands, even as she laid desperate kisses around his collarbone and beneath his chin.
He pulled away long enough to toss the linen across the room. She brought him back to her mouth, little mewling sounds humming against his lips.
His hand went to her knee. Fisted a handful of silk. Drew it up over and over until he felt stockings and Augusta. He gripped her knees, spread them wide, and jerked her forward until her thighs flanked his hips.
The kiss ended. Her head fell back on her neck. “Oh, dear heaven. Bastian.”
“Aye,” he growled. “It will be rough. Apologies, Gus. Cannot help it.”
His fingers found her inner thighs damp. They found the heart of her drenched. Sleek folds were swollen, needy. She took his touch eagerly. She took his fingers with virginal resistance.
She grunted, digging into his shoulders, her eyes squeezing shut as her body seized his index finger.
“Easy,” he said. “Take one more.” He was rushing her, he knew. But everything heated and swelled until his damned skin pulsed like a raw wound.
He inserted another finger, stretching her. She squirmed and ground her hips against the desk, trying to accommodate the intrusion.
She was tight. So bloody tight.
With his other hand, he tore open his fall.
Her head came up. Her eyes dropped. And widened. “That … what … Bastian? Is that supposed to go …?”
“Inside ye. Aye.”
“Oh, I think not.” She clenched around his fingers. “That is impossible.”
“More than possible, love. It’s happening.”
Her eyes flew up, startled and frantic.
He gritted his teeth and stroked her with his fingers, watching the lamp of her lust light again, feeling the sweet, slick, feminine response ripple against him. With his other hand, he loosened three hooks at the back of her gown.
“Take off your bodice.”
“Mmm.” She was panting again, her eyes drifting closed as she accustomed to his fingers inside her. “Oh, yes. I—I’m beginning to … oh, you might have a point, Bastian. Your hands are just splendid … oh!”
“Gus,” he said sharply. “Remove your bodice. Corset, too, if you can. I need to see ye.”
Awkwardly at first, then with greater urgency and less care, she removed the silver silk, drawing it down her arms to bunch at her waist. Then, she twisted and writhed to loosen her corset, releasing the pressure holding her breasts.
Lush, round, creamy breasts.
He rewarded her with several more strokes of his fingers. Then he grasped the corset in his free hand and yanked down, unveiling her beauty to his starving eyes. Her nipples were red with arousal—like red plums, ripe and needy. Her skin was flushed. Ready.
He slid his fingers free. Took his cock in his hand. Grasped her thigh and moved her forward to the edge of the oak. “Lie back,” he rasped, helping her with a hand at her nape.
A tiny frown of confusion crinkled her brow, but she did not fight him. He positioned himself against her, his crown scalded and drowned by her heat.
“Bastian?”
He gripped her hips and drew her knees up and thrust. An inch. Maybe two.
A little feminine grunt of distress brought his head back to her. Nipples. Sweet, red plums. He was dying, but he wanted a taste.
He bent over her. Took one in his mouth. Suckled hard.
Her hands cupped his face. Laced through his hair.
“Bastian. Oh, God. Please.”
He feasted upon her. Thrust deeper. Another inch. Maybe two. Everything burned. His skin. His cock. His mind. His heart.
The other nipple, so hard and swollen. Needing his tongue and teeth. Needing the pressure he could give. He gave it. Suckled until she cried out. Clawed at his head and neck.
Another inch. Maybe two.
A keening cry and strong thighs at his hips.
He wanted to thrust. Harder.
“Augusta.” His long groan was a plea. He was begging. He could not wait much longer.
Her legs hooked on his lower back, pulling him deeper.
He buried his face in her neck. Kissed and thrust. Hard and deep. Withdrew an inch. Went deeper. Harder.
So tight. So soft. So beautiful his head spun.
She grew tighter. Clenching. Seizing.
He angled higher a
nd went deeper.
She screamed her pleasure and bucked against him.
A haze of gold and red, gray and cream wreathed his vision. It was Gus. Nothing but her. His hips worked her hard, his cock taking far more than he’d planned, until the heart of her body squeezed him like a vise, and she arched against him, an offering of ecstatic bliss. Her nipples were there, little plums tightly beaded and begging. He took them. Thrust faster. Pounding. Pounding. Felt his own pleasure rising. The explosion expanded. Pulsing. Concussing outward.
From the earth into his spine, then through his cock and into his wife, his release was a divine thing. It seized him, made him rougher. He groaned and thrust, wondering when the edge of paradise would come. It didn’t. His pleasure went on forever, slowly softening, but not ending. Because he was still inside her.
Augusta. His wife.
Gray eyes were soft and glazed, the dark centers so wide, they dwarfed their silvery rings. Her lips were swollen and red, her neck chafed from his lips and jaw. Slowly, he withdrew pins from her hair and scattered wine and flame across the oak.
All the while, he remained buried deep inside her tight heat, his hardness scarcely depleted by his release. But it soon returned. Her breathing shifted. Quickened. He bent forward and nuzzled a velvety nipple, enjoying the jerk of her body against him.
Her callused little hands stroked his back and raked his hair. “Bastian. I—I am too sensitive. It … you are making me … ooooh.”
He began his thrusts again, this time slow and deliberate. He felt her wince but kept his pace. Taking her other nipple in his mouth, he continued playing with the first, squeezing and rolling the ripe tip between his fingers, testing how far he could push her.
As it turned out, her limits were boundless. She loved his roughness. She reveled in the hard pressure of his fingers, the firm suction of his mouth, the steady thrust of his cock, even though she must be sore.
She took him anyway. And she moaned, arching for more. Begging him. Bastian. Bastian. Bastian. Like a prayer for pleasure.
He granted her everything he had, letting his body bring hers to the outermost edge, then spinning both of them tighter. Higher. She ran her hands everywhere—his back and neck, his hair and chest. She even discovered she could bring him pleasure by running her callused thumbs across his nipples.
It lasted longer than the first time, but not long, for all that. He could not sustain the steady rhythm, needing to ride her harder. Deeper.
So, he did, wrapping her legs around his waist once again and propping himself on his elbows above her so his chest could pleasure her breasts. This time, he watched more closely as she found her peak. He listened to every breath and whimper and gasp. He savored the sight of her neck arching, her mouth open in a long, hitched moan. He loved her flush and her strength and her frantic passion.
He loved … her.
Augusta. His Gus. He loved her.
The thought, which was no surprise, nevertheless caught him unawares. Lit a fire beneath his pleasure he hadn’t even felt the first time.
He came suddenly. Sharply. Exploding in a cataclysm so intense, he thought he might fly apart. Perhaps he did, because when he returned to earth, he felt as though he’d been reassembled into a new form.
Broken into pieces and remade by Augusta’s gentle, callused hands.
*~*~*
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Mornings are an excellent opportunity to set a proper tone. A kind word or affectionate gesture or humble apology soothes many aggravations a wife might suffer over the course of a day. Being awakened too early, for example. Or being married to a man.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Mr. Elijah Kilbrenner in a letter explaining effective measures for achieving domestic tranquility.
Upon awakening in Sebastian’s bed the following morning, Augusta stretched and winced. Good heavens, she felt as though she’d been thrown from a horse and then washed an entire houseful of bedding.
It was glorious. She grinned, rolling onto her back and blinking at the light from the windows.
He’d loved her four … no, five times. The first two had blended together a bit. The last three had been slower. He’d been thorough. With his hands. With his mouth. Yes, most diligent, indeed, as though he’d had something to prove.
God, how she adored him, her rough man.
Nothing he’d done had much surprised her, apart from the extraordinary pleasure of it. Her mother had been a plainspoken, earthy woman, and she’d been adamant that, before her death, Augusta would be well informed about every aspect of womanhood and marital congress. At age eleven, Augusta had sat at her mother’s bedside, round-eyed and alarmed by her descriptions.
“He will touch you everywhere, Augusta.”
She’d gulped and dropped her gaze to her own flat bodice. “There?”
“When your bosoms grow, you will understand why it is pleasurable.”
“I don’t think I should like to have bosoms.”
Mama’s laugh had quickly turned into a terrible cough before she’d continued, “You shall feel pain the first time he beds you. A man worth having will ensure this is balanced by pleasure, but you should be prepared to endure the discomfort. It eases considerably after the first time or two.”
“D-discomfort?”
Mama’s gaunt features had gentled into a smile. “Choose a good man, my darling, and you will soon forget such pain occurred. Now, let us move on to childbearing.”
“Oh, must we?”
Augusta could still hear her mother’s laugh, feel the squeeze of her strong, capable hand, see the steadfast love in her eyes. Augusta smiled at the memory, knowing how well Mama would have liked Sebastian. Father would have approved as well, she thought. Particularly once he learned Sebastian stood to inherit a title. Father had wanted gentlemen—preferably titled ones—for his daughters. She’d meant to keep her promise to him that she would find a gentleman of quality for Phoebe.
Glassington might be titled, but he certainly wasn’t of quality.
She sighed and rolled over, wondering where Sebastian had gone. She wanted to speak to him about her sister. She quickly washed and dressed, donning a soft, gracefully draped gown of cerulean wool.
She found him in the morning room, sipping coffee and reading The Times, frowning past his spectacles. Phoebe was there, too, her lips colorless, her eyes dull. Augusta frowned. “Phee, have you lost your appetite again?”
Phoebe looked up. “I had chocolate and a bun.”
“No eggs? Perhaps some bacon?”
Phoebe shook her head.
“Come now, you must have more than—”
“Leave her be,” Sebastian said quietly, folding his paper and tucking his spectacles in his coat pocket.
Augusta blinked and raised a brow at him. “I beg your pardon.”
Phoebe scooted her chair back and stood. “I shall take tea and ginger biscuits in my chamber. Later, perhaps. Please excuse me.” She left, looking haunted and listless.
Gathering her breakfast and taking her seat beside her husband, Augusta waited until the footman had exited before saying in a low voice, “She must eat, Bastian. You know why.”
“Mmm. She also knows why.” He took a sip of his coffee and looked infuriatingly unfazed by her irritation.
“You don’t understand anything,” she snapped, her fork scraping hard against her plate as she cut into her baked eggs. “When we were at the lodging house, it was all I could do to persuade her to eat a bit of bread and butter. She was dreadfully ill—”
“Aye. Now she’s better. You’ve been managing her too long, Gus.”
“I do not manage her.”
He snorted.
She slammed her fork down and leaned closer to him. “I do not,” she hissed. “I care for her. She is my sister.”
“She’ll soon be a mother.” His eyes roved between her lips and bosom. “So will you be, should things continue as they did last night, eh?”
Heat bloomed everywh
ere—her belly, her breasts, her thighs, her skin. “Do not change the subject.”
“Love, where you’re concerned, that subject is always foremost in my thoughts. You are fortunate I restrained myself.”
“Restrained? Five times is restrained?”
Black eyes met hers. They were hard and feverishly hot. “Aye.”
Good heavens. She could scarcely catch her breath. “Bastian.”
“Stop temptin’ me, Gus. I’d wager you’re too sore for the consequences.”
“How am I tempting you? I simply spoke your name.”
“Precisely.” He glowered. “Perhaps I should go to the club.”
Her vexation with him returned. “It is the morning after our wedding. You will stay here, where you belong.”
“There you go tempting me again. Best finish your breakfast, love. You keep on like this, you’ll need the sustenance.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve done nothing remotely provocative—mmph!”
He’d grasped her nape and pulled her into a kiss before she could finish a sentence. He tasted of coffee and lust. When he released her, her gown felt too warm and too tight and … oh, how she wanted him.
“Bastian,” she panted against his mouth.
“Aye, love,” he replied, stroking a sensitive little spot at the back of her skull, just above her nape. He sent shivers rippling down her spine.
“I am worried for Phoebe.”
“I know.”
“I want to help her.”
He kissed her once more, this time with sweet, slow tenderness. “We will. I’ve a plan.”
“Tell me.”
He sighed. Chuckled. Released her nape. “You are the most obstinate woman I have ever known, Augusta Kilbrenner.”
She smiled, hearing the pleasure in his voice. “It has served me well.”
He answered with a grunt. Then, he sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “The woman Glassington plans to marry.”
“An heiress. Yes?”
“Aye. Her name is Miss Elder. I plan to speak to her father this afternoon. If the man has any sense, he will prevent the marriage.”
Hope—a frightening degree of hope—swelled in her chest. “Do you—do you think it will work?”
