Her Wicked LibertineEDIT

by Torquay, Lisa

  Edwina crossed her arms under her breasts to stave off the effect he invariably extracted from her. “Safety is a concept I wouldn’t associate with you.” Her chin notched up, a wise smile on her lips.

  “And you shouldn’t.” His irises tracked her from coiffured hair to slippered feet, only to raise and caress her bosom. “I was a second away from thrashing the lecherous baron.”

  Funny how his scrutiny of her chest produced such a different effect from said baron. A warm flush surfaced from her face downwards together with the nipples rising to attention. Her need for him to touch them arose overwhelmingly.

  “Lecherous barons and the likes are the reason I favour discreet attire,” she defended.

  That wolfish side-smirk made an appearance. “Oh, but they don’t do you justice, my little shrew.”

  His dark eyes gleamed in the warm lantern light, the horses’ clopping the sole sound reaching them. The carriage’s interior cocooned them in a sense of intimacy that threatened to lull her to him.

  “And I’m to dress exclusively for your enjoyment, no doubt,” she questioned, preferring to wear practical clothing that afforded her freedom and movement; hang what others thought.

  “My enjoyment would be even greater were I to divest you of them.”

  Damn the reprobate! His words provoked a wave of sensation to travel through her skin, contracting her abdomen and pooling in the very core of her. She sucked in air, the nervousness making her tongue dart out to moisten her too dry lips.

  Harris missed none of it, his focus so intense, she feared she might combust.

  “You’re drunk,” she accused, struggling to dispel the atmosphere.

  His wide torso came forward as he rested his forearms on his knees, shortening the already scarce distance between them. “Not as much as I’d like.” Their stares collided, hers rivetted by the manner he drew her to him, they sat there drinking in one another for long minutes. “What is Brunswick to you?” he asked at last.

  The question startled her out of the haze fogging her mind. “His late wife was my second cousin,” she supplied, perplexed he hadn’t heard of the connection.

  “He’s family,” he concluded, as though coming by the duke’s protectiveness.

  “Of sorts, yes.” Titus kept himself too aloof for her to consider him as approachable as a member of her family would be. Most of the time, he walled himself in the country surrounded by his hunting dogs, rarely travelling to London. He must have had business to attend to if he came to town.

  “Keep away from him.” The command came low and final.

  Her glare bulged on him. “Why ever for?”

  “He’s not for you.” His hands clasped together, and they almost touched her skirts.

  Even risking putting him in her personal space, she came forward and rested her arms on her knees, miming him. “I’ll be the judge of that.” Only then did she realise that in this position, she dished a magnificent view of her bosom to him. The wrap she had put on had fallen down her arms with the vehicle’s movement.

  His irises darkened even more as they slid down for a second before going back to her. “Your stubbornness arouses me like hell,” he rasped gruffly, though she didn’t miss the double entendre of his words. Her stubbornness and most assuredly, her chest.

  The comment prompted her to sit straight, which did nothing to avoid the equally arousing force of his words on her insides.

  The carriage staggered to a stop, making her grateful for the end of the journey.

  Inside the house, Harris allowed Hobson and the footman who accompanied them to retire after the butler had taken their gloves, his hat and coat, and Edwina’s wrap.

  “In my study,” he ordered Edwina, striding there without looking to check if she followed.

  But his senses were so attuned to her he registered no noise came from her as she must have stood still, unwilling to obey. Seemingly reluctant to make a scene, she veered in his direction. There’d be hell to pay for her meekness, he predicted. He didn’t want to part from her for the night, not just yet. Her noncompliance stimulated him, made him wish to test its limits. Made him want to spend the whole day at home merely looking at her, watching her crochet her laces, read, or do whatever she did in his absence. He’d been spending too much time in the warehouse imagining her about his abode. Which vexed him to no end, but also led him to crave her company.

  At the sideboard, he poured her a sherry and a generous dose of whisky for himself.

  As the door clicked shut, he turned to offer the glass to her. She had stalled by his desk.

  It was the first time she came into his private space, lined with oak panelling and decorated with stern furniture. Her presence here would change it forever. He had the impression he would always remember her standing in the starkly masculine room in her frilly dress and prim stance.

  “I’ve had enough to drink,” she said but took the glass to taste a delicate sip.

  He hadn’t, he completed mentally. Not by half. He should admit to a certain tipsiness, not enough though to dampen his urges or numb his senses to anything manageable; to a point where he didn’t lust after her like a shipwrecked fairly lusted after water.

  “Have a seat,” he said, indicating one in front of his massive desk.

  Her fingers rolled the delicate glass stem between them, the cylindrical shape evoking unspeakable fantasies. “No, thanks, I—”

  “Stand then,” he interrupted, sprawling on his chair behind the desk before his ‘urges’ showed.

  “I must take my leave,” she said, placing the unfinished sherry on the desk.

  “Stay,” he answered curtly.

  Her eyes narrowed, her slightly too long nose flared with an intake of air, her cheeks flushing a becoming pink, even if in chagrin. Devil take him, but he was becoming addicted to rising her temper, unbalancing her in the same way she did him.

  “I’m to be your—” she gulped, hesitating to use the word. “Mistress. Not your trained dog.”

  His lips stretched to the side while his mind imagined her on all fours as he… “Virtually the same,” he taunted, blocking his train of thought. Though he failed in blocking the effect on him.

  “Not your property in any case,” she defended doggedly.

  Harris took a swig of his whisky to wash his dry throat, leaving the glass on the desk. His blood had rushed downwards, which contributed to addle his mind further. “If you were my wife, you would be,” he answered. The expected horror at the notion didn’t materialise. He must have drunk more than he realised.

  Edwina laughed. The chit laughed impudently at the idea—to his face. “Now there’s something I’ll never be!”

  Though vexing, the amused sound got him so hard he nearly ached. Should she be his wife, he’d take her even before the wedding breakfast.

  He held one of her hands and pulled her to his side. “By law, you’d have to cope with this,” he said as he placed her hand over his hard member.

  Her tragic lips fell open with a gasp as crimson flooded her creamy skin. Their gazes meshed, hers shocked, his taunting. She didn’t do a pulling movement; he didn’t force her to stay. Both froze, waiting for the other’s next move. A lifetime elapsed without either giving way.

  Still keeping his gaze on her, he loosened her wrist, both his hands going to the armrest. In this position, her upper arms came level with his head, giving him a hedonistic view of her orbs straining against her dress.

  Her lips pressed as her delectable bosom lifted and lowered. And then her fingers twitched ever so slightly. The sensation was so devastating his hands fisted to whitening point as he locked his every muscle in a quest to remain motionless.

  Her fingers twitched for a second time, and he went rock hard. Tentatively, she moved her hand from right to left, his flesh suffering each tiny indentation. He had no voice—or wits—remaining to guide her. Left to her own devices, she shredded his sanity to pieces. Hesitantly, he
r palm lowered to the base, the pulse on him nearly making his heart stop. Further still, she found his balls and they contracted painfully.

  Emboldened by the way he let her choose, that deadly palm took the opposite direction, rising to—fuck! It cupped the hard-to-explosion-point tip of him. He never imagined he could get any harder. He did, and it hurt. She made her way back down, sowing pure agony in her wake.

  He’d not survive another second!

  “It’s too… It won’t…” she croaked.

  He looked at her then; the flush had transformed from shy to aroused. But her pleated brows told of confusion. The scarce information she must have learned probably clashed with the reality she confronted at that moment.

  “It’ll fit nicely,” he managed to rasp. “Want to see it?”

  The simple idea of her seeing his bare cock nearly sent him over the edge. But then she sucked her lower lip inside her mouth and sank her teeth on it, eyes wide on his. Imperceptibly, her head gave a nod.

  She was going to kill him.

  Seeking to distract himself, he swiftly undid the flap of his breeches, rucking them down together with his underwear. His member popped out hard, leaky, hungry.

  Her arm had fallen by her side. Her bulged eyes ogled his bared erection, her hand bunched and unbunched her skirts, rubbing up and down as if eager to continue the exploration.

  “Touch me,” he prompted.

  It was all the encouragement she needed. Lifting the dainty limb, she approached him. Watching its route, he could barely stifle a groan of expectation. But she merely put forward the index to feather on the flowing slit. The contact was insufficient and explosive at the same time. More pre-cum flooded her digit, her eyes gobbling his organ.

  She lifted her hand to inspect the moisture, the index rubbing the thumb, testing the texture.

  “This facilitates the whole…process,” he supplied in a strangled voice.

  Apparently satisfied with the explanation, her attention snapped back to his cock, her hand following.

  The index returned to the tip, this time to slide down the underside all the way to the base. His hiss escaped before he could stop it.

  She froze. “Does it hurt?” she asked at his member. That she seemed incapable of ungluing her gaze from his erection should be comforting. Instead, it felt like mediaeval torture.

  “No,” he growled. “Too much pleasure.”

  Her mouth formed an ‘oh’, and his arms strained to pull her to her knees and put him out of his misery. The enormous effort to contain himself should earn him a medal for self-restraint. Something he rarely exercised.

  She had the splendid idea of closing her fingers over his girth, light, without the necessary pressure he required. Nonetheless, his member reacted like a volcano. More blood stuffing it to the limit, his seed pooling ready for action in his balls.

  “Goddammit!”

  His head lolled on the back of his chair, an anguished moan emitted from the depths of his constricted throat, eyes shutting to enclose him in a world of ragged feelings.

  The feather tunnel of her hand moved up, beckoning the torturous heaven that was just around the corner, but also light-years away.

  At this point, she rendered him mindless, acting on instinct. His fingers hooked a gauzy sleeve, gently tugging it down to bare one breast. Next, he pulled her to him and latched on the nipple as if his life depended on it. Which it did, because it was hanging by a thread.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The sound that escaped Edwina should only be labelled wanton. In fact, if anyone asked her how she came to be in this study with her hands on the cad’s parts, she’d not be able to answer. From the moment he clasped her hand on him, any caution had fled. Now he flash-flooded her senses as his mouth worked on her nipple and her hand on his—what did he call it?

  He filled his mouth with what he could take of her breast. In response, she sped her hand, applied more pressure, delighted in his scorching hardness covered in utterly smooth skin. There was no way he’d fit inside her, but touching him was singularly paradisiacal.

  Her fingers worked on him as his mouth worked on her in a blind crescendo, her core becoming as heated as his appendage. The faster she went, the more he suckled, so she sped in search of her reward.

  Until the moment he could take no more. His head fell back on the chair as grunts freed from his lips.

  “Bleeding hell! This will be huge!” he gnarled.

  She had no time to ask what he meant before his spine arched and something hot and sticky jetted from the tip of him, his parts twitching and undulating frenetically.

  “Don’t stop!” he instructed in between curses she’d never heard in her life.

  She didn’t, mesmerised by the interminable gushes coming out of him.

  At last, he fell limp on the chair as much as his appendage fell limp on her palm, the back of it washed in warm liquid. His chest rose and fell in quick gulps of air.

  She studied him and that part of him for several seconds. Her eyes rushed to him as he moved his head, and his lids opened to reveal unfocused irises. Slowly, he focused on her.

  One hand produced a handkerchief while the other circled her wrist. “This is my seed,” he inhaled deeply, still catching his breath. “It can get you with child.”

  If he poured it in her, she understood. Apprehension dominated her. If he made a child in her, life as she knew it would vanish. “I don’t—” she started.

  “You won’t.” He cleaned her hand. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  Well, that was relieving, she couldn’t deny.

  “Come here,” he said, pulling her by the hand to sit on his lap, facing the desk.

  With no energy or will to resist, she sat on his solid, warm thighs rather clumsily, unfamiliar with this contact with another person.

  “It’s retribution time,” he warned. “Lean your feet on the desk.”

  “But—” she hinted at a protest. Not even when she was a girl playing with dolls did she sit in such an outrageous manner. A nanny, a governess or her mother were always there to ensure her legs remained on the ground, pressed closed, annulling any mention, feeling, or explanation of a certain piece of her body she must wash without even looking at it. As if it didn’t exist, didn’t feel, didn’t respond to stimuli.

  “Do it, Edwina!” he demanded with a touch of impatience. “This pertains our contract.”

  With an embarrassment that wrung her insides and no answer to offer, she left her slippers on the carpet. Holding her skirts in place, she rose her feet as elegantly as the position allowed.

  “Widen your feet,” Harris added.

  “The skirts won’t allow it,” she protested. For obvious reasons, those skirts weren’t made for freedom of movement. They were designed to limit and repress.

  “Easily solved,” he answered, wrinkling the fabric up until it bunched around her hips. “Try it now,” he continued.

  That had to be the most alien action she had ever dared in her entire life. Hesitantly, she slid her stockinged feet towards opposite directions. The movement reflected on the very core of her, and she registered every inch of it as if it blossomed, opened. The folds separated from each other, causing a strange sensation to tingle in those intimate areas. A gasp came out with the novelty of it.

  The spread of her legs made it necessary for her to lie with her head on his shoulder. As their cheeks touched, his breath fanned the exposed skin of the sleeve he kept down. Neither had straightened their clothes.

  Both his hands landed on her knees; warm, callused, firm. His head moved as his lips met her neck, leaving her no choice but to close her eyes and revel in this multiple siege.

  With no hurry at all, his hands slid down her stockinged thighs to reach the frilly garters. From there, they found a strip of bared skin. Shamelessly, those palms caressed the sensitive spot. What before had been a provocation, with his move became undiluted yearning. Ripples and more rip
ples of melting sensation assailed her.

  “Your skin is pure delectation,” he rasped in her ear, making it another siege point with his voice and those lips lining the shell.

  One of his hands advanced onto her garters while the other remained on her bared thigh. Insidious fingers sneaked into the garment’s slit, a rough index caressing the whole surface underneath. Wet, hot surface. Index and middle-finger gaped her folds, the sensation so acute she had no time to protest. And then he found the spot where she ached whenever he stood near her. He perused it with an almost-not-there caress. She gasped, twisting in a plead for more.

  “You see,” he rasped in her ear. “If it’s not the right pressure, it leaves you wanting.” He increased the pressure just a little. “Same with me.”

  “D-did I do it wrong?” she asked in between moans.

  “No, you just drove me mad with desperation.” He opened his mouth and nibbled on the jumping vein on her neck.

  “S-sorr—oh!” He broadened the circling mercilessly.

  “Don’t be.” He licked the spot on her shoulder. “You gave me such a wild pleasure, like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”

  When she thought he could not make anything worse, his other hand grazed up her bodice to cup her exposed breast. Edwina’s eyes closed as she saw stars. The hand on the breast tweaked the nipple, the other increased pressure and speed.

  Good gracious! She understood why he cursed earlier.

  With his mouth and each of his hands, he wound her up to impossible tension. It ached, it promised, it delayed. He pulled hard at the dusky tip, accelerated between her legs, her body arched against his. For a moment, everything in her stilled, no further sensations, no additional ache, she became a quiet sea just before the storm. He moved once more, and it broke. The sea sloshed, clashed, rose, and roared in a tempest full of lightning. There was a scream she hoped fervently not to be hers, but it was. He never relented until pleasure became peace and her body slackened on the solid wall of his.