“I’m yours if you want me,” he said, the sentence a vow in his mind and heart.
“Oh, I want you,” Joan said, reaching out her hands. “Come here.”
The night flew by. To this point, Thaddeus’s erotic experiences had been enjoyable for both parties. They had never involved gusts of laughter. Or squeals. Or commands.
And yet later, when he leaned over her, arms braced against the mattress, and slid his cock through her silky, wet folds, Joan cried, “Thaddeus.”
A command. Definitely a command.
He eased forward, thinking to give her time to adjust to him. But this was Joan. Her hands tightened around his forearms, and she looked up at him, her lips deep red from his kisses.
“More,” she gasped. “Please?”
Thaddeus dipped his head and kissed her deeply, letting his recognition of who she was to him fill his lungs and sink into his skin. He moved slowly, letting her set the pace, reining in his senses because the slick glide threatened his control, narrowing his vision to her lips and her eyes.
He didn’t seat himself entirely because he was large, and she was very, very small. When he’d slipped in as far as he judged possible for her first time, he moved to his elbows and nipped her ear gently. “All right?”
Her fingers moved up and wound through his. “Thaddeus . . .”
The word caught at his loins and made him shake.
“More,” she commanded. And: “Please.”
The word echoed around his head for a moment, because he was so busy controlling his movements that he’d forgotten its meaning.
Hovering his lips over hers, their breath intermingling, he did his lady’s bidding. When a little pinch appeared between her brows, he kissed her back into pleasure, until her breath sped up again, making her breasts rise and fall, her nipples begging for his attention.
After that, he memorized every telltale sign, the catch in her breath when he altered an angle, the involuntary cry when he brought his hand into play, the low moan when he lowered his head to her breast. It became harder and harder to control himself as he was enveloped by the tightest, warmest cunny he’d ever known. And when the woman he loved was beneath him, her skin dewy, her eyes squeezed shut, her hands closed around his arms.
She wasn’t watching, so he let his face express everything he felt: how precious she was, how exquisite, erotic, beloved.
She, on the other hand? Looked frustrated.
“It’s your first time,” he said, his voice a rough whisper. “Maybe everything won’t happen at this moment?”
“It’s just there,” Joan cried, longing and annoyance threaded together. “I just can’t reach it, Thaddeus!” She opened her eyes, bluebells drenched with tears—and desire. Real desire because it wasn’t about him, but about her.
Her practiced glances were about the man she enticed, but this one?
It was pure, raw desire.
“Are you sore?” he asked gently, nipping her earlobe.
She shook her head. “The pain went away. After that, it felt so good. But somehow I simply can’t do it.”
He stopped, arms braced, dipped his head to kiss her. “There’s time, Joan. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the year after that.”
“I don’t want time,” she said, arching up. “I want to come! There are women who can’t . . .”
“Not you,” he said with certainty. He moved his knees forward, altering their joining and making her gasp. “You’re a bossy lass,” he said, dipping his head to nip her lip. “I love that about you. You’ll teach me how to please you.”
Her cheeks turned even rosier. Thaddeus marked the fact that she had silently accepted their future together. “Have you looked at the two of us joined?”
She shook her head, a lock of damp golden hair falling over her forehead.
Tenderly he pushed it behind her ear, and then pulled away, sliding partly out of her. She came up on her elbows and looked down her body.
His tool was dark red and stiff, and they watched together as he pulled all the way to the broad crown, then stroked slowly forward, parting the tuft of buttery curls that protected her. A rough sound broke from her throat as he breached her, and he grunted in response, pulling back again and thrusting forward a trifle faster. “Do you like that?” he rasped.
“Bloody hell,” Joan whispered, her eyes fixed on his rod. She bent her knees and arched up. “Oh.” She blinked.
“Better?”
He pulled back again, bringing his free hand to her nipple in a rough caress, and then timed a pinch to a deep thrust. “Watch,” he growled. Her eyes flew back to where they were joined.
Her mouth opened, so he raised his free hand and rubbed a finger along her lush lips, then tucked it inside. “Lick,” he commanded.
She sucked, her eyes heavy-lidded, and he had to take a harsh breath and regain control. Then he ran his finger down her silky cleft, pausing over a swollen nub masked by curls to swirl his finger.
Her hips strained up to him involuntarily, and her eyes flew from where they were joined, to his face. “Thaddeus,” she said. “Please, Thaddeus.” She stopped biting her lip. “Could you come deeper?”
Could he?
Damned right he could.
He dipped his head again and kissed her. “Not too tender?” he asked huskily. She shook her head wordlessly. “Are you sure?”
She gave him a look. She was a born duchess, and duchesses knew what they wanted.
Thaddeus pulled back again and then thrust until their bodies joined as deeply as possible, his rod buried in her heat. He sucked in another breath.
“Yes,” Joan panted. Her eyes were blissful.
He pulled back, thrust again, starting an insistent rhythm that threatened to destroy his control. Threatened to?
Did.
Joan’s knees pressed against his sides as she arched again, urging him on. Her hands slipped above her head, and she clenched his arms. “More, Thaddeus,” she commanded. “More.”
He bit back a smile. “Joan.”
“Yes?” she whispered. “Is there something I should do?” She ran her hand down his back and onto his bottom, making him shake. “You like that,” she said in a pleased voice.
His answer was a dazed grunt accompanied by a forceful thrust that made her eyes glaze with pleasure and hands fly back to his arms. “I love how thick you are,” she gasped.
Thaddeus managed to grin, even as he clenched his teeth. “I have heard a complaint once or twice, so I’m glad to hear it.”
She somehow managed to turn even brighter rose. “I didn’t mean!” Her fingers curled into his biceps. “I meant—” But she gasped as he plunged into her. “I like that.”
Her smile went to his heart.
“Joan,” he growled.
“Hmm?” She was near, her eyes wide, her brow dewy, her fingers biting into his arms. “This is me, claiming you,” he grunted, the ungentlemanly words slipping out of him. At this moment, he wasn’t a duke. He wasn’t a nobleman at all.
He was a man, a sweaty, panting man, making love for the first time in his life.
Joan’s eyes fluttered half open. “I’ll claim you later,” she gasped. She tightened on him and threw her head back, a throaty scream breaking from her throat.
Thaddeus’s heart almost stopped from gratitude.
He swallowed hard and dropped to his elbows, bucking into her once, twice, then exploding as her body pulsed around him.
While he was trying to catch his breath, Joan’s hands slipped from his arms, fingers caressing the marks left by her grip, and wrapped around his neck. He opened his eyes, dazed, almost dizzy, sleepy, loving.
Hers were glinting at him, shining. Not sleepy. “How soon can we do that again?”
His tool twitched, signaling its willingness. “Five minutes for a second bout, ten for a third.”
Joan captured his mouth with her own, her lips lingering on his, eyes open. “I see. Thaddeus?”
He was half erect al
ready; in some distant part of his mind he wondered if he would have to go through life hiding an erection every time his wife said his name.
“Yes?”
Her smile covered her whole face. “This is me claiming you,” she whispered.
Thaddeus looked down at her steadily. “’Til death do us part.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Do we have to be so grim?” Her brows drew together. “Because of your father?”
“It gives one a reminder of mortality,” Thaddeus said. “Damn it.”
Joan raised an eyebrow.
“How am I going to preserve my righteous anger against my sire, since he taught me what matters most in life?”
Her body went still under him. “Not . . . me?”
“You. You, Joan. With your breeches, and your joy, and your wit. The way you playact through life, making everyone laugh with you. The fact that you can’t sing. The fact that I have never felt as possessive about anything in the world, including my title. Don’t tell me that our children won’t be terribly naughty because I’m certain they will be.”
She didn’t say anything, her eyes fixed on his. “Are you . . . are you saying—”
“That I love you?” He kissed her nose. “I love you, Lady Joan, the best Wilde of all, the wildest of the Prussian offspring that might exist in the world, the perfect gentlewoman, the best Duchess of Eversley.”
“I gather we’re at a crossroads,” Joan said.
Thaddeus shook his head, certain of her. “You claimed me, remember?” He moved to lie on his side next to her, one hand curved over her hip.
“In the heat of the moment.” But she was smiling. “On that subject, who knew that ‘doing’ was so hot and sweaty? And”—she peered down her body—“messy?”
Thaddeus took a fold of sheet and gently patted between her legs. Getting up, he poured water into the basin and washed himself. Then he threw it out the window, and brought over fresh water and a linen towel. “My lady?”
“I can do it myself,” Joan said, looking embarrassed.
“Please?”
She nodded.
Thaddeus washed her with the same fierce attention he brought to almost everything in his life, washing a blur of blood from her inside thigh, making certain every fold was clean, rinsing the towel and then washing her beneath, below . . . everything.
They could have no secrets from each other. He smiled when he saw Joan turn red. “I am a perfectionist,” he told her. “I am looking at perfection.”
“I see,” Joan said, wiggling because he tucked a dry towel under her bottom and started dripping water down her cleft, drop by drop. “Why are you doing that?”
“For fun. When you are aroused, your cunny turns plump and even pinker,” he said, with all the gravity of a schoolmaster. He touched her gently. Her eyes turned smoky and she fell back against the pillows.
“And I’m thirsty,” he added, sliding farther down, so he could lap water.
Chapter Seventeen
Later, much later, Joan found herself wide awake while Thaddeus slept.
He looked like one of those medieval knights, burly legs meant for coursing up and down the field, shoulders topped with muscle, the better for hoisting a heavy jousting stick.
Were they jousting sticks? Jousting rods? Lances?
Speaking of which . . . his rod lay on its side, still thick but not erect. The sight made a happy thrum run through her body.
She felt as if sparks of pleasure were still flying around her body, following the path of a shock that had curled her toes. Who would have thought the act of bedding was so sweaty and breathless? The illustrations seemed cold-blooded in comparison; a man positioning his tool in just such a way while his partner looked on approvingly.
She’d once seen two june bugs, entwined but still flying, gripping hard to stay together as they lurched up and down in the air like drunken mates leaving a pub. It was like that: mad or drunk with the act.
Thaddeus’s eyes opened up again, not even dazed: clear and wide awake. “What are you thinking about?”
“Our resemblance to mating june bugs,” she told him, propping her head up on her hand.
He nodded, seeming unperturbed by being compared to an insect. He rolled to his side and glanced down at himself. Sure enough, his tool had become even thicker and showed signs of stiffening. “It’s been eight and a half minutes, or thereabouts.”
She tipped toward him and rubbed his nose with hers. “Can you count moments internally? I have to look at a clock.”
“Minutes range themselves up in my head if I wish to pay attention,” he said.
“You’re frightfully intelligent,” Joan said, feeling quite pleased. She’d never been more than mediocre in school, so it behooved her to find a man who could give her children a dose of powerful brains.
“So are you.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “In a different sort of way. My own way.”
Thaddeus nodded, accepting that.
“Do you care to discuss how to approach things with your father? Because it seems that we are going to—” She floundered to a stop.
“Marry,” Thaddeus said helpfully, obviously enjoying himself. “Claimed and reclaimed, remember? And will be once again, but with a ring.”
She couldn’t help noticing that his tool was announcing its readiness to go another round, a whole minute early.
Thaddeus smiled at her wryly. “Even the subject of my father doesn’t seem to dampen my enthusiasm for you.”
“First, we should discuss your father,” she said. “We both agreed that marriage was an impossibility, due to the fact that you may have to defend your dukedom in the courts, as well as polite society, and with particular attention to the latter, you ought to marry a lady of untarnished reputation.”
He shrugged his free shoulder.
“No, don’t shrug,” she said. “It’s important, Thaddeus. I can’t marry you if you’re not going to be a duke.”
He flinched.
“Don’t be silly. The title doesn’t matter, but you do. You’re a duke.”
“Not intrinsically,” he said slowly. “A duke is a role, like Hamlet. One of the reasons the man is so cross is because his uncle stole his crown.”
“Well, you can’t kill your half brother the way Hamlet did his uncle,” Joan said. “We have to figure out something else. Some way to make your father change his mind.”
“I don’t care,” Thaddeus said, looking peaceful. “I tarnished your reputation. We’d better marry immediately so that I can make you an honest woman.”
Joan rolled her eyes. “Are you trying to tell me that we should marry in order to head off a scandal, as if that would bolster your claim to the dukedom? Because I’m afraid I’m always going to be a scandalous choice.”
“I will marry you even if you are great with child on the way up the aisle,” Thaddeus said.
Joan felt a jolt of unfamiliarity, and then she realized what his expression was: happiness.
Thaddeus Erskine Shaw, future Duke of Eversley, was happy.
Because of her.
Because he loved her.
The words tumbled in her mind like tufts of wind-blown dandelion.
“No,” she said, clinging to the truth as she knew it. Thaddeus, her Thaddeus, would be lost without the dukedom. Perhaps he would blame her someday. “We have to work out the problem with your father before I’ll marry you.”
His eyes darkened. “You’ll marry me no matter what happens because of this evening.”
Joan sat up. Aunt Knowe had told all of the Wilde girls years ago that they had to make certain that their future husbands understood that they were not namby-pamby weaklings. The best marriage was a partnership, not indentured servitude, albeit at a ducal level. “I do not agree to marry you until I know that you will be a duke.”
His jaw was tight. “I wasn’t aware you were so interested in the idea of being a duchess.”
Joan looked down at him and felt a sur
ge of love. Thaddeus was so wonderful—albeit dense, like all men. “Think whatever you like,” she told him kindly. “My point is that your father and his lies hang over us like a storm cloud.”
The look in Thaddeus’s eyes might have made a lesser woman quail. One who hadn’t been raised by Aunt Knowe.
“Why don’t we pay him a betrothal visit?” she asked, inspired.
“Oh, so you’ll agree to be betrothed to me, but not to marry?”
“Well, perhaps,” Joan said. “Although as I said, I refuse to be responsible for your losing the dukedom.”
“Do you think that I couldn’t support you without the estate?” he growled.
She gave him a sunny smile. Marriage was going to be fun; she loved fencing matches, albeit verbal ones. “Horse training? My brother North makes a great deal of money that way.”
Thaddeus narrowed his eyes at her. He was watching her the same way that he’d perused the skies the other night. Curious and purposeful.
“Or would you become a stargazer,” she asked, inspired. “What do they call them . . . an astronomer?”
“No money in that,” Thaddeus said flatly.
“Is that what you would have done, in a different world?” she asked, reaching out and linking their right and left hands together.
“Studying the unattainable,” he said wryly. “What’s the good of it?”
“Knowledge is a good of its own.”
He nodded in acknowledgment. “True. My tutors were fully cognizant of the depth of experience it takes to manage three estates, and all the souls who live in and around them, so they made certain I learned useful information, such as accounting.”
“Perhaps you will encourage your son to love knowledge for its own sake.”
“Which brings us back to the question of marriage,” Thaddeus said.
Joan got up on her knees, loving the way his eyes caught on her breasts. She grinned at him, seeing his tool jerk against his stomach. “No marriage until you know you’re going to be a duke,” she said cheerfully. “Think of your future wife as a mercenary wench with a passion for titles.” She sank back on her heels. “She has a passion for other things too. May I touch?”
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