by Emma Wildes
“Now?” Breathless suggestion colored her tone.
“It seems the perfect time.”
“I’m probably wet enough,” she admitted without shame, knowing she was. Her breasts felt tight and full and her cleft tingled from what he’d just done. “I think I’d like you to hurry.”
“I know I’d like to hurry.” His engorged shaft confirmed his hoarse words, rising hard from the opening in his fitted trousers as he jerked the buttons loose. Without bothering to remove his clothes, or even his boots, he lowered himself over her. Patricia felt the inexorable prod of his erection at her entrance, stretching and filling her.
He went impossibly deep and she arched to take him, her hands on his shoulders, clutching the hard muscles through his lawn shirt. When he was fully inside her, she could feel the slight abrasion of his fine, wool breeches on her inner thighs as he began to withdraw, the friction somehow very arousing. Jared kissed her neck, his mouth hot and possessive, thrusting back into her burning passage. “My God, love, you are so tight and yes, very wet. Tell me how good this feels.”
She clung to him, lifting her hips so he could go as far inside her as possible. “I don’t think,” she gasped, “I can speak right now. Oh, yes, like that.” Her lashes drifting lower, she felt a rising sense of tremulous excitement, and since the night before he’d taught her just how intense it could be, she wanted it with lustful abandon. Her body seemed to pulse in time with his increasingly urgent thrusts and dimly she could hear her own frantic moans.
With his warm breath fanning her cheek, Jared too, made low sounds of satisfaction with each long stroke of his shaft. A liquid heat seemed to suddenly flow through her, straight into her belly and lowered to center between her legs, flooding her with volatile purely physical joy. Her body trembled and she buried her face against her husband’s chest with a low primal scream of release. Seconds later, he braced himself and shut his eyes, every muscle in his lean body quivering as Patricia felt the forceful expulsion of sperm against the mouth of her womb.
When he finally opened his eyes and gazed down at her, his smile held a hint of satisfied male arrogance. Leaning down to kiss her, his mouth moved sensuously against hers, and he murmured, “I might find your impulsiveness irritating occasionally, darling, but your tempestuous nature is to my advantage in the bedroom.”
“You are a little tempestuous yourself,” Patricia pointed out, arching a brow. She could feel his cock inside her, still amazingly stiff and huge. His shirt was slightly damp under her fingers from the exertion of their joining. “I would wager most gentlemen remove their clothing before making love to their wives.”
Jared kissed her again, his lips lingering on hers. “No more wagers, my dear, if you please. It isn’t ladylike.”
“Oh, and this is?” Patricia murmured back teasingly. “I am currently lying beneath you completely naked in the middle of the afternoon.”
“This,” her husband said with thorough conviction, “is perfectly acceptable behavior. You have my permission to lie naked beneath me at any time.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, lowering her lashes in mock demure deference. “You are very generous, your Grace.”
Jared grinned, looking a little gorgeously tousled, his chestnut hair curling over his collar. “I try to be.”
Chapter 3
The party was a bit of a nightmare.
The ballroom was crowded, the music muffled by the sound of hundreds of voices in conversation. Squeezing past a group of elderly matrons that shot her speculative glances, Patricia smiled pleasantly and nodded with what she hoped was regal grace. Being married to a man as important as the Duke of Tellbourne was occasionally a burden as well as a privilege, and being his notorious ‘daring duchess’ was not much fun this evening. Popular opinion seemed divided between complete approval of Jared’s high-handed tactics in enforcing his authority, and the women who admired her ability to assert her own spirit.
A secret wicked memory made her smile widen slightly, despite her discomfort over the whispers and avid eyes. Jared might have been born to a vast fortune and the responsibility to an ancient lineage of title and princely blood, but he was most certainly not immune to the pleasures of the flesh. Their scandalous afternoon interlude was fresh in her mind.
Scandalous.
Coming back to reality, she winced a little inwardly. Being the brunt of so much inquisitive attention, Patricia realized that maybe society did pay a little more notice than she thought to what she did. Obviously everyone knew about the play, and her flaunting of Jared’s direct order not to attend, plus her mortifying removal from the theater. If she looked at it pragmatically, he had every right to be angry at having their first quarrel be so public—and no matter that they had made up nicely—it was all a little off-putting.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the Duchess of Tellbourne.”
The saccharine sound of a purring female voice made her glance up. At once Patricia stiffened, stifling an inward curse at her ill luck. Coolly, she responded, “Lady Black. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m well, of course. The question is, how are you, dear child?” Alicia Black wore a daring red gown that would have looked ridiculous and tawdry on anyone else in the crowded ballroom, but suited her dark beauty perfectly. Her lovely face was pulled into a completely insincere moue of concern. “I hope Jared wasn’t too harsh with you last night. It might be crass of me to mention it, but it sounded like an unfortunate scene.”
“Yes,” Patricia answered in a clipped tone, not bothering to define if it was unfortunate, or if she though Alicia was crass.
Languidly moving her fan, Lady Black glanced around. “It is difficult enough to be newly married—having everyone talking behind their hands must be awful. Jared looks quite unhappy.”
Surely, Patricia thought, beginning to feel slightly sick inside, the rumors that her husband had once had this woman as his mistress were false. However, there was no doubt of the way Lady Black spoke of him with familiar knowledge, as if she wanted to rub it in Patricia’s face. And the nasty woman was gorgeous, she admitted grudgingly, though it pained her.
“We had a misunderstanding. It happens.”
“Oh yes, I do know, dear, as I’ve been married for years. Your trouble is that Jared is actually a passionate man under that cool, sophisticated exterior.”
The barely veiled malice in that remark went a little too far. Patricia opened her mouth to retort, only to see a distinguished looking older gentleman join them, his hand drifting downward to rest on Alicia’s arm. He said pleasantly, “Good evening, Duchess. My goodness, that dress is lovely. Alicia told me how much she admires your youthful beauty. Tellbourne is a lucky man.”
If there was anything worse than having to pretend politeness to Jared’s former lover, it was trying to be cordial to the man he had obviously cuckolded. In a strangled voice, she said, “Thank you, Sir Henry. Lady Black, always a pleasure to see you, but you’ll excuse me, I’m sure.”
“Of course.” He smiled and inclined his head.
Escape could be the only word for the way she bolted through the crowd, until a cool hand grabbed her arm and Ava Lockwood tugged her back toward a small empty space near a pillar.
“I have been dying to see you.”
“I’m not surprised we’ve missed each other so far. Jared and I arrived about an hour ago, and I haven’t seen him since. What a crush.” Patricia fanned herself wildly.
Lady Lockwood was a petite brunette, pretty and vivacious, with wide brown eyes. When they had both come out the same season, they had become instant friends and engaged to their new husbands at nearly the same time.
Ava said urgently, “I was so worried last night, Patricia. The duke’s face was like thunder. He is always so charmingly polite and coolly self-possessed. I almost fainted when he swept you up and stalked out.”
“He was angry,” Patricia confessed.
Ava nodded. “My husband wasn’t pleased either, but since I had not ask
ed to go, I hadn’t actually defied him. Though, he said he might take a lesson from Tellbourne if I ever did something like that again, and I prefer to not be carried out of a public place like a sack of meal, so no more plays. What did the duke do once you were alone?”
Someone jostled her elbow and Patricia edged back a fraction. Their pillar wasn’t exactly secluded, so she lowered her voice as she responded, “He…well…he, scolded me most wonderfully all night long.” Her vivid blush made her meaning clear.
Comprehension dawned. “Did he?” Ava smothered a laugh with one gloved hand, her eyes gleaming with amused shock. “Oh, my. All night?”
“It was well-worth the stares I have been receiving all evening, believe me. He is tireless and endlessly inventive.”
Looking past her shoulder, Ava said quickly, “Patricia—”
“I believe they are starting a waltz and I have been looking for you.”
Patricia jumped in a slightly guilty start, hoping he hadn’t overheard her confidences. Tall and starkly good-looking in severe dark evening clothes, Jared took her elbow and nodded to Ava. “Good evening, Lady Lockwood. Please excuse us as I snatch my wife away once again from your presence.”
“Of course, your Grace.” There was a mischievous twinkle in Ava’s brown eyes as she watched them go.
Letting him guide her to the dance floor, Patricia didn’t get a chance to say a word until he swung her expertly into the swirling throng of dancers. Lowering her gaze to stare at his perfectly knotted cravat, she asked cautiously, “You insisted we come. Did you realize everyone would be so...so…”
“Yes,” he answered shortly, though his smile never faltered. “Hence our presence. However, I am getting tired of everyone looking at me like a museum exhibit of some sort of extinct creature. Our antics have given the haute ton enough fuel for the gossip chain to last me a good long while. Now, I am going to hold you a little too close for decorum, just to show my devotion. And you are going to flutter your eyelashes at me like a new young bride should, and then we will take our leave after proving there is nothing amiss in our relationship. Is this understood?”
Since he sounded quite understandably annoyed all over again, Patricia nodded obediently. When his arms tightened as promised and he whirled her gracefully along, she didn’t have to dip too far into her acting skills to gaze up at him with a heightened awareness of him as a man and a lover. Her fingers slid just a fraction from his broad shoulder to brush his jaw, and he looked slightly startled, his gaze flaring as it locked with hers.
That open caress would not go unnoticed, Patricia was sure of it. As they danced, the room seemed to fade away, even with all the fervent observation, and suddenly there was nothing but the two of them. His hands held her with capable strength, leading her in the sweeping steps.
Patricia looked into his dark eyes, willing him to see both her desire and her love. For the truth was, since the day she had met Jared Warden, she had been head over heels in love with him.
The problem was, he seemed to want to avoid actual discussion of that particular subject, and so she hesitated to blurt out her overpowering feelings. She always felt naïve around her cultured, handsome husband. Even when he had proposed, he had never said he loved her. It had been more that he admired her beauty, that she was very suitable, that they had a deep physical attraction he thought valuable in a marriage.
As a romantic nineteen-year-old, she had managed to translate that into the same thing. But as a married woman months later, she now knew he had never said he loved her, and it was not at all the same thing to be admired and desired. She was considered beautiful. On her debut, she had figured that out quickly, and obviously Jared liked beautiful women. At thirty, it had been time for him to get married and sire an heir. It was logical that he chose someone he was attracted to, from a proper background. She was flattered that he had chosen her out of the bevy of ton beauties vying for his notice. In fact, Patricia had been quite star-struck to find the most eligible bachelor in London suddenly her fiancée and then her husband. He often called her affectionately ‘my love’ but he had never looked into her eyes and told her that was how he felt. Certainly, as the daughter of an earl, she was suitable enough, but why choose her?
She would make him fall in love with her, she vowed in a silent oath for the hundredth time.
If it meant being a vixen, someone who would fulfill his every sexual whimsy, then so be it. Since their little confrontation over the play, she felt closer to him in less than twenty-four hours than in several months of marriage. This afternoon had been the first time he had ever taken off part of his busy afternoon schedule to spend time with her—and that had been in bed. The truth was, she had made the same assumption he had—that what the exalted Duke of Tellbourne wanted was a demure, shy bride, one who would most certainly do her duty and accept him in her bed, but not enjoy sex like a common strumpet.
But he liked it when she liked it—there was no doubt about it.
So she intended to enjoy it a great deal.
* * * *
In the past, Jared would let Patricia retire into her own room, listen to the murmured conversation between her and her maid through the closed door as she undressed while he drank a cognac. When it became quiet in the adjoining room, he would don his dressing gown and go to her. She would be in bed already, sometimes sleepy, sometimes expectant, but always under the cover of the bedclothes. Her nightdress was always fastened primly at her throat, her long, soft pale hair spread enticingly over the pillow. He would make love to her then in subtle gentle penetration and semi-darkness, all sounds muted.
But that was not the scenario for this evening.
True, they had both gone into their respective bedrooms, but this time it had obviously been Patricia who had been listening, for the moment he dismissed his valet, the door had opened. When she came through, he caught his breath sharply at the sight of her gleaming nude body. Her long legs caught by the leaping firelight in the marble hearth, the apex between them that he had shaved bare was extravagantly female. Lovely and slender she walked slowly, her magnificent breasts swaying just a trifle. A legion different from the uncertain young woman he had married and bedded these past months, she did not look shy or reticent in the least.
It was as if a goddess had been born suddenly, flung to the earth like Venus rising or Aphrodite gifting a humble planet. Her hair, enviously long and silky, hung to her hips in long tumbling curls, and her eyes were veiled by her thick lashes. If she was self-conscious, it only showed in the fact she hesitated briefly when she was a few feet away, and came to a faltering stop.
“Were you intending to sleep alone, my lord?” she asked, a barefoot dream clad only in blond hair. “Or am I welcome?”
“Always, Madame,” he said automatically, not imagining a circumstances in which he—or any other man—could turn down such a vision of pure seductive beauty.
“I’m glad to hear it.” Even her tone was different, more mature, and a little husky as if she were testing her newfound sexuality.
He had no objections.
None at all. In fact, he already swelled and readied for her, like a randy young boy.
“This evening was…” She seemed to search for a word, and found it with a slight grimace. “Excruciating.”
“We had to go,” he explained for the second time, his gaze fastened on the pink peaks of her perfect breasts. “Braving out rumor is the only way to survive in society. Since we appeared in marital accord, the rumors will die down and the gossipmongers will move on to devour someone else. Trust me, it is over.”
“You aren’t angry?”
He remembered the feather touch of her fingers on his face during their dance. The way she looked at him, her luminous aqua gaze unfathomable. Jared said, “Let’s say the whole atmosphere temporarily resurrected my exasperation. I will get over it.”
“If you wish to punish me again like in the carriage, I understand.”
Taking in a breath, tha
t suggestion sent the blood straight to his groin and his cock lengthened.
Patricia looked at him from a few feet away, standing quite still. Her eyes had always drawn him, the color so unique and pure, like the seas in the southern world, not green and not blue. .He sensed it had taken all her courage to simply approach him and she still was not quite comfortable wandering around lighted rooms without clothing. He smiled at her overt offering, quite willing to help the need he saw in her quivering stance and the lift of her quick breathing.
“I might. Go to the bed,” he ordered, “and lay down on your stomach.”
“Yes, of course, Your Grace.”
She complied and he hardened to a complete rigid state at the sight of her young, nude body in such a submissive state and the knowledge of what he was going to do to it. Finishing undressing, he knew she watched from her prone position, liking the fact that things had changed in this intriguing way between them. When he approached the bed, she was very still and hardly seemed to breathe.
“I do think you need more discipline, Patricia.” He looked at the long length of her legs, her bare satiny bottom and graceful back, and almost ejaculated right then and there despite his considerable experience in sexual control.
“I might benefit from it,” she admitted softly. Her profile was pure and classically beautiful against the bed linens, her long hair falling is disarray around her.
“Do you want me to spank you?” he asked, curious to see how far his fairly innocent young wife would take the sex play. “And after I do that, shall I fuck you?”
There was no reply for a long moment, and then she said on a suffocated breath, “Yes, spank me, Jared, and if fuck means what I think it does, yes, do that too.”
“My pleasure.” he said, meaning it. Lying down next to her, he first rested his hand on one smooth buttock, then lifted it and hit her lightly but with a satisfying smack. Her face averted, she did nothing but flinch slightly, and he did it again, hitting both cheeks this time, a little harder. She made a small sound when his palm made contact with her round, glorious posterior a third time, and he registered it as a moan of arousal.