He shrugged. “Because I do. There doesn’t have to be a reason.”
Swallowing her embarrassment, she slowly brought her hands to her breasts, cupping them lightly in her palms.
“Squeeze them and push them together.”
A pulse ticked between her thighs as she followed his instruction.
“Brush your thumbs over the nipples.”
The hardened, sensitive peaks tightened even more than before.
“Good.” His breathing had become slightly more irregular, and he rested his hand over the bulge in his breeches. “Now pinch them.”
Freddie gasped as a white-hot bolt of need shot from her nipples to her sex. Closing her eyes, she plucked at them even more aggressively, twisting them between her fingers, and was rewarded with an even stronger pulse of sensation than before.
It had never occurred to her before now that her breasts could be such a center of pleasure. Her gaze shot to Conrad’s masked face.
“How did you know?” she asked, a bit chagrined by the discovery that he understood something about her body that she herself did not.
“Experience,” he responded gruffly. “My experience also tells me that you’re ready to be fucked. And I’m certainly well past ready to fuck you.”
He lifted his hand from his crotch. While she’d been plucking at her nipples, he’d unbuttoned the fall of his breeches and freed his shaft from his drawers. And dear Lord, it looked huge, far larger than she’d imagined when she’d felt it pressed against her belly.
How on earth was that going to fit inside her? No wonder women were advised to close their eyes and think of England when they did their marital duty. It was a marvel, really, that any woman allowed her husband anywhere near her bed after the wedding night.
For the first time, a tremor of actual fear wound its way down Freddie’s spine. Up to now, she’d been in for a pound, but now she wasn’t so sure. Not when the pounding in question involved that.
“Are you afraid I’m going to hurt you?” Conrad asked.
Her expression had clearly communicated her thoughts. “How can you not? It’s…too big, surely.”
He chuckled. “I’m flattered, but I can assure you, it is far from too big. A woman’s body is made to take a man’s cock, even one larger than mine, and while it may hurt when I first breach your maidenhead, I promise you will feel nothing but pleasure after that.”
“I don’t know…” She bit her lip. “What if it doesn’t stop hurting?”
“I’ll make you a promise. If it doesn’t stop hurting, I’ll stop fucking you.”
“Really?” She was dubious. From what she had gleaned from some of the conversations she’d overhead her brothers engage in, once the act had begun, men were reluctant to stop if not incapable of stopping before reaching the conclusion.
“Yes, really. But maybe it would also reassure you to become a little better acquainted with this fellow first. It’s not nearly as formidable as you think. Come here and take it in your hand.”
Her arousal, which had been momentarily dampened by her trepidation, resumed its ticking pulse between her thighs. She did want to touch him. She was fascinated by the way this part of his anatomy jutted, so tall and proud, away from his body, as though it were a living, breathing creature with a mind of its own.
Tentatively, she placed her fingers on him. To her surprise, his flesh was silky smooth, almost velvety, especially toward the tip. Intrigued, she wrapped her palm around the shaft, marveling that it could feel both hard and soft at once. As she slid her hand along the length, up toward that downy head, he let out a low groan and a tiny droplet of fluid appeared in the slit at the peak. Curious, she dragged her thumb over the liquid, which she found to be fine and slippery.
“Take it in your mouth. The wetter we both are, the less pain there’ll be.”
That made sense, but Freddie didn’t need a rationale for doing what he told her. For reasons she had no interest in examining, she loved following his directives. The more wicked and wanton his demands seemed, the more she enjoyed complying with them.
She dropped to her knees, and he spread his thighs to allow her better access. As she parted her lips, he threaded his fingers into her hair and guided her down. He smelled earthy but tasted of the ocean…and of wild, delicious sin. She didn’t resist when he forced her to take his entire length, until the downy head rested at the back of her throat, and then pulled her up again. And then again, mimicking in reverse the action of his fingers thrusting inside her earlier. She understood the drive instinctively and tightened her lips as he worked her mouth up and down along his shaft.
Perhaps his hand in her hair and his control of her motions should have made feel helpless and constrained, but she had never felt more powerful or triumphant. She loved the way his cock pulsed and surged beneath her tongue, rather like an excited puppy seeking her attention and affection. She loved the taste of him—bitter and salt and man. Most of all, she loved the certainty that she was giving him pleasure. As much as he had given her.
She tightened her lips and pressed her tongue harder against the ridged underside of his shaft, determined to bring him to completion. For a few seconds, he allowed her to take the lead, but then he groaned and halted her movements.
She gave him a reluctant frown when he pulled her away. “Why did you stop me?
“As much as I’d love to come in your mouth, I promised to fuck you, and if we keep this up, I won’t be able to. At least not as soon as I’d like to.”
“Oh.” Since she had no idea what he meant, she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
His lips twitched as he suppressed a smile. He obviously knew how confused she was, but he also clearly had no intention of relieving of her ignorance. “Straddle my lap.”
Her apprehension returned, but she remembered his assurance that the pain would be less if they were both wet, and at this point, that was definitely the case. She got up from the floor and spread her legs so she could sit on his lap. He cupped her buttocks, and she winced as the contact revived the sting of the spanking.
“Hurts?” he asked.
“A little.”
He shifted his hands to her hips and positioned her so that the tip of his cock rested just there. “I’ll give you something else to think about.”
She had no time to reconsider the wisdom of what she was about to permit. In a single, swift motion, he pressed her down onto his shaft as he thrust upward. The pain was sharp and immediate, but surprisingly brief. There was a tearing, burning sensation but then, almost as soon as she registered the discomfort, it was gone, replaced by a glorious fullness and the burgeoning ache of renewed desire.
Something else to think about, indeed. She closed her eyes and let out a little moan that was part satisfaction, part impatience. As delicious as this was, she knew there was more. And she wanted to experience all of it.
“Do you wish me to stop?” he asked, his tone both solicitous and taut with barely leashed desire. He would stop if she told him to. But he wouldn’t like it if she did.
Fortunately, she was breathless and so needful she would die if he stopped. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Please fuck me, Con.”
7
Please fuck me, Con.
Con. The shortened version of his name she always used when she teased him. Which was often.
Bloody hell, she knew. Had known all along.
He should stop. Right this second. She’d played him just like she played every man in her life.
Except, of course, he could no more stop himself from making love to her than he could stop himself from breathing. Now that he was inside her, it would take an act of God to keep him from finishing. He wasn’t even certain that he would have stopped if she had asked him to. Despite his promise.
He slid his palms beneath her arse and began to fuck her, keeping his movements slow and shallow at first in deference to her innocence. Although her maidenhead had given way with less difficulty than he
’d anticipated—But then, what did he know about maidenheads?—he suspected she would experience some residual tenderness, at least to begin with.
Conrad would have liked to believe that he was a thoughtful, considerate lover. That he waited until her desire matched his own to increase the speed and depth of his thrusts. The truth was, he was merely lucky that she was as aroused and impatient as he. Already, he could feel her muscles squeezing him, signaling her impending release. And not a moment too soon, because his own orgasm was near, tightening his balls, pulling at his cock.
Her head drooped back, her eyes closed, lips parted. He had never seen a woman more fully surrender herself to the act, and he was filled with a profound sense of both duty and desire. When she came, it would be fierce and beautiful.
And he would be responsible for her pleasure. He ought to be furious with her for her deception, but he wasn’t. Instead, he was grateful. Even relieved. Oh, not that she’d pretended not to recognize him, but that she had recognized him. That it was him she had chosen, not some nameless, faceless stranger.
“Kiss me, Freddie,” he demanded. “Kiss me when you come.”
She raised her head and opened her eyes. They were dark and glassy with passion. He thought perhaps she hadn’t fully understood his words, but then she leaned forward and pressed her sweet, hot mouth against his.
He took her without mercy now, pounding into her untried pussy while their tongues fought a winning battle with one another. Her muscles tightened then spasmed as she fell apart into a climax that was every bit as violent and glorious as he’d imagined it would be. He followed her within seconds, his balls clenching and releasing as he poured his soul into her body along with his seed.
Conrad pulled off the hot, itchy highwayman’s mask with a sigh of relief. After wearing it for hours, he had considerably more respect for the restraint of the bandits plying the English countryside. The fact that they bothered wearing the cursed things to conceal their identities rather than simply shooting everyone they robbed seemed almost like a form of charity.
Freddie gasped, widening her eyes and dropping her jaw. “Conrad!”
He rolled his eyes at her blatant attempt to feign surprise. Did she really think he didn’t know? That she could pull the wool over his eyes again?
“Don’t try to play me for a fool, Winifred Langston. You’ve known all along it was me.”
She licked her lips. “Oh. I said your name, didn’t I?” Her cheeks pinkened as she clearly remembered what she’d said when she’d let her knowledge slip.
He wished he could say the effect was not becoming. That it didn’t make him want to fuck her all over again.
“Yes.”
“Are you very angry?” She winced as she asked the question, although he wasn’t sure whether this was due to guilt or sore muscles as she unwound herself from his lap.
He tucked his slackening cock into his fall. “No. But I’d like to know why you didn’t tell me you knew.”
“Because if I had, you’d have taken me straight home to Nash.” She turned her back to him and walked to the mattress as she spoke.
The glorious half-moons of her arse still bore his mark in the form of fading red handprints. As she bent over to retrieve a blanket from the mattress, he caught a glimpse of her pussy lips, still swollen and glistening with the juices of their lovemaking. His desire, which should have been slaked for hours, roared back to life. When she wrapped the off-white woolen blanket around her shoulders, concealing her nudity, he wasn’t sure whether he was regretful or grateful.
She spun to face him again. “If you’d taken me home, none of this would ever have happened. And I wanted this to happen, Conrad. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
He couldn’t allow the triumph that pulsed through him at her declaration to divert him from his purpose. “And what if you were wrong? What if it hadn’t been me?”
“But I wasn’t wrong, was I? So why bring it up?”
His fall once again buttoned, he pushed out of the chair and crossed to where she stood. “Because you could have been. Because I might actually have been someone who meant you harm.”
She smiled and shook her head. “But I could never be wrong when it comes to you, Conrad Pearce. I’ve wanted you half my life. I’d know you anywhere, anytime, in any guise.”
All the things he meant to say and do fell away with that simple admission. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. And when he was done kissing her, he drew her down to the mattress and made love to her. For the rest of the night.
For the rest of his life.
What had he done?
8
“We’ll be married as soon as the banns can be read, of course.”
Freddie stopped tucking in her shirttails and shot a glance at Conrad, who sat in one of the two chairs they’d made such wonderful use of during the night, pulling on his boots. His expression was as resigned as his tone.
He was going to marry her because he felt he had to, not because he wanted to. Not because he loved her. The buoyancy went out her heart as if it were a boat taking on water.
“Unless you’d rather we went to London and got a special license,” he added quickly when he caught her frown. “If you’re with child, time is of the essence.”
Those words, delivered with such stoicism, blew a hole clean through the deck of her former contentment.
What a fool she’d been to think that fucking him—she would do well to remember that course term for sexual congress and not the sweeter ones like lovemaking—would change how he felt about her. She had three brothers, for heaven’s sake. If anyone should know how little the physical act meant to most men, it was she. Although her brothers undoubtedly thought she was unaware of their dalliances with women of uncertain virtue, she wasn’t blind or stupid, and they weren’t as careful as they thought. None of them had ever been moved to a romantic impulse by a simple tumble in the hay.
Why should Conrad be any different? Except that, damn it, he was different, and last night had been anything but simple. Despite her inexperience, she knew their coupling had been nothing short of extraordinary.
Apparently, the only one of them that mattered to was her. It wasn’t the emotional intensity of what they’d shared that moved him to propose marriage, but guilt that he had “ruined” her.
She almost snorted with incredulity at the notion that such a glorious experience could ruin anyone. The only thing that would ruin her would be to marry the man she loved when he didn’t love her in return.
“That won’t be necessary.” She finished shoving her shirt into her breeches and donned her waistcoat, attacking the buttons with furious speed. Maybe if she ignored the lump growing in her throat, it would disappear.
Conrad got to his feet, his expression brightening a bit. “That would be preferable, but only if you are certain you don’t mind the stigma of an eight-month babe. People will talk. It will be difficult explaining why we want a special license to your brother, but—”
“I mean it won’t be necessary for us to marry at all.”
He looked for all the world as though she had slapped him. His features slackened with shock and confusion, and his mouth opened and closed in a classic imitation of a fish out of water. It was as if he simply couldn’t believe that she would refuse him. As if he thought himself a prize so exquisite he was worth winning at any price.
His jaw flexed, and his eyes hardened to a steely, implacable gray. “Of course, we must marry. After last night, we have no other choice. Surely you realize that.”
She stooped to pick up her coat, knowing her face would flame when she said the words that had formed in her mind. “So you marry every woman you fuck?”
“Of course not, but—”
“Then I see no reason why I must marry every man I fuck.”
He was upon her in two steps. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he forced her upright so she had no choice but to look into his face. “I’m the only man you’ve fucke
d.”
If she wasn’t careful, she might have allowed the fierce possessiveness and pride in his tone to seduce her into believing he wasn’t demanding that she marry him out of a misguided sense of responsibility. She might even have allowed herself to fancy that he was only using that responsibility as an excuse to get what he truly wanted.
But for once in her life, Freddie was determined to be careful.
She shrugged out of his grasp. “All the more reason we should not wed, then. You have an unfair advantage in fucking and not marrying.”
“Stop saying that word.”
Her coat half on, she blinked at him innocently. “Marry?”
“No, damn it. Fuck. Stop saying fuck.”
“Why? You said it last night. Multiple times, as I recall.”
“That was different.” He had the grace to flush.
She yanked on the other sleeve of her coat, a little harder than she intended. “Very well. What word would you prefer I used?”
That struck him speechless.
“No alternatives?” When he only looked at her helplessly, she continued, “In that case, since you have apparently not felt the need to marry any of the other women you have previously fucked…”
She thought she heard him moan. Good. A little pain served him right. Although she was becoming rather frightfully comfortable saying the word, to be honest.
“…I see no reason that you need to marry me, either.”
“You could be with child. My child.”
“And none of the other women could have been?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
He raked his fingers through his hair. She probably should not have taken quite as much delight as she did in watching him ruffle it. “I didn’t say that. Stop twisting my words. You know very well that none of those women were like you.”
“You mean they were the sorts of ladies who work in Miss May’s Pleasure Palace, and therefore they could have no expectations.”
“Yes,” he said triumphantly, no doubt convinced he had won the argument. “Precisely.”
The Lesson Plan Page 5