“Am I still welcome?” he asked, his voice low and intimate and somehow hesitant all at the same time.
His uncertainty won her over. She stepped back into the chamber, gesturing him inside. “You are most welcome as long as you promise not to do any further damage to my wardrobe.”
He chuckled as he strode across the threshold. “I shall do my utmost to keep your gowns in good order, I swear.”
It wasn’t her gowns she feared he’d do damage to at this point. She closed the door behind him and spun, unaccountably nervous now that she’d done what she’d set out to do in the first, obtained a lover. If only she knew what to do with him.
“My lady’s maid will be relieved to hear it,” she quipped, clasping her hands at her waist and simply watching him. She’d never felt more awkward in her life. And that was certainly saying quite a bit, for she was accustomed to being a wallflower and an oddity.
He smiled, his teeth visible in a brief white flash before he was once again serious. His eyes dropped. “Your hands are shaking, my dear.”
She looked down as well. So they were. Dear heaven. How was she ever going to make it through the night? “I suppose I’m a bit anxious,” she conceded.
“You’ve never been to one of Lady Needham’s house parties before, have you?” His voice was knowing. He closed the space between them, catching her worried hands in his large, warm ones.
She was dismayed that he saw through her with such ease. She’d thought she had done an admirable job of playing the part of debauched lady. “How did you know?”
“You’re a trifle too sincere.” He raised her hands to his lips, kissing each with a slow reverence that thoroughly disarmed her. “In truth, I’ve never met a woman as candid and lovely.”
She was breathless. “Never?” Oh, how she hoped he was not merely wooing her with meaningless praise.
“Never.” He turned her hands over and dropped a kiss to her palms, then her wrists. “It’s bad of me, but I’m deuced glad I trounced your gown.”
A shiver of pure desire skittered down her spine. “It seems fortuitous,” she agreed, all her earlier bravado failing her. She was desperate to know what was about to unfold and yet simultaneously terrified.
“Am I overstepping my bounds, my dear?” he asked, still holding her hands in his. “You’re trembling. I wouldn’t dream of frightening you.”
“No,” she hastened to assure him. “This is all new to me, I fear, and rather daunting.”
He stilled. “Am I to be your first lover, then?”
“Yes,” she admitted, so embarrassed that she longed to crawl beneath the lovely carved oak bed taking up the opposite wall. Somehow, she hadn’t imagined as much conversation.
“I’m honored,” he said, his voice deep and velvety. He reached up to touch the corner of her mask. “Do you wish to keep it on?”
“Yes,” she said again, “if you don’t mind, sir. At least until the lamps are out.”
“If it pleases you,” he murmured. His fingers lingered on her chin, tipping it upward. “May I kiss you now?”
She placed her hands upon his broad shoulders. “Please do.” She closed her eyes, waiting. The other kisses she’d experienced had been chaste and flat, a mere perfunctory brushing of lips over hers. Jonathan had been the perfect gentleman.
But if she’d expected the same sort of brief peck now, she’d been entirely wrong. Delightfully so. His mouth pressed against hers, hot and firm. He drew his arms around her waist, anchoring her body to his. The hardness of his long, lean form was a pleasant surprise. She leaned into him, hungry for more, gasping when his tongue teased her lower lip. The moment she opened to him, he swept inside her mouth. Tentatively, she ran her tongue against his, gratified when she heard him moan.
The warmth she’d been feeling all evening escalated into a fire that began in her belly and went decidedly lower. Her skin tingled. A steady ache thrummed between her legs. She’d never experienced a more heady mix of pleasure and longing. At last, she thought as she mimicked his kiss.
He dragged his mouth from hers, his breathing ragged, before dropping tantalizing kisses over her bare neck. He made a path to the hollow at the base of her throat where her pulse galloped at a frantic pace. His silk mask scraped against her, equally exciting. She tilted her head back to grant him greater access. His fingers went to the shell buttons on her cotton nightgown’s bodice, unhooking them from their moorings one at a time.
Dear heavens. For all the times she’d lain awake in her bed, imagining taking a lover, she’d never had any idea how thrilling and horridly frightening it would be all at once. He was disrobing her. She didn’t even know his name. Somehow, impossibly, that heightened the allure.
He worked his way to the button between her breasts and paused, glancing up at her. The intensity of his stare nearly made her knees give out. “Are you utterly certain, my dear?”
He was giving her the opportunity to change her mind, she realized through the dizzying desire clouding her rational brain. Of course she wasn’t certain. She’d never been more hopelessly uncertain of anything in her life. But that was part of what made sharing heated kisses with a masked stranger so enticing. She felt free for the first time, empowered by her anonymity. She could be anyone she wanted to be in the magic of the night. She could do anything she wanted.
“Yes,” she murmured. “I’m certain.”
“We shall go slowly,” he said, his hands cupping her breasts through the fine fabric of her nightdress. “I want to make you mad with wanting before I take you.”
His words sent a delicious sluice of heat to the apex of her thighs. The thought of him making her his nearly sent her into a swoon. His thumbs rubbed in lazy circles over her nipples, hardening them into aching nubs. She wanted desperately for him to touch her without the barrier of cotton. She reached between them, attempting to help undo the endless line of closures with fumbling fingers.
“All those damn buttons,” he muttered, giving her nipples a soft pinch that made her moan. “What do you women think when you purchase these blasted fripperies?”
She’d certainly never thought of a sinful stranger peeling it from her body. Maggie freed a few more buttons until her nightgown was open to her waist. She pulled her arms from the long sleeves, baring her bosom to his heated gaze.
“Do you find this preferable, sir?” she asked, her voice low and throaty, almost as if it belonged to another woman entirely.
“Hell yes, I do,” he growled. He took her plump breasts in his palms. “This is a vast improvement.”
His touch was pure sin and purely wonderful. She arched into him, looking down at the seductive sight of his large hands cupping her. Their gazes clashed and he kissed her again, his mouth open and voracious. Claiming. She kissed him back with all the pent-up passion within her. Their tongues tangled. He tasted of champagne. She wanted more.
He teased her nipples again as their lips fused. She placed her hands on his chest, longing to feel his masculine form without his formal evening clothes. He broke off their kiss before bending his dark head and shocking her by sucking the peak of her breast. A powerful stab of pleasure snaked through her, wetness gathering at her core. He flicked the bud gently with his tongue in quick, sweet strokes. She found the act of watching him suck her nipple incredibly arousing.
He paused and looked up at her, a mischievous smile curving his lips. The contrast between her pale skin and his black silk mask was as seductive as his glittering gaze. “Do you like my tongue on you?” he asked, shocking her with the boldness of his speech.
No one had even referred to limbs in her presence before. Bodies were things to be covered and hidden, not meant for unveiled adoration. But she rather liked this naughtiness, the venturing into the forbidden. “Can’t you tell for yourself?” she returned, joining in on his game of teasing.
He suckled her other nipple, dragging deeply until he wrung another moan from her. “I want to hear it from your proper, lovely lips.�
� He laved her with his tongue, bent, it would seem, on reducing her to a complete wanton.
“I like it,” she admitted on a sigh, her fingers sinking into his too-long, midnight hair.
He stopped, blowing air over the taut nub he’d just pleasured. “What do you like? Tell me.”
“I like your tongue.” She pressed her breast into his cheek. “I like your mouth on me.”
“You’re wicked, my dear.” He kissed the plump mound she’d offered him. “You surprise me.”
“I did warn you against my forthright nature,” she reminded him, breathless as his mouth seared a trail back up to her neck and at last her lips.
Their hungry mouths met. He drew her back against him, pushing the crumpled remnants of her nightgown from her waist, down over her hips. It landed on the floor about her ankles, sending a brief draft of air up her naked legs. One of his hands cupped her bottom while the other skimmed over the curve of her belly and settled into the mound at the apex of her thighs. His long fingers dipped into the folds of her sex, exerting a thrilling pressure to her just where she’d wanted it most.
“I’m grateful for your nature,” he whispered, nipping at her lips. He rubbed the hidden button between her legs, the one she’d only dared touch once or twice in the bath. Then, she’d been ashamed. Now she was thrilled, enveloped by sensation. Pure bliss surged through her body, along with a yearning for more.
“Please,” she begged, uncertain what she was asking him for. Completion. A joining. Anything that would satisfy the crescendo of longing that was driving her as mad as he’d said he wanted to make her. She’d never known anything so potent and incredible was possible between a man and woman.
“Tell me what you want,” he urged. His ministrations continued, his pace increasing along with the pressure he exerted upon her.
She was about to fracture, to collapse. Her breathing was hitched at best. Her heart was preparing to leap from her chest. Amazing sensation built to a wild pitch as his fingers worked between her legs with increasing intensity. It was as if he knew she was about to come undone.
“I…” she began, only to falter. She didn’t think she could speak. He lowered his mouth to suck a hard nipple once more, and the dam within her burst. She writhed against him, desire rippling through her body in waves of unadulterated pleasure. Her hips ground against him as she cried out, head thrown back.
“Do you want me to fuck you, darling?” he asked, licking a path around the pink tip of her breast.
As the ripples of passion began to subside, she felt a new spurt of wetness between her legs. He continued teasing her there, and her flesh was sensitized by his touch so much that she feared she would reach her peak again in another breath.
She’d never heard the word fuck before, and she had a feeling it was terribly bad, but she loved the way it sounded on his lips. Whatever it meant, she was quite certain she wanted it very much.
“Do you?” he asked again as his fingers moved over her with a practiced expertise.
She gasped at the heightened sensation. If the pleasure he gave her had been strong before, it was overwhelming now. “I do,” she said. She wanted more of that, wanted to be filled. By him, with him.
Just when she was on the brink, he withdrew, startling her. In the next instant, he caught her up in his arms. She threw her arms about his neck for purchase. No man had ever scooped her up thusly before, as if she weighed no more than a feather pillow. And she knew she weighed far more than a feather pillow.
“I’m too heavy,” she protested, fearing he’d hurt his back. It wasn’t as if she was overly large, but she knew she possessed the requisite feminine curves. She was no willowy miss, that much was certain.
“You’re a perfect armful,” he countered, looking impossibly rakish with his black mask and seductive smile.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that beneath the silk shielding his face from her view there hid a dangerously handsome man. He was the opposite of the only other man whose attentions she’d ever wanted aside from Jonathan.
Her husband.
Sandhurst had been far too busy to even say more than a handful of sentences to her after he’d secured her fortune. Having won her, he’d promptly abandoned her in favor of his beautiful mistress. Maggie had longed to be the sort of beauty a man would desire. The kind of woman who could inspire passion, sin, bedchamber romps. Dear heavens, the kind of woman who she had inexplicably become over the course of one enchanted evening at Lady Needham’s ball.
She forced all unhappy thoughts from her mind and instead focused on the man who carried her across the room to deposit her on the bed with a gentleness that suggested he thought she was fashioned of the finest porcelain. He was everything a gentleman ought to be, and whether or not she would ever see him again come the morning, she was thankful she’d been given this one night to spend in his arms. With hearts in need of repair, they had somehow found each other.
Maggie watched her lover as he shucked his coat and silk tie and made short work of his white shirt. In a breath, his chest was bare to her seeking gaze. He was broadly built, well-muscled, his stomach taut, chest dotted by a tantalizing amount of dark hair. She’d never before seen a bare male torso aside from the marble slabs and oils applied to canvas in the name of art. No artist’s rendering had ever been so perfect, at least not in her eyes. She longed to touch him.
And then, he unfastened his trousers, allowing them too to fall. His manhood jutted from between his firm, horseman’s thighs. Thick and hard, it rose in proud relief against a small whorl of hair and his sac. Her mouth went dry as she stared at his shaft. She knew a bit about men and women, both from her married heiress friends who had dared to share treasured secrets and from the saucy novels she read in private. She was aware that he was about to put himself inside her. It was daunting to be sure. How painful would it be? She stiffened as a new wave of nervousness assailed her.
He seemed to sense her sudden discomfort. Still wearing his mask though not a stitch else, he lowered his strong body to the bed alongside hers. He cupped her face and gave her a lingering, tender kiss.
“You needn’t fear me, my dear,” he whispered, breaking away from her. “We shall do only what you want. Tonight, I am yours. Do you understand?”
She stared at him, at a loss. He was giving himself to her. Completely. “Mine?” she asked, doubting him.
“Yours,” he repeated. “Your servant for tonight. I seek only to bring you pleasure.”
“You already have,” she said foolishly. She didn’t know what he wanted of her. It seemed he imagined her a woman who knew the ways between a man and woman. Perhaps when he had guessed he was her first lover, he had meant her first lover outside her marriage. Most married women had lost their maidenhood, so his was not an unreasonable assumption. “I haven’t done this before,” she added for good measure.
“I know you haven’t.” He smiled and kissed her again.
“No,” she felt compelled to say. “It is not as you think. While I am married, my husband has not…that is to say, I remain uncompromised.”
“Oh Christ.” He stilled, his gaze searching hers, his mouth going taut. “You’ve never lain with a man before?”
She shook her head, flushing from head to toe. The words refused to form on her tongue.
“Ah.” He leaned into her, pressing his hard body to hers, and kissed her lingeringly. “That simply means that our rules have altered.”
She rolled toward him so that her breasts crushed into his hard chest and his manhood prodded her belly. “I haven’t an inkling as to what rules you speak of,” she admitted. She was well aware that she was out of her depth.
“The rules between you and me as lovers,” he said, cupping her bottom and pulling her into him more fully. “You must promise to tell me what you like and whether there is anything you do not like. Do you promise?”
She swallowed. This was so much more than what she had imagined. Dear heavens. She wasn’t certain she coul
d find it within her to give voice to the wicked things he did to her. But with those vivid eyes swallowing her whole, she knew she would do anything to please him.
“I promise,” she agreed at last.
A sinful smile flirted with the corners of his lips. “Good.” He kissed her again, nipping at her lower lip before working his way back down her body. “I want to taste you everywhere.”
His tongue flicked out against the fullness of her breast, then lightly over her aching nipple. But he did not take her into his mouth again as she wanted. Instead, he moved lower still, to her navel. He paused, glancing up at her, looking every inch the part of a highwayman of old come to plunder. He was perilously near to the wet heat of her center. She longed to feel him there.
“Open your legs for me, darling,” he coaxed, his hands on her hips, caressing.
She obeyed, shivering with anticipation, watching him.
He groaned, his eyes going to that most private part of her. Cool air hit her humid skin, heightening her awareness even more. “I want to lick your cunny so badly. Will you let me?”
Dear heaven. She’d never before heard such frank language. He meant to… Her mind couldn’t even form the coherent thought. She was shocked and titillated at the same time. Thank the Lord she’d had her bath upon arriving earlier that afternoon. She hadn’t known men did such sinful things. Very likely, she should tell him no. But his stare and his naughty words had combined to send another delicious pulse of want to her core. She wanted him to lick her. Maggie swallowed, stricken by the realization. She was a wanton.
“Yes,” she whispered at last. “Please.”
His eyes swung up to hers, pinning her with the naked desire she saw reflected in their mossy depths. He lowered his head and sucked the responsive bud of her sex into his mouth, holding her gaze all the while. Oh good heavens. That felt stupendous. The sight of him pleasuring her, his masked face buried between her thighs, only served to heighten her passion. She tipped her head back and moaned as he continued sucking, occasionally using his teeth to ever-so-gently rake against the plump nub so eager for his every attention. It was pure poetry, singing through her body and setting her aflame. This was the answer to the troubles plaguing her, she thought, this sweet distraction. At least it could warm her body if not her soul.
Her Lovestruck Lord: 2 (Wicked Husbands) Page 2