by Suzi Love
“What?” He smiled. “Do you think that being a duke makes me incapable of removing boots?”
She returned his smile and nodded. “I assumed you could pull off your own boots when necessary, but I cannot picture you removing anyone else’s.”
“My valet believes me incapable of doing anything for myself, but I’ve undressed and dressed in this cottage for many years with the aid of whoever is present.”
Carina’s smile upended and become a grimace. Damn! Another reminder that she was one of many women who’d visited this cottage. “Sorry. I only meant—”
“Please!” She covered his mouth with her hand. “I’m under no illusions about why I’m here.”
“You’re wrong. Give me a chance to prove that this means more than the usual.” He guided her to the fourth step from the bottom and sat below her. He lifted her foot and unwound the fastenings of her half-boots. Removing them and her stockings became a forerunner to the sexual act and a pleasurable interlude he’d never indulged in. By the time the second finely-knit stocking slid through his fingers and he lifted her foot to his mouth, her breathing came as a series of gasps. His breathing wasn’t much freer as he nipped each toe, before soothing her hurts with a swirling lathe of his tongue.
“Oooh.” Another deep growl rumbled when he lifted her leg and nibbled upwards to the tender skin of her thigh.
“Sweet Lord in heaven,” he whispered, before burying his head between her bent knees. “I can see all of you. You’re beautiful.”
“I didn’t bother with layers ...”
After he eased her knees wider apart, then slid both hands up and over her thighs to raise her shift higher, her head went back and her eyes drooped shut. His gaze fixed on the clefts and curves of her body that he’d exposed.
“...As I couldn’t see the point if…” Pushing up the folds of her shift, he let it puddle around her waist before he reached out to touch her apex. “…when you were going to remove everything.”
The first pleasure he allowed himself was threading his fingers through her thick nest of curls and resting his palm over her mound.
“Red,” he announced with a low growl, as his fingers wove in and out in and tested the spring in the curls. “I didn’t know. I dreamed and, believe me, I hoped.”
He shifted sideways on his stair, and so his body rested closer to where she sprawled down the length of four steps. Using his free hand, he reached up to stroke the matching locks on her head and twirled a stray ringlet around his finger.
“Crazy crimson up here,” he brought the loop to his mouth and slid it across his lips in a reverent caress, “and down here, sly scarlet.” Tickling scratches, a long sweep of a finger through her moist crevice, and she wriggled and writhed. “Both are so sexy, but I need to see all of it, all of you. Let your hair down, please.”
When she reached up to release her hair, pin by pin, he watched in fascinated silence. One ringlet after another hit her shoulders and bounced to land in disarray around the pale skin of her neck; the startling contrast between the brilliant red hair against the stark white of her neck stirred the first crack in his armor. Never in all his years had he wanted to unleash his dominating character more than now, to forget finesse and abandon refinement and plunge deep inside her hot passage. To claim every inch of her as if she belonged to him.
He looked up to find her watching his face and judging his expression, and he jerked back, uncertain of his welcome. She was no common slut, no practiced prostitute, nor an overpaid courtesan. This was Lady Dorchester, a countess, and a woman he’d normally not dally with. He withdrew his two questing fingers and waited.
“It’s all right, and in fact, it’s perfect. You’re perfect, and exactly how I remembered. So many nights, I waited for the Earl to stop his useless rutting and I’d think instead of your fingers inside me, probing so gently. When he thrust and nothing happened, he’d curse and swear at me as though I caused his unmanliness.” She gave a dry laugh. “As he sweated on me, his stomach rubbing against me like an overfed pig—”
“Enough. I cannot bear hearing every sordid detail, or knowing that the Earl paid for your body and yet never appreciated that priceless gift. To hear you speak so calmly of his impotence and how he blamed you—” His voice hitched.
She reached down and touched his arm where it rested under the lawn of her shift. “Memories of us, together, allowed me cope with those nights without losing my sanity. But now I want new memories. Please touch me. Make love to me.”
Chapter Ten
Max shuddered. At Carina’s passion-hazed command to make love to her, self-doubts rose like a thunder cloud. “Love-making between us is impossible.” As soon as he’d spat out the harsh words, he regretted them. She pulled back. “Forgive me, but we cannot forget who we are and where we are. Let’s not delude ourselves, or lie to each other.”
She stared with unblinking, moisture-filled eyes, and that blasted pain shot straight through to his gut and caused a raw burn. She stopped his absent-minded rubs at his midriff. “Are you suffering some sort of aliment in your abdomen?”
He bristled. “Of course not. I enjoy perfect health.”
She lifted a brow. “Your veins may run with the bluest blood, but your human form suffers from the same frailties as the rest of us lower mortals. I’ve noticed that you rub your stomach quite often. Perhaps you should consult a physician.”
“Ridiculous charlatans. I’ll not listen to another swindler promising to cure a simple digestive disorder by bleeding me dry with leeches.”
She gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Max. You’ve already visited physicians.”
“It’s nothing.”
“You said no lies. I know an excellent physician, a good friend, who is presently in London and would consult with you.”
He started to shake his head, but she squeezed his arm and leaned forward until her nose almost touched his. Ringlets brushed his naked chest and his senses filled with her essence. He took her face between his hands and feasted on her sight and smell.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured, before covering her soft lips with his. He growled before unleashing his pent-up hunger and ravaging her mouth. Something drove him to brand this woman, mark her as his, and feed from her goodness until the hollow gnawing in his gut subsided; until he’d nourished his empty soul but blanked his tormented mind.
His busy hands couldn’t get enough of the shape and curves of her body and, in a rush of movements, he broke the kiss, lifted her shift up and over her head and threw it away. Burying his face in the exposed skin between her breasts, he whimpered. “Christ, I want you so much I can’t think.”
“Don’t...” Her words broke off on a ragged sob, as he shifted an inch to the right and swirled his tongue around the point of her nipple. “Oh, please, don’t stop. I can’t bear it.”
With his left hand, he tormented that nipple, tugging and rolling while his teeth nibbled at the other. From between her clenched teeth, she made a long and low keening sound that echoed off the low ceiling, while her eyes squeezed shut and she bucked. He clung to her nipples and prolonged her wild orgasm until her jerking movements subsided and she slumped back across the stair treads. She whimpered several times when he rasped his teeth back from her nipple, and he leaned on one elbow and watched as she drifted back to consciousness.
His fingers trailed over her flat abdomen. “I’ve never seen a woman do that before.”
Her eyes popped open. “Never?”
He shook his head. “Despite what you think, I’m not an unfeeling bastard. I ensure that any woman I’m with enjoys our coupling, though I’ve never seen any woman respond so explosively. You’re so incredibly passionate.”
“Ha! I’m not sure that’s a good thing, because my nature often gets me into trouble.”
“It also makes you fascinating. Your passion is the thing I love best─” Dammit, he was treading in quicksand again, but if she sensed his dilemma, she ignored it.
“It’s your turn, she said. “Do you want me to help with your boots?”
He imagined her sucking his toes between those sweet pink lips, and his erection jerked so hard he almost doubled over where he sat.
Her touch on his arm was comforting. “Is it your stomach again?”
He gave a dry laugh. “Lower than that.” He put her hand over the hard length inside his breeches and she moved it in a small exploratory circle. He threw back his head and groaned. “Yes, rub it like that.”
He fumbled with his placket buttons and yanked back the flaps, but when her small hand ran with tentative strokes from the tip to the base of his penis, he couldn’t wait another moment. He’d waited for years already and if he didn’t put his cock inside her in the next few minutes, he’d break down and beg her for release. Her hand slid away when he bent forward to pull off his breeches and boots and toss them across the hallway.
She laughed and pointed. “No undergarments.”
“Like you,” he grinned, “I couldn’t see any point, because I knew I’d be desperate to have you as soon as I arrived. Mind you, I had to wait until my inquisitive valet left the room so I could whip them off and dress again. If he knew I was going about in public without drawers, he’d be so scandalized he’d quit.”
She gave a gurgle of sympathetic laughter, and any earlier strain dissipated and sexual tension filled the air. It felt good, even relaxed, but only for scant seconds until her inquiring hand wrapped around his dick and she bent forward until he was certain her nose would rub against the twitching head. Then all hell would break loose.
“Carina.” He tried to draw her back, but her warm breath brushed his mushroomed head and his shaft quivered like an over-strung bow.
Her giggle started his and she did it again. Blew hot air up and down until his rod stood proud and high and as hard as stone. Playful sex was another thing he’d never lingered to enjoy, but he suddenly wanted to dally here for days and indulge all their fantasies.
“Lord have mercy,” he moaned.
When she bent nearer his thicket of black hair, he couldn’t see the focus of her enthrallment, but her concealed mouth and tongue worshipped his ballocks, which had earlier constricted to cannon balls, and he bucked off the wooden stair and almost sent her flying. He took her arms and lifted her to face level and, driven by that same compulsion, laid her back and began kissing the breath from her body.
Ions later, Carina pushed on his chest. “I need to breathe,” she gasped, “and your kisses rob me of air.”
“I can’t get enough of your mouth.” His open-mouthed, wet kisses moved down. “Or the softness of your skin.”
He licked past her curvaceous belly and down to her groin, once more separating her legs and reveling in the brilliance of her curly nest and wanting to beat his chest with pride at the tell-tale wetness trickling down her thigh. He swiped two fingers through her cream and waited till he’d captured her gaze. A slow swipe of his tongue up his fingers and around the tips had him moaning.
He held his fingers to her mouth. “Taste yourself. Like the sweetest cream.”
After a moment of shocked silence, she sucked his fingers into her mouth in a rhythm that had him groaning again. “Enough enough, minx, or I’ll spill before I’m inside your sweet body.” He positioned the tip of his cock at her entrance and pushed inside an inch. Warm wet woman enclosed him and urged him forward. “Tight. So frigging tight.”
“It’ll be all right. I remember from last time, a little pain at first.” While she spoke, he advanced, his twitching prick demanding that she open and let him claim her fully. Nothing mattered except burying himself to the hilt inside her wet and welcoming body. The opposition he encountered to each advance puzzled him, but his concentration was on the awe-inspiring feeling of finally being inside the woman he’d dreamt of for years, and his fuzzy mind couldn’t grasp what she was telling him, either vocally or with her body’s slight resistance.
“Do it. The pain won’t last.”
Her meaning penetrated his thick skull with the shock of a blacksmith’s hammer pummeling his head. He stilled, sucked in a deep breath, and tried to lever himself off her body, though pulling out of her would have taken a will a lot stronger than his.
“Christ almighty! You’re tight and you expect pain.”
The realization shocked him into retreat, but she wrapped her legs around his and clasped her hands around his neck.
Inches from his face, she said, “Don’t dare leave me. I know what your dammed honor is screaming at you to do and, yes, I feel tight, and, yes, I expect pain. For exactly the reason you assume.”
“No, no, no.”
“I’ve had no man inside my body apart from you.”
While he shook his head and tried to rattle some sense into his addled brain, he held his lower body motionless. His prick twitched and jerked and urged him to race to the finish line, and he had to draw on every facet of his fabled control.
“But why? You let me think…There were two others, discounting your husband as he was impotent.” He hissed out a breath when she wiggled beneath him. “For Christ’s sake, don’t move.”
“I’m sorry I misled you. You believed they’d bedded me, the same as you.”
“Of course I did, and you did nothing to correct that lie.” With a sigh, he touched his forehead to hers. “Though I thank heaven they didn’t touch you. I’ve tormented myself with visions of your nights with them and what they may have demanded in exchange for their money.”
“You thought they’d believed the Earl’s claims about my virginity?” At his nod, she continued, “If I’d told you the truth, you might have refused to help me find them.” She put a finger to his lips. “Please, later. Not now.”
Between her plea and his body’s screaming need, his questions would have to wait, though he couldn’t forget that this lady and her innate sexuality belonged solely to him. She lifted her hips and pushed towards him, and he responded the only way he could, by giving them what they wanted. Longer thrusts pushed him higher into her tight passage and he worried that, despite her soft, wet, willingness, he’d cause her pain.
Her frantic cries became louder each time he rammed his length home, time after time, until nothing existed except two sweat-dampened torsos slapping and sliding as two fraught people fought for release. His balls pulled tighter and he released with an unstoppable spurt high in her body.
Carina screamed, a loud, uncontrolled, fish-wife’s screech, that rolled on and on, vibrating against his heaving chest and overriding his own more strangled noises. Her entire body stiffened and bucked one last time, her back arching up to claim him as her mate and her inner muscles squeezing him dry of every last drop of seed. Her hot tight clamping prolonged his own shuddering climax and he spurted in an endless stream before sobbing with exhaustion.
He slumped, bewildered and spent, over her quaking form. She nuzzled his face without opening her eyes and, guided by instinct, he met her lips with the softest of kisses. Slow, tender touches and gentle, open-mouthed kisses made time stand still, and it was some time before he thought about the fusion of their lower bodies. His deflated member slipped out and pressed between their entwined legs. They lay in a sweaty jumble that he was loathe to untangle, though cool air sent shivers rippling across her damp skin.
He made a half-hearted attempt at relieving her of his weight. “Carina.” She shook her head against his shoulder and muttered, “No, no, no.” Her reluctance to move pleased him, but the dim light filtering down the hall indicated a lot of time had passed.
“Sweetheart,” he tried again, “this floor is cold and we need to stand.”
Despite his disinclination to disturb the peace of their small paradise, he pulled away and began gathering clothes. In a drowsy move, she flopped one arm above her head in a nonchalant pose that sent blood rushing south to his groin and, in seconds, his mouth went dry and his heart raced. He dropped to his knees and stared with a puzzled frown.
He soothed the frown lines with his fingers. “You’ll think me insane, but when you stretch like that you resemble the sun rising in summer.”
She shifted and peered at her bared flesh, before giving him another puzzled look. The flickering lamp-light couldn’t hide the pink flush around her navel or the rosy glow spreading upwards to her cheeks. She snatched the shirt out of his hand and covered herself.
“No, let me show you.”
He tossed the shirt away and touched her hair. “The red arc of the morning sun starts here.” His fingers trailed a path down her neck, over her shoulder, and circled her breast until her nipples stood to attention. Her breath hitched and her back lifted to chase his finger.
“There,” he said, circling her nipple but never quite touching. “A crimson line goes from top to bottom, like the sun moving across the day.” He walked his fingers over the hollow of her hip. “Ends here.” Two fingers slid over her mound, pushed through sodden curls, slipped inside and hooked back.
Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened to a silent scream. Partly for her enjoyment but mostly for his, he manipulated that overly-sensitive spot until she writhed under his fingers, as if he was a puppet master tugging at her strings in command. When he started to withdraw, she clenched her knees and held his hand there while she panted for breath. Both hands held his arm in place.
“I was going to show you the other colors.” His free hand moved over her stomach. “A line of purest white leads from your toes to your plump thighs.”
“Plump!” The first word she’d spoken ended with a glare. He gentled her until she lay back and he could continue his explorations. “Next time, I’ll worship your adorable thighs. But now, a white blaze rests beneath your outer fiery and goes up and over the mountains to disappear.”
Her breaths were shallow pants and her eyes fixed on his hands. He felt as powerful as a king, and the sight of her spread at his mercy, like a virginal sacrifice before a demi-god, shortened his breathing and tightened his chest. He shuddered and fought the compulsion to spread himself across her smaller feminine form and take her again, and again, an obsession with a cost much higher than paying an escort to relieve his physical urges.