by Lacy Danes
“Fabulous,” he murmured. He looked up at her through a veil of dark lashes. “Perhaps you will allow me to take it into my mouth?”
Pulling the bodice up, she concealed her breast. “Not yet,” she replied, and watched as he scowled. Satisfied with his reaction, she picked up her knight and moved it. Content with her maneuver, she settled back against the curved arm of the settee. Her smile melted away as Christian proceeded to overtake her rook with his queen. Their gazes met instantly over the board, and Elizabeth swore her heart stopped beating.
“What a pretty picture you make, Elizabeth. I hardly know where to begin. Are you wearing drawers, or a pair of French panties?”
“Why do you wish to know?”
“This is a game of strategy, my dear. For I may only ask for one thing, and I do not wish to waste it. If you’re wearing panties, while I am sure they are lovely, they will cover the area that I most want to see—your darling cunny,” he clarified. “On the other hand, that glimpse you gave me of your breast induced many ideas in my mind.”
“I am naked beneath this chemise.”
“Are you?” he asked, raising his brows. “How lovely. Well, then, your charming chemise—lift it so that I can see the top of your stockings.”
She waited, drawing out the seconds as her fingers leisurely skimmed down her thighs to rest against the lace hem of her shift.
“Do it,” he commanded, his eyes never wavering from hers as he set the rook with her other captured pieces.
With a deep breath, she inched her chemise up. Her breasts were spilling from the bodice, the straps wrapped around her arms as they slid off her shoulders. She watched Christian swallow hard as she assumed a more seductive pose for him.
“Higher.”
She smiled at him before sliding the hem up along her legs until it rested beneath her garters. The pink lace of her stockings was exposed, as well as the feminine pink bows that attached her garters to the silk.
“More,” he said thickly, wetting his lips. “Until I tell you you may stop.”
She sat frozen, her eyes wide, her head feeling almost dizzy. How commanding he was like this. Her body seemed to respond to his voice and his instructions. A thrilling tension swam in her blood as she wondered just how high he would have her pull her chemise up, and just how much she was willing to accommodate him. This was a game after all, and a game required two players.
With shaking hands, she did as he asked, raising the chemise until the pale flesh of her thighs was revealed above her garters. She watched with what could only be described as feminine satisfaction as Christian straightened in his chair, taking his time looking at her.
“You’ll be worth it, every damn second of waiting,” he said, his gaze hungrily roving over her thighs and hips. “It’ll be worth it just to feel my thumbs pressing into that soft flesh, right there, above your garters. Can you feel it,” he asked, “my thumbs pressing against your thighs as I spread your legs? Can you imagine what I will want when I do that?”
“You are not there yet, Your Grace,” she purred, schooling her expression into one of polite boredom. “I believe it is my turn.”
His gaze flashed to her as her queen overtook his bishop. His face bore an expression of admiration. “Your boon, I believe.”
It really wasn’t much of a dilemma. Elizabeth knew exactly what part of Christian she wanted to see naked. His chest. She had always been fascinated by the amount of firm muscle and the contours of his belly. And seeing him in nothing but a pair of black trousers, straddling his chair, would be highly arousing.
“Well?”
“You may remove your shirt.”
He raised his brows as he unknotted his cravat. She felt his eyes on her even though she refused to meet his gaze. Instead, she concentrated on watching his tanned fingers working to untie the linen. Sliding it from his neck, he let the starched fabric dangle from his fingers before finally dropping it to the floor. Elizabeth couldn’t help but follow it with her eyes as it floated to the ground. His shirt landed unceremoniously atop the cravat before she could look away.
Raising her eyes from the floor, Elizabeth looked her fill, taking her time studying the way his tanned skin glowed, the way the waning sunlight flickered along his chest, outlining his broad shoulders. The muscles feathering out beneath his ribs fascinated her, making her wish to run her fingers along every inch of him. Her eyes lowered to the flat planes of his belly, to the dark line of hair that stole beneath the waistband of his trousers. With a flick of his thumb, he undid the first button, allowing her to see more of him, and the spectacular erection he was sporting.
“Will I do, Elizabeth?” he asked, his eyes glittering wickedly. “Can this body please you?”
“Indeed,” she averred, running her fingers down her thigh. She allowed her fingers to sneak beneath the hem of her shift. She watched as Christian’s eyes darkened.
“Yes,” he rasped, his gaze focused on where her hand was hidden beneath the lace hem of her chemise. “Touch yourself. I want to watch you. I want to see you part your thighs and see your hand between them.”
“Not yet, Your Grace. For you have not yet managed to steal another piece of mine.”
He growled. Actually snarled like an animal, and Elizabeth laughed. Laughed like she hadn’t in a very long time. She stopped laughing as he stole her rook. He slammed the piece down atop the table with the others then turned his attention on her.
“I want to watch you touch yourself, and I want you to look at me and say my name when you do it.”
Elizabeth parted her legs and showed him her sex. Stroking her finger down the length of her labia, she parted them and swirled the pad of her fingertip against her clitoris. Closing her eyes she moaned, knowing he was watching her.
“No, Elizabeth, open your eyes and look at me.”
She opened them and saw how he watched her. She felt beautiful, wanton. “Christian,” she whispered as she slowly brought herself to the crest of an orgasm.
“What are you thinking, Elizabeth?” he asked as he stood up from his chair.
She arched her hips and bit her lip to keep from crying out. She was so close, so wet.
“Tell me, Elizabeth, what thoughts are running through your mind?”
“How I want your mouth on me, pleasuring me. How I want to watch you do it.”
Christian walked to the settee and dropped to his knees. He watched her fingers in the pink silk of her sex, working the little nub of flesh until her body was arched, drawn like a bow, and her thighs began to tremble.
“How I want to be there,” he murmured out loud, no longer hiding his thoughts behind stony silence.
“Where?” she asked, gazing at him with her heated eyes. Her cheeks were kissed with red, and her breasts rose and fell heavily against her chemise. He gazed up at her and brushed his fingers down her sex.
“Here, in your body, feeling your pretty cunt squeezing my cock.”
She came then and he watched it all, how her body twisted and grew taut. How her breasts seemed to swell and her nipples curled even tighter as they brushed against the silk. How beautiful and erotic it was to watch her, and he had done nothing but look at her and say heated things to her.
Christ, how he wanted to hear her say the same things to him.
“Let me taste.” Reaching for her hand, he sucked first one, then another finger into his mouth. Closing his eyes, he savored her, enjoying the memory of her pleasuring herself and the taste of her sex on her own fingertips. Her hands raked through his hair, and he looked up at her, just as his tongue stroked the length of her finger.
“You said you would tell me what you wanted,” she whispered, her cheeks growing crimson.
Letting go of her hand, he moved toward her and reached for her chemise. He pulled it up, over her belly, her breasts, and then up over her head. She was now completely naked with the exception of her tempting stocking and garters, and hell, what an erotic sight it was to see his wife like this, a se
ductive temptress.
Reaching out, he circled his fingertip around the rose-hued areola of her breast. “Do you really want to know?” he asked, unable to look away from the sight of his fingers caressing her puckered nipple.
“Tell me,” she begged. The way her voice sounded in the charged quiet of the room made him nearly explode. Grabbing her, he wrapped his hands around her waist and brought her to him so that her breasts were against his chest and he was reclining back against the pillows of the settee.
“I want you, with your lovely mouth around my cock and my words in the quiet instructing you. I want your wet body open for me, your willingness to let me pleasure you in all the ways I desire.”
The stark need Elizabeth saw in his eyes made her smile. It was a wanton, womanly smile she knew, as she made a show of sliding her body sensually along his. She reached his waist and tore at the opening of his trousers, freeing him. She clutched him in her palm and stroked him, watching his lips part as his gaze fixated on her hand. “Such an eager little thing, are you not?”
When she saw he was watching her every movement, she strove to make her hips move in a painfully slow and erotic rhythm, teasing him as he had teased her.
“God, but you act like the most skilled courtesan, and yet you look like an angel. I vow you could make a saint sin, Elizabeth.”
“You’re no saint,” she whispered wickedly before flicking her tongue along the tip of him, enjoying the power she wielded and embracing the sexual freedom he encouraged in her.
His hand fisted in her hair, dispelling the pins. As her hair cascaded over her shoulders, his breath came in increasingly harder and shorter pants. “Sweet Jesus, Elizabeth, that looks so damn good, too good,” he moaned, thrusting upward with his rigid length. “Good God,” he growled as he grasped his erection in his hand and traced her lips with the tip. Her tongue came out and circled the head of his phallus and he groaned at the sensation as well as at the visual of it. He pumped himself and demanded she do it all over again, just so he could have the pleasure of seeing her pink tongue glide along him.
Leaning back, he spread his thighs, allowing Elizabeth to kneel between them. Like an Eastern despot with a houri, he ran his fingers through her hair and watched her work his cock with a mouth that was far from angelic. She tormented him with sultry looks, peeking up at him as she trailed her tongue down his shaft, teasing him mercilessly until, in a state of suffering, he reached for the back of her head and brought her mouth down to his straining flesh. “Deeper, Elizabeth. I have to feel all of your mouth around me.”
Reaching for her breasts, he brought them together and pinched her nipples so that she moaned, the sound vibrating along him, making him shudder. Close to finding his release, he reached for her and positioned her so that she sat astride him. Her sex was wet as she lowered her bottom onto his lap, and the discovery thrilled him.
Reaching out, he trailed his fingers along the indentation of her waist and up and over her hip, then down her thigh and over the tops of her stockings. She still wore her shoes and the sight enflamed him. “Christ, I want you. You in these stockings and shoes is everything I’ve ever dreamed of. I can hardly wait to get inside you. I can hardly wait for you to watch me loving you.” Gooseflesh sprung to life beneath his fingers and he felt, as well as saw, Elizabeth sway into him. His hand at last found her bottom and he squeezed it.
“I forget everything when you’re touching me like this,” she said on a sigh. “I love the sight of your dark hands covering me, possessing me.”
“God, but I want to possess you, Elizabeth,” he groaned. “I want to mark you as mine so you will never forget that you belong to me.” Her body trembled and he ran his thumbs over her nipples, eliciting another ripple of tremors through her limbs. Then, fitting his hands around her waist, he lifted her up until his mouth found her sex and he was pleasuring her with his lips and tongue.
Elizabeth couldn’t say a word. She was lost in the sensation of being above him, his mouth on her sex. His hands no longer supported her but were skimming along her back and buttocks, his fingers caressing her cleft and sinking into her aching quim.
She was shaking, trembling, and reaching for his head, she raked her fingers through his hair and held him there, his tongue pulsing against her clitoris until she cried out and climaxed. He did not give her a chance to float back down but lifted her and placed her on the settee, her legs spread wide, her sex, wet with her arousal and his mouth, exposed. Running his hands along her thighs, he pressed his thumbs into the flesh above her garters and spread her more, so that one foot rested on the back and the other was arched delicately on the seat of the settee.
She was flagrantly posed and she loved it. Adored the way her husband was hungrily examining her, loved the way his body responded to the sight of hers.
“Put me inside you,” he asked, and she did, watching as he entered her.
Resting back on her hands, Elizabeth watched as he entered and retreated, loving the way his body disappeared inside hers. Slowly he made love to her, and together they watched—something they had never done before.
There was a closeness in that, watching themselves making love, seeing the way her body took him in. On impulse she reached down between her legs and ran her finger along his cock. “How beautiful you are, Christian.”
He looked up at her and cupped her face. He said nothing, but closed his eyes and Elizabeth felt the hot rush of him inside her.
A long while later, Elizabeth stood at the French doors, looking out at the patchwork of farms. Christian was sprawled gloriously naked, soundlessly sleeping on the settee behind her.
Elizabeth brought her arms tight about her waist. She’d donned Christian’s shirt when she had risen from the lounge. His scent still lingered and she swore she could feel remnants of his body heat clinging to the linen.
Suddenly she was aware of Christian’s heat enveloping her. Caging her with raised arms, his fingers curved around the molding of the door frame while he proceeded to nuzzle her hair.
“Sorry to fall asleep on you, love. You should have woken me instead of standing here all alone. Although,” he murmured wickedly, “I enjoyed waking up to the view. You look rather fetching in my shirt. It’s very alluring you know, what you look like in white linen. Just as fetching as cream silk and pink lace. Though I’m likely never to forget how damn gorgeous your legs looked in those stockings.” He traced the outline of her bottom that peeked out from beneath his shirt while his mouth roamed her neck. “The sight of this perfect bottom will not soon be forgotten, either.”
“You cannot possibly be hard again,” she admonished as she felt his erection pressing into her back. “My God, you’re insatiable.”
“I’ve missed you, Elizabeth. God, I’ve missed this—us—for so long. Is it too much, sweetheart?”
Closing her eyes, she rested her head back against his shoulder. “It is never too much. I will never grow weary of making love with you.”
His fingers cupped her thigh and he hooked her leg over his. “I need you again. Can I take you like this?”
Immediate desire flared to life within her and she writhed against his hand as he stroked her, swirling his fingers along her clitoris until she was trembling and teetering on the edge of orgasm.
She sighed as he slipped inside, stroking her deeply. He moaned and thrust deeper into her, his fingers biting into her waist with the force of his desire.
“I want you hard, Elizabeth, so that you never forget that it’s me inside you.” He reached for her breasts beneath his shirt, fondling and cupping them in his hands. “I have to feel all of you. I have to see you.” And then he pulled out and turned her around so that her back was against the wall. He tore at the fastenings of his shirt and roughly shoved the material aside, baring her. Greedily he mouthed her breasts before slipping her nipple into his mouth. When she was moaning and tugging at his hair, he grasped her legs and wrapped them around his waist. His arms were above her head, resti
ng against the wall as he thrust hard into her waiting body. Their eyes were locked and their breaths mingled together with each pant, each sigh, each erotic whisper.
“Tell me you want me, Elizabeth. That it is only me and our children in your life,” he rasped as he filled her once more and allowed his seed to empty into her.
“I want you. I always have. It has ever only been you. I love you, Christian.”
He held her close, rocking her slowly before he turned her so that she was once again facing the window and the green pastures of their estate.
“Do you see where the fields taper off on the horizon?” he asked. “I own the land as far as your eye can see and even farther. It has flourished under six generations of Sutcliffes. This land has been the pride and sustenance of every duke, including myself. I think it the most beautiful place on earth and yet for a long time whenever I would look out this window, I would be filled with an empty, hollow feeling I didn’t completely understand till this past week.” His grip tightened and he pulled her closer to him and entwined his fingers with hers. “I want to share this with you—all of it. I want the estate to bear the fruits of our labor. Whenever I look out this window I want it to be with you, Elizabeth,” he whispered, holding her gaze. “I don’t want to lose you, or the children. I don’t want to lose us. Everything I have is yours. And my love, Elizabeth, is forever yours.”
A fluttering feeling, as if a hundred butterflies had been let loose in her stomach, quivered to life inside her. She pressed her fingers against his, melting in the emotion she saw in his eyes. “Someone very close to me said that marriage is like a garden. It must be tended to year after year. And I now believe it. I allowed other things to intrude in our lives. I’ve learned now that I must not take even a day with you for granted.”
“A new beginning then, my love?”
“Yes.” She nodded, hugging him. “A new beginning. From this day forward.”
“I look forward to your future visits to my study, if this is what I may expect of your behavior.”