The Dark Regency Series: Boxed Set

by Chasity Bowlin

  Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she was free of the gown. She doffed it quickly along with her stays and petticoats. Her chemise followed suit and then she reached for the box that had been placed upon the bed. Lifting the lid, she retrieved the negligee she’d commissioned for her wedding night from inside and slipped it over her head. The confection of black silk, lace, and ribbon had Dorcas gasping.

  “His eyeballs will burn right out of his skull!”

  Larissa frowned. “I hope that’s a good thing.”

  “He’ll think it is, to be sure,” Dorcas said. “Can’t understand why a bride would want to wear black on her wedding night… well, wedding midday? Not to say yer impatient or anythin’!”

  Larissa smiled but didn’t respond. The negligee had been designed based on one of Spencer’s fantasies the night of their first kiss at Briarwood. Dorcas did not need to know everything, after all.

  Removing the pins from her hair, Larissa let the mass of curls fall over her shoulders. “You may go, Dorcas. I will see you tomorrow.”

  “You won’t be out of this bed fer a week!” Dorcas chortled as she left the room.

  Larissa grinned to herself, “Oh, I hope she’s right!”

  Rhys, in spite of his less than proper pursuit of Emme prior to their own marriage, had set himself up as the guardian of what little remained of Larissa’ chastity. She hadn’t had more than a minute alone with Spencer since they’d returned to London.

  Larissa moved to the bed and lay down, propping her head on her hand as she faced the door and waited for him. When the doorknob turned and then the door opened with a soft snick, her breath caught. She wanted to live up to his fantasies.

  Spencer stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. His gaze traveled hungrily over the vision she made. Laid out on the bed, her body adorned in black silk and lace, she was fulfilling his every erotic fantasy of her. “You’ve been poking around inside my head again,” he stated.

  “Not again… This is just something I recalled from the first time around,” she said. “I believe the modiste did a passable job of matching the description I gave her. Tell me, husband, does it match your fantasy?”

  “It surpasses it,” he said softly as he moved toward the bed, shedding his own clothes along the way. By the time he reached her, he was clad only in his breeches. His body pulsed behind them, the blood pooling thick and heavy as he took in the sensual perfection of her.

  “I’m sure I recall those fantasies very well,” she said, as she rose onto her knees before him and trailed hands over his bare chest. His hands came up to grip her hips through the thin silk that grew warm beneath his hands.

  “Better because it’s real… because you’re here and I can touch you, and taste you… and I can feel your breath on my skin when you sigh my name,” he replied.

  Her hands moved lower, his stomach muscles tightened beneath her questing fingers, but she didn’t stop there. When she reached the fall of his breeches, she did not immediately release the buttons that confined him in agony, but instead pressed her palm against the hard ridge of his arousal. Her fingers moved over him, squeezing, caressing, teasing.

  “How many of your fantasies can we realize today?” she asked.

  Spencer placed his knees on the bed between her parted thighs and tugged her upward until her legs locked around his waist. “We’ve a lifetime to get to my fantasies… I’d rather know yours.”

  She smiled up at him as he bore her back onto the bed. “I’m living it right now. All I ever wanted was to be yours.”

  He reached down and took her hand, his fingers caressing the heavy sapphire ring that he’d slipped on her finger only a few short hours ago. “I can think of a few other things you might want.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “Such as?”

  With his other hand, Spencer tugged at the hem of the negligee, until he could touch the skin beneath. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

  Larissa lay back against the pillows and gave herself up to his skilled touch. His fingers moved over and within her, then his lips and tongue, until she writhed beneath him, clutching at him desperately as the pleasure built. Only when it broke, when she was shuddering and weak with the release that he’d wrung from her, did he open his breeches and join his body to hers. As his hard flesh moved inside her, she opened her mind to the pleasure that he felt, let it course through her. In that moment, she truly was his, heart, mind, body and even soul.

  She cried out as the wave crested again, her muscles taut and clenching rhythmically around him. He pressed deeper into her, his movements sharp with need. She felt the warmth of his release inside her and heard the reverent whisper of her name.

  “I love you,” she said softly. “If it weren’t for you, I’d still be hiding. You gave me courage, Spencer.”

  He kissed her then. “You’ve given me everything.”

  “Not yet,” she said. “But I will. I have another surprise for you.”

  “Does it involve Dorcas moving out and no longer being your companion?” he asked as he rolled onto his back with a yawn.

  “Don’t go to sleep yet!”

  “I won’t, I promise,” he said. “What’s your surprise?”

  “That when people start counting the months between our marriage and the birth of your heir, they’re going to come up rather short,” she said.

  Only a moment earlier, he’d been relaxed, his body sated and replete. Tension crept into his muscles as the awareness of what she’d said settled in. “We’re having a child,” he repeated.

  “Yes,” she replied. His reaction was not what she’d envisioned. “Are you happy, Spencer?”

  “No,” he said, and he sounded dazed. “I don’t think a word has yet been invented to describe the way I feel. Happiness is too mild term for it. This…. this moment with you in my arms, and this heady news sinking in, this is a gift, a priceless treasure.”

  Larissa laid her head on his chest and listened to the beat of his heart. It lulled her to sleep while he remained awake to savor the moment when he’d been given everything he’d ever wanted.

  THE END