It was a ragged, several-inch line that Louise had never once noticed or remarked on. Not in all their years together.
“Trouble with a tree branch.” When Thea rose up on her toes to rain kisses over the puckered and drawn skin, the rest escaped without forethought. “The day my brother died.”
How easily the confession slipped out—physically and emotionally. Part of Daniel wanted to question why it was that touching Thea seemed to loosen his mouth, to make the words come easier. The rest of him simply marveled at the flash of compassion in her expression when she leaned back to stare into his eyes.
“Climbing,” he explained. “We were eight.”
“Both of you?” She grasped the significance immediately. “He was your twin? Oh, Lord Tremayne…”
The soft sympathy was nearly his undoing.
Daniel, dammit! He wanted her to use his name.
But then her gaze and the light graze of her fingers moved to his lips.
“What about this? How did you scar your mouth?”
Instead of tightening as they always did when he thought of that day, Daniel found his lips opening, confiding, “My father.”
“He did this? On purpose?”
He jerked a hard nod and his hands flexed on her waist. How long had he been holding her?
Rather than drop to her feet or back away, she came closer, blessing him with her tranquil presence. Like a man addicted to drink, he craved more.
“I can tell the memory pains you.” Her voice became a whisper. “Shall I kiss it away?”
Too stunned to speak, he nodded.
This beautiful, bedraggled woman then began searching out every mark and blemish his exposed body possessed, kissing each, murmuring words of comfort and solace…incredibly, not shying away from his “fierce and fearsome” self.
He was tempted to tell her the truth. All of it. His dreadful difficulties with speech. His—
Don’t be stupid! You’ve known her less than a week.
But still, he was tempted…
Do you want her to think you a fool before you’ve had time to convince her otherwise?
And still her kisses and caresses continued, up his chest, across his shoulders, down his arms…
It felt as though she were courting him. Courting his mind as she wove a spell over his body. Her unabashed acceptance made him want to give her something in return. He wanted to buy her jewelry and furs, maybe a dainty horse and—
His mind backtracked. Jewelry and furs. “A coat,” he interrupted her journey over his raw knuckles to ask. “Have you one?”
“Nay. And my gloves slipped away today I’m afraid.”
“Slipped away?”
“On the heels—or should I say fingers?—of an unhelpful beggar…” Once again, she tried to laugh off her troubling excursion.
They hadn’t known each other long, but Daniel didn’t think Thea was a female given to vapors. She’d obviously had a trying day, and after what she’d just done for him, replaced past hurts with present approval, putting aside his selfish wants was the least he could do.
His entire body tingling from her exploration, he grasped both her hands and brought her fingertips to his mouth. It was his turn to cherish her.
He’d help her bathe. Then he’d take his leave. Let her sleep.
She deserved no less.
“Let me wash your hair.” He led her to the basin where the no-longer-steamy (but suitably warm, a quick dip of his finger told him) water waited. There was an empty pail for rinsing as well.
Thinking through his words, he guided her to kneel. “You’ve had a harrowing…day. I shall…” Tuck you in bed and bid you adieu with a kiss. Dream of you all night long. “Finish here and leave you…to rest.”
Giving in to the pressure of his hands, she ducked her head over the basin so he could dampen the mass.
“By all accounts”—the words were muffled by her position—“I should be exhausted but I’m not.” When the warm water streamed over her scalp, she made a low murmur that had his body tightening. “Likely it’ll all catch up with me tomorrow. For now I’m quite awake.”
Thea barely hid her astonishment. He was washing her hair!
A man, a marquis, was patiently working soap over her scalp and rinsing the suds away. He was brushing through tangled strands with his strong fingers and massaging her head long after the water ran clear.
Who knew one’s scalp was so susceptible to stimulation? Brushing her own hair was a calming experience; having her mother brush it when she was a child, a very pleasurable one. But this?
This was beyond fantastical.
With every touch, shards of lightning struck from the tips of his fingers and blazed a path straight to her stomach, and lower.
From the moment she’d seen him standing on her doorstep, she’d felt invigorated. Now she just felt aroused.
Thea yearned to swing her head back as he blotted the length with a towel, yearned to grasp his muscled arms, pull his chest to hers and assuage the heavy ache in her breasts. The ache his thorough hair washing had created.
And he planned to leave her to rest?
Not when the soothing stroke of his hands had energized and enlivened every particle of her body. Not when she wanted him to kiss her and not stop.
Not when she wanted him.
“There now,” he said as though the task was finished, giving one last squeeze to her hair. And giving her the sense he was about to make good on his promise and depart.
Removing the towel from his grip, she faced him squarely.
After inspecting his body earlier, trying to look dispassionately at each of the imperfections carved into his skin and instead only seeing the man beneath the hurts, she hardly registered the swollen eye or bruised side anymore. What she saw before her was a spectacular specimen of masculinity.
What she wanted was every square inch pressed against her.
Seeing his look of steely determination tempered with a frown of self-denial recalled to mind Sarah’s curious words in the carriage. All Thea could think was how he’d not yet truly bedded her. Not completely.
And he was set to deny them both? Again? Not if she had anything to say about it.
She’d had enough of being quiet. Enough of not stating her wishes, of blending into the background, first with her husband and then without him. Enough of not being clear about what she wanted.
Time to change that, starting now. “Just so we have clarity between us, Lord Tremayne, I am quite willing—more than willing actually—to have you…have you…”
Why was she dithering? Just say it, Dorothea Jane. “I would prefer you stay. Would like for us to come together fully.” He looked a bit nonplussed. While her fingers strangled the damp towel, she forged ahead. “To be perfectly blunt, I don’t want you to leave—and leave me aching again. And after being confronted with your magnificent chest, I’d like to see the rest of you naked, to feel you pressed ag-ahummm—”
Without having to finish her pathetic recital, he knew. Knew and took command.
His arm went around her back and molded her to him. His mouth sang a symphony of lust against hers.
This kiss was nothing like the exploring ones in the carriage, nothing at all like the sensual one he gave her after bringing her to orgasm last night.
Nay, this kiss was hard and hot, urgent, and just a touch shy of savage.
This kiss boiled her blood and dampened her loins faster than she could think he has on too many clothes. As he plundered her mouth with primal intent, her nails scored over the fabric covering his posterior.
With a smothered chuckle at her eagerness, he gave her lips one last bit of intense suction before releasing them. “Shall I?”
While she struggled to comprehend (and kept clawing at his frustrating pantaloons), he dragged his hands past her bottom to grip the hem of her chemise and hauled it over her head.
“Ah, Thea.” He gasped at the sight of her, one unsteady hand going to the ribs di
scernible beneath her slight breasts. “You’re so thin. So dangerously thin…”
She didn’t take offense, didn’t panic that he found her lack of womanly flesh distasteful. How could she? When the look in his eyes said the concern was for her.
He swiftly used the washcloth to cleanse every inch of skin with the remaining water, and then he scooped her up, carrying her through her feminine bedroom and into the hallway where he unerringly made his way to the master chamber.
She spared scarcely a second to wonder at his murmured, “Like Cyclops…just in t-time…” because upon reaching the trysting room, he placed her on her feet and kissed her again passionately. From her lips, to her shoulder, working his way down until his tingle-giving mouth reached her wrist and then to the tips of her fingers. After sucking not one but two into his mouth and rousing an even deeper hunger, he released her, straightening and raking his gaze over her naked form.
She trembled from the heat in his eyes. Trembled more when he bent to bestow a tender kiss on the bruises above her wrist. “So lovely.”
A blush threatened but there was no time for modesty. “You still have on too many clothes.”
She reached for him but he reached her first, fusing their lips as he used his grasp on her waist to place her square across the mattress. Thea stretched her arms to receive him but he was already skimming his lips down her body as he unfastened his pantaloons, then wrestled with his boots.
His lips stayed busy on the skin of her stomach, tongue circling her navel. She heard the sweet thump of one boot hit the floor. “Hurry,” she ordered, that achy sensation growing between her legs. “Just shove them off and—”
He licked lower and her hips lifted off the bed, her nails scoring the counterpane at her hips, wishing they were sinking into his skin.
And then it was his skin when he finally shed the rest of his clothes and came down over her, the smooth, smooth skin of his shoulders greeting her fingertips.
She welcomed the weight of his body pushing her into the bed, welcomed the reverent slide of his hand up her stomach until he was moving his fingers over the sensitive peak of one tightly bunched nipple.
“My charms are rather…minimal at the moment.” Why did she go and mention that? Even when eating regularly, her “charms” weren’t much above minimal—but did she have to draw his attention to the lack?
Embarrassed, avoiding what she might see in his gaze, Thea flicked hers overhead. Then promptly forgot to worry about her bosom deficit. Because she was staring at the shadowed reflection of his naked buttocks!
So very pale, so very muscular. So very sinful of her, to be salivating over the salacious sight.
Heavens to Hampshire, thank the blazes for the glowing hearth and what it revealed. Her first look at a nude man most definitely did not disappoint. In truth, the titillating sight tripled her ardor in an instant.
Lord Tremayne drew her focus from the mirror when he climbed up her body, wicking his tongue along the path of his fingers until he licked up one barely mounded slope, sending all manner of delight from his tongue to the far reaches of her body. He applied his tongue to the puckered areola and murmured, “Not the size that matters…”
Looking pointedly from her breast to her eyes, he curved his mouth in a slow grin. “It’s the cherry on t-top.”
Holding her gaze, he closed his lips around one aching nipple and delivered sufficient suction to have her back arching off the bed, her hips toward his, and her neck up so she could watch. Where she blinked in surprise, seeing the length of her body bracketed by his.
Miraculously, she looked every bit as voluptuous and alluring as her paired portraits downstairs, only instead of burled wood, she was framed by Lord Tremayne’s hands and body.
For once, she was a naughty nude, and how it made her smile. Made her eager for more, impatient for the length of his erection now pressing into her thigh.
Breathless whispers of encouragement escaped when his lips sucked fiercely on her breast and his tongue flailed over the tip, the flat of one palm coming up to massage the other. “Aye, like that.”
Whimpering at how easily his attentions fired her blood, she grazed her hands over his shoulders, coasted them over the powerful muscles and passion-warmed skin, craving him closer…ever closer.
He transferred his mouth to her other breast while his splayed palm glided down her stomach and below her waist. She tilted toward him and was rewarded with the first probe of his fingers.
“Mmm.” She dug her nails into his back and crawled them lower as though she could bring him higher, entice his shaft to slide inside.
But wait—
As he stroked over her labia, her thighs widening in welcome, her fingertips encountered more than one straight ridge low across his back. Despite the growing pressure, the languid urgency building in her abdomen, she deliberately traced along one wicked line until encountering a host more, numerous thin welts parading across his flank the farther she slid her palms.
Understanding made her gasp.
Noticing where her hands had frozen, he grew rigid.
“Your father?” she whispered.
A full three seconds later he nodded against her breast.
“That insensitive bastard.” Curving her fingers over the scarred flesh, Thea swore aloud for the first time in her life. “How could he—”
Lord Tremayne lunged upward and silenced her with his lips, with the raggedly voiced, “You wonderful woman.”
You goddamn wonderful woman!
The taste of Thea, the feel of her slick passion coating his fingers, her untutored body’s response—and her reaction to the old scars—practically stealing his wits, Daniel recalled himself without a moment to spare.
“Stay.” The order was instinctive. Rude even, as one hand drifted over her trembling thighs when he reluctantly slid from the bed to retrieve one of the machines purchased the day of Sarah’s party.
Another second and he would have forgotten to armor himself.
Startling because after years of regular and consistent use, he never forgot. Never.
He’d started donning the machinery years ago after it made the rounds when Lord Tims’ trusted mistress gave him not only an hour’s pleasure but a screaming case of clap (after dallying with a visiting French count, or so the story went).
Not one to risk his ballocks for a quick tup, especially after hearing about the pain and blisters, it had been a worthwhile sacrifice to avail himself of the plentiful preventatives. More than that, it became easy to justify their usage when long-time Louise started hinting at something more permanent between them, offering to bear his heir. Egad. The lunatic ideas she had espoused made it easy to suffer a bit of sensation loss for the sake of his sanity.
So it was with no little astonishment Daniel found himself nearly forgetting a habit so well ingrained. Habit or no, his blighted hands fairly shook at the task, his need for her so great.
At his continued absence, she sat up with a whimper, not understanding his departure. Until seeing what he was about, pulling the device over his cock and tying it firmly at the base.
“Oooo—is that a preventative?” She leaned forward as though to inspect the contraption covering his shaft. “I’ve heard them hawked in the streets but not seen one up—”
With a growl, he shoved her back and grasped her ankles, one in each hand. “Later.”
He tried to apologize and explain a world of information in those two syllables. Later, she could inspect the armor if she was of a mind. Later, he’d make it up to her for being abrupt. Later—later—later, maybe his patience would return.
For now, a savage beast controlled him. A sexual beast she’d roused. One that needed appeased.
“Later,” he said it again, softer this time, but it didn’t seem to matter. She wasn’t pouting—prettily or otherwise.
Nay, she was writhing on the bed, her hands stroking up his arms, nails scraping over his skin, legs tensing within his restraining hold, as
he slid his grip along her calves, unable to miss her feminine folds weeping, begging for satisfaction. His recently neglected body was past ready to please her.
Yet he knew if she laid a hand on him again, if she dared caressed his ridged buttocks once more with her delicate touch, it would be over before it began. So he braced his legs wider on the floor and readjusted his hold until he could pull her forward. Positioning her groin right where he wanted it—and his arse out of reach.
Instead of fighting him as he thought she might, Thea only stretched back upon the mattress and urged him on. “Aye, please.”
One of her hands fluttered above her stomach. A second later those very fingers came down to knead her breast. Her other hand flew to her mons, then jerked backward two inches, anchoring itself just above her downy curls.
“T-touch yourself for me.” He was shaking, his entire body vibrating as she did as bade, her eyelids at half-mast as her fingers edged past the dampened midnight thatch and disappeared into the honeyed well between her legs.
“Ohhhh,” she breathed, sounding excited and pleased and more than a little surprised. “I’m ready for you.”
Meaning she hadn’t been with her husband? Or had never been given leave to touch herself to know?
Either thought had pride—and fury—storming through him. That such a responsive, passionate woman would go unappreciated…
“Thea.” The cry turned ragged when he saw her fingers emerge from her depths, slick and glistening, only to disappear back inside.
Timing his advance with the steady pace she set, he released one leg to grasp his cock and run the tip over her cleft. For once he hated the cover shielding him from feeling all sensation. So he nudged his thumb forward, let her heat and viscous fluid coat his skin, and imagined that those silky juices of hers flowed over all of him.
Gripping his staff just below the crown, he pressed forward, stroking between her spread labia.
“Yes, please.” If one discounted the breathy way she said it, she sounded so very polite and proper, he almost laughed.
But when the leg he wasn’t holding curved behind his thighs to bring him intimately closer, deeper—
Lusty Letters: A Fun and Steamy Historical Regency (Mistress in the Making Book 2) Page 7