Sex and the Single Earl

by Vanessa Kelly

  He was magnificent. A champion, and so much more powerful than she. But despite all that power, that overwhelming masculinity, his skin twitched and his muscles jumped wherever her fingers explored him.

  “Enough,” he groaned. He eased her onto the plump cushions, wedging her against the back of the settee as he came down beside her. The cool silk upholstery slid against her skin, contrasting with the heat that poured from his torso. A spicy masculine scent enveloped her. For a dizzying moment it reminded her of cool autumn nights, and the rustling secrets of an ancient forest.

  But those images fled her mind as his lips covered hers and only sensation remained. His teeth nipped at the edges of her mouth. Then he stroked deep, his hot tongue claiming her so sweetly that the flesh between her thighs grew soft and damp. While his tongue explored, his hand drifted down her neck to cup her right breast between long fingers.

  Those knowing fingers tugged on her nipple, pulling it into a throbbing bud. Sophie broke away from his mouth on a gasp, arching her spine in surprise. The cushioned back of the settee pushed her against him as she involuntarily pressed the aching peaks of her breasts into the hair covering his chest.

  “Do you like that, little one?” His midnight eyes narrowed with predatory intensity.

  “Yes,” she managed to squeak, although a tiny, rational part of her mind realized the question was likely rhetorical.

  A husky laugh was her only answer.

  A moment later he moved down her body and fastened the wet slide of his mouth on her nipple. Electric tingles streaked across her skin. She wriggled beneath him, struggling to relieve a bewildering sensation of emptiness deep within.

  She ached for him, and she sensed that Simon knew how much control he had over her body. As she whimpered in his arms, he played at her breasts. Sucking, stroking, tugging on the distended little nubs of flesh until she felt frantic with the waves of pleasure that seemed to ripple out from her very core.

  Suddenly he released her. The coolness of the air on her damp nipples made them contract with painful intensity. Simon loomed over her, his powerful figure a shadowy outline in the light cast by the fire.

  “Why…why did you stop? Please don’t stop now.” She barely recognized the pleading husk of her own voice.

  She saw the glint of his teeth as he smiled, but he remained silent. He gently pushed her down on the cushions before wrapping one arm around her shoulders, cuddling her against his chest, his touch both tender and full of strength. Never before had Sophie felt so protected and yet so impossibly vulnerable.

  But then his leg intruded between her thighs, pushing into her soft, secret flesh. Contractions throbbed deep within her womb. She gasped, overwhelmed by the astonishing pleasure of fine cloth over muscle brushing against her cleft. But before she could even absorb how delicious it felt, Simon pulled his leg away and shifted onto his side. He reached down, cupping her mound in his hand, his fingers delving deep into her tangle of curls.

  Sophie bit off a cry, shrinking back from the startling intimacy of his touch. His hand stilled. She stared into his eyes. They burned with a restless flame that even she—inexperienced as she was—recognized as an all-consuming hunger. She couldn’t utter a word.

  Simon nuzzled her cheek with lips that seemed both ravenous and tender. “Gently, my sweet,” he murmured in a rough but somehow soothing voice. “I won’t hurt you, I promise. I could never hurt you, Sophie.”

  “But, it does hurt, doesn’t it?” Now that the moment was upon her, she felt both her courage and her desire begin to wither.

  His clever fingers moved again, stroking her soft folds. The gentle motion centered itself on the plump bud hidden deep within the cove of her thighs. As he continued to circle, the throbbing ache began to build once more, and she could feel honey-slick moisture dampening her skin and his hand. She buried her face, flushed with a bashful heat, into his shoulder.

  “Yes, love, it will hurt a bit,” he whispered in her ear. “Well, actually, it might hurt quite a lot, but only for a moment. Then all will be pleasure, I promise you.”

  His fingers slid over her flesh, dipping inside the entrance to her body before returning to tease the tender peak of her sex. She raised her hips in a silent plea, no longer caring about the pain that was to come. She became a creature of spiraling need—a need only Simon could gratify.

  He caressed her, layering the pleasure until she floated in a midnight world of shadows and Simon. Everything ordinary faded away. Only he remained. His hands on her body, his mouth on hers, his possessive lovemaking that flung her to the edge of a precipice.

  She knew any moment she would fall off that precipice and shatter into a thousand little pieces.

  Sophie reached up and grabbed his head, yanking him into a hard kiss. An unbearable yearning tightened every muscle in her body as she devoured his sinful mouth with the pent-up force of all her years of loving him.

  Simon’s hand left her body as he broke their kiss. He tugged at the fall of his trousers then moved on top of her, crushing her into the cushions. He scissored her thighs open, and she felt the broad head of his shaft nudging against the entrance to her body.

  “Ready, sweetheart?” His voice held a rough tenderness.

  To just say yes wasn’t enough. She answered by planting a passionate kiss on his lips as she clung to his neck. He flexed his hips, kissing her deeply as he penetrated her flesh. Pressure, then pain, began to build. Sophie dug her fingernails into his muscles, refusing to cry out at the slow but relentless invasion. He flexed once more. A searing pain lanced her deep inside.

  But after only a few moments the burn of his penetration faded into insignificance, subsumed by the incredible feeling of his hard length inside her yielding, moisture-drenched sheath. She felt claimed by his masculinity—sublimely delicate and feminine in his powerful embrace.

  It was wicked. It was frightening. It was the most exciting thing to ever happen to her.

  She licked her parched lips and struggled to find her voice.

  “I had no idea it would feel like this…that I would feel so much,” she breathed.

  Simon stared down at her, looking momentarily stunned. “I should bloody well hope not,” he growled, before lowering his head to capture her mouth once more.

  Chapter Twelve

  God, she felt good.

  Simon clenched his teeth, struggling to maintain his self-control as he savored the feel of Sophie’s velvet-soft body underneath him. If he didn’t get hold of himself right now he would climax like an untried Etonian tumbling a dairy maid in a barn.

  She had surprised him, his little sprite, but not in the way he would have expected. Of course Sophie adored him, and of course she willingly relinquished her virginity as soon as he claimed it. But what had shaken him was the discovery of her sensual nature, now grown ripe and his for the taking. Her eager response to his lovemaking had surprised him, setting her well apart from the jaded pleasure-seekers he had once taken to his bed. No woman had pushed him closer to the limits of his control—or made him feel so…well, he couldn’t seem to put a name to it.

  She wriggled beneath him, silently demanding his attention. He flexed, and pushed his cock even farther into her supple flesh as his tongue explored the depths of her mouth. She moaned, sinking deeper into the ridiculously overstuffed cushions of the settee as he pressed into her.

  Pulling his mouth from hers, he slowed the pulsing stroke of his hips. He sucked in a shuddering breath and looked down at the fey creature reclining on the pillows beneath him. Her skin glowed with a damp flush, and her hair curled in unruly locks of silk and russet around her pretty face.

  Sophie’s eyes snapped open. He could see the pupils dilate as she struggled to focus her vision. She stared back at him, her emerald-flecked gaze filled with so much raw emotion that Simon had to repress the urge to flinch.

  “Simon?”

  Her voice, catching on an unfamiliar sultry note, slid across his senses like a heavy velvet sc
arf. His cock pulsed inside her sheath. But even though they were locked in the most intimate of embraces, closer than they had ever been, Simon could still hear hesitation in her voice. His heart contracted with a tug of unexpected tenderness as a shadow of anxiety rippled across her features.

  He slipped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her up to his chest. Her soft breasts pressed against him, teasing him with their ripeness. He wanted to go slowly, wanted her body to have time to adapt to him, but he couldn’t help giving her a hard nudge. That drew another moan from her lips as her eyelids drooped shut again.

  An amazing impulse to laugh rustled through him as he watched Sophie’s lips curve up in a dreamy smile. Her slender legs wrapped themselves around his hips and she tilted her bottom up, unconsciously opening herself more fully to his body’s invasion.

  He stroked again into the syrupy heat. God, he wanted to taste her—to consume her tender flesh until she cried out for him to stop.

  But it was too soon to partake in those headier games of love. He would awaken Sophie, slowly and carefully, to the sensual delights that were opening before them.

  Denied the taste of her body, he indulged himself with the champagne-tinged flavor of her mouth, sucking in her sweet essence. She responded eagerly, stroking her tongue between his lips as her slender fingers danced over his back and shoulders. He had to fight the urge to push into her with a punishing rhythm.

  Good God, she made him feel like a savage.

  “You have no idea how much you tempt me.” He licked the corner of her mouth. “You’re just like a little pastry, fresh out of the baker’s oven.”

  Her eyes widened in shock. She pinched him hard on the bicep.

  “Don’t tease me, Simon. I’m not a child anymore.”

  That remark did make him laugh.

  “No, you’re not, Puck, although I’m still getting used to that fact.”

  “Don’t call me Puck, especially not now,” she said. Her scowl was adorable.

  Simon nipped her lower lip. “I’ll call you whatever I want. After all, I should have some compensation for always pulling you out of trouble.”

  She gave him another hard pinch on the arm.

  “Ah, you’ll be sorry for that, Sophie. I have you right where I want you.” He slid his hands down to her bottom, pulling her up and crushing her against his groin. She moaned as he began to stroke into her—steady, powerful, relentless.

  He reached a hand up into her hair, thrusting his fingers through the thick mass, gently pulling her head back to give himself access to the sleekness of her white throat. Strands of crystal beads slipped from her curls to fall with a glittering sparkle to the carpet. Auburn hair cascaded over yellow pillows like a river of flame.

  She glistened in the firelight, a rare pearl polished to a high gleam.

  “Simon!” She whimpered again as he maintained the driving pulse within her.

  The sound of her voice, the writhing of her soft, scented limbs, drove him wild. All the demons from the deepest pits of hell wouldn’t have been able to hold him back any longer. He plunged into her—high and hard—and she arched up to meet him, matching his stroke with perfect accord.

  An insatiable hunger gripped him, compelling him to go even deeper, to claim every part of her.

  He hooked her left leg over his arm, opening her completely to his fierce thrust. Sophie threw her head back and gave a strangled cry—a low, keening sound of ecstasy. Her slick body throbbed around him as he surrendered to his climax, smothering his face in the soft cushions of the settee to muffle his own shout. He poured himself into her, and for one disorienting moment it seemed as if his flesh, his very spirit, had fused with hers.

  The moment passed, overridden by an intensely physical rush of satisfaction that he had so thoroughly taken the woman lying beneath him.

  Eventually, his breathing slowed from an uneven shudder to a more normal rhythm. Simon eased Sophie onto the cushions but remained between her legs, reluctant to pull himself from the clasp of her warm body. In fact, he had no intention of ending their interlude any time soon—despite the late hour and their scandalous use of his aunts’ drawing room. After she’d rested a bit, he might try introducing her to some variations on the theme, after all.

  He blew out a contented breath and nuzzled the soft skin beneath her ear. Sophie had yet to say a word—unusual for her. She was likely stunned by her first sexual release.

  That, or the effects of the champagne were catching up to her.

  She stirred beneath him, her bottom wriggling in an altogether delightful way. His cock twitched with a renewed sense of interest. He grinned, planting a wet kiss on her neck. Sophie had a great deal of potential in the bedchamber, and he intended to take every opportunity to develop her burgeoning talent. It was certainly the most enjoyable way he could think of to keep her occupied and out of trouble.

  He lifted his head to study the girl he had known for almost a lifetime. A rosy blush stained her clear cheeks, and her eyelids fluttered madly, as if she were struggling to awaken from a dream. She looked sweet, vulnerable, and very young. Simon felt the familiar urge to protect her swell within him, along with a rush of emotion so powerful it made every muscle in his body tighten around her. With a jolt, he realized that what he felt was an overwhelming need to possess her.

  To claim her as his woman.

  He let that wash through him. Sophie belonged to him now. He wasn’t capable of loving her as she wanted to be loved, but she had given herself to him, and he would allow nothing to come between them. Not his former lover’s jealous machinations, nor even Sophie’s foolish notions about saving the world. From now on, her life would revolve around him and the family they would create together. He would see to that.

  Sophie’s quivering eyelids lifted. Simon leaned down to kiss her swollen mouth, but she jerked her head back, staring at him with a look of…well, of horror.

  He stared back. No, not horror. Outrage. Sheer, unadulterated outrage. She glared at him as if he had just tossed a litter of kittens into a lake, after kicking an elderly vicar in the seat of his pants.

  Christ.

  He had seen that look before, and it meant a thundercloud was roiling just over his head. Before he could say anything, Sophie’s pretty pink lips curled up into a snarl. She laid a hand flat on his chest and shoved.

  “Simon, move.”

  Her voice held a chill brittle enough to shatter every pier glass in the house.

  “Please get off me now,” she continued from between clenched teeth, “or else I’ll have to push you to the floor.”

  He repressed a groan as he felt a dull ache begin to throb along the back of his neck. What the hell was wrong with her now? And what would it take, exactly, to bring the frustrating little minx under control once and for all?

  If Sophie hadn’t been trying to will away the worst headache in the kingdom, she would have burst into laughter at the expression of stupefied amazement on Simon’s face. But her temples were gripped in a band of throbbing pain, and she thought her head might blow apart if she moved any more than necessary. Either that or she would cast up her accounts all over Lady Eleanor’s yellow silk settee.

  Even worse, she might get sick on Simon, who still lay with her in a sweaty tangle of naked arms and legs. She had to get him off before her stomach embarrassed them both.

  Sophie shoved him again, but she might as well have been trying to topple one of the monoliths of Stonehenge. Swallowing hard against another wave of nausea, she tried to ignore the fact that her mouth tasted foul as the bottom of a dust bin.

  “Please,” she managed to croak. “I must sit up.”

  He stared at her, not with the possessive sensuality that had made her insides turn to soft custard, but with a scowl that suggested he’d rather argue than make love to her.

  Not that she could blame him. She couldn’t believe it herself that such a magical episode had gone so tragically awry. Until a few minutes ago, everything had been
perfect. Simon’s lovemaking had been thrilling. His mouth, his hands, his body moving in hers, had swept her into a place of so many astonishing sensations that she thought she might lose her grasp on reality. But just seconds after that raging tide of pleasure had washed through her limbs, she felt as if someone had smacked her on the head with a large book—the collected works of Shakespeare at the very least.

  “What the devil is wrong with you?” Simon’s voice lanced through her brain.

  She closed her eyes against a gripping pain that squeezed her eyeballs. “I think I might be sick.”

  He muttered under his breath as he shifted against her. His big body lifted away, and the cool air of the drawing room enveloped her, obliterating the heat of his masculine essence. She shivered.

  “This is what happens when you drink four goblets of champagne.” His voice was now as dry as anything she had quaffed at Lady Penfield’s. “Come, Sophie, up with you now.”

  Gentle hands slid under her back as Simon easily lifted her into a sitting position. Sophie cautiously opened her eyes. The room spun like a dervish, forcing her to gulp to keep her stomach where it belonged.

  “My glasses.” Even to her own ears her voice sounded annoyingly weak. If she hadn’t felt so wretched she would have kicked herself for succumbing to an episode of what must be the vapors.

  “Not yet, Puck. Put your head down for a spell. I’d ring for smelling salts, but I think we’ve shocked Yates enough for one evening.” His low voice purred with amusement.

  “Very funny,” Sophie mumbled as he pressed her head down onto her knees.

  He rubbed her back with a soothing hand, then carefully brushed tangled hair away from her damp brow. Sophie took several deep breaths. That combined with his gentle touch seemed to bring her rebellious insides under some semblance of control.