by Shana Galen
He hadn’t expected the sensuality or the richness of her. Those full lips teased him, inviting him to take more when he knew she would balk if he moved too quickly. But he wanted more. He wanted all of her. Desperately.
And when she touched the tip of her tongue to his, a quick tentative taste, he almost lost all control. He broke the kiss and rested his forehead on hers, catching his breath. His erection strained at the fall of his trousers, his blood thundering in his ears and his body begging for release.
“Have I done something wrong?” she asked when he didn’t resume kissing her.
They stood locked in an embrace, their heads touching, his lips only a few inches from hers.
“No. You’re perfect,” he said and meant it.
“But when I kissed you in the French style, did I do it wrong?”
He smiled, even as thunder rumbled in the distance. Oh, if she were intent of playing the student, he could definitely play the instructor.
“You did it exactly right. You aroused me, and I had to pause to gain control.”
She nudged her head up, looking into his eyes. “Why? I thought you…that we…”
“Tonight is for you, Lila,” he said. “For your pleasure. Not mine.”
“You don’t want anything?”
He kissed her lips again because he couldn’t resist. “I want everything, but I’m in no hurry. And besides, there’s a wager to win.”
She turned her head. “Wouldn’t want to be saddled with me for life.”
He made no answer. He did not intend to lose the wager or to stay married to her, but she had set the terms of the bet.
“I hate to disappoint you, sir, but you will lose. I will admit kissing you is quite nice, but then again, so is a playing a piano sonata or chatting over embroidery with friends.”
Brook laughed. “I must say, my lovemaking has never been compared to embroidery before.”
“I enjoy embroidery.”
“I’m sure you do,” Brook said. “In the morning, I’ll ask again how the two compare.”
This time he gave her no prelude, no gentle, soft kisses. Instead, he took her mouth hard and possessively. She might have protested had he allowed it, but he kissed her deeply, kissed her until her legs gave way and she moaned. He lowered her onto the bed, positioning his knees on either side of her thighs. His hand cupped the back of her head, his fingers tangled in the silky mass of her dark hair, his mouth tasting that erotic mix of wine and Lila.
And when he was breathless and feverish with want, she wrapped her hands around his neck and kissed him back. She proved a cunning pupil, her mouth and lips taking his as completely as he’d taken hers. What she lacked in skill and finesse, she made up for in passion.
Brook was hard-pressed not to toss her skirts and take her hard and fast.
He’d lose the wager, of course, but at this point he hardly cared.
He pulled away, dipped his mouth to taste the skin of her neck, the hollow beneath her jaw. She smelled sweet and tempting, the scent of lily of the valley clinging to her skin. He flicked a tongue out, tasting her, ratcheting up his need, although he’d resolved not to succumb to it. She arched at his attentions, but he ignored her upthrust breasts. He would have liked to bare them, kiss them, taste the hard points he could see through the thin layers she wore. Instead, he linked his fingers with hers and pressed her hands to the pillow beside her head.
He kissed her again, suckling her full lips, her tongue, giving and taking until her fingers tightened on his and he knew she wanted more. Brook shifted and nudged her legs apart, fitting one of his between them. He kissed his way down to her collarbone and over the swells of her breasts. He might have removed the dress easily and kissed her bare flesh if he’d thought she’d allow him to undress her. Brook didn’t want to give her that much time to think.
Instead, he moved his lips over the silk of her bodice, learning the shape of her breasts with his mouth. He kissed the underside and moved his lips closer to the center, watching as the outline of the hard peaks of her nipples became more visible. Finally, he closed his lips on the fabric over her nipple, sucking both fabric and flesh.
Lila’s hands, still grasping his, tightened as though she held on with everything she had.
“Are you—” She paused and sucked in a breath. “Are you certain this is proper?”
He moved to her other breast and repeated the action, in no hurry to answer her question. She blew out another quick breath, and he heard the moan she tried to suppress.
“Proper? I should think not. Pleasurable? Definitely.”
“I think”—he took her silk-covered nipple gently between his teeth—“I—oh… I—I think we should only do what is proper.” The last word came out as a weak cry.
He raised his head. “You should have noted that in the terms then. No renegotiation at this point, I’m afraid.”
“But—”
“I’ll release your hands now. I’d appreciate it if you unfastened the bodice of your dress. Then I could kiss your bare flesh, which would be even more improper.”
“I most certainly will not.”
He released her hands, having to all but pull his fingers free of her tight grip.
“Now what are you about?” Lila asked.
“I need my hands.” He nudged his knee higher, toward the apex of her thighs.
“Why?” she squeaked, pretending she didn’t notice how close he was to her core.
“To touch you, of course.”
He reached down and slid the hem of her dress up past her ankles and around her calves. His hand met with silk stocking rather than bare flesh. Another man, one who did not enjoy anticipation as much as he, would have been disappointed.
His fingers touched her knee, and she jerked.
“Where do you plan to touch me?” she asked through clenched teeth.
He brought his knee higher, pressing it lightly against the heat of her core. “Nowhere proper, you can be sure.”
“Sir Brook, I must insist we discuss this.”
He moved his knee slightly against her heat. He imagined she was wet for him. If not, she would be soon.
“You will forgive me if I put off our discussion until a more convenient time.” He slid his hand higher, cupping her thigh. “I am occupied at present.”
He lifted his knee and used his hand to slide her skirts higher until he could see the tie of her garter and, just above, the pale skin of her bare thigh. Brook couldn’t resist. He bent and kissed that skin, feeling her flesh pebble in response.
He pushed her skirts higher, and she caught them with her hands. Even with all her protestations, she hadn’t used them to stop him. Now she would prevent him from seeing her. He would respect that. Instead, he bent to kiss the exposed flesh of her thigh again, opening his mouth to taste her soft flesh. He moved steadily inward, his head between her legs and his mouth on her inner thigh.
Her hands were white where they clutched the material she held, and he moved lower instead of higher, kissing the side of her knee, raising her knee, and kissing the back of it until she shivered.
He moved higher again, taking his time, trailing his lips over her skin with varying degrees of pressure until he learned which made her shift beneath him and which made her skin explode in gooseflesh. Gently, his knee nudged her legs wider, and his lips moved higher. She didn’t release her skirts, but he made small forays beneath them, learning the landscape by the feel of his lips.
He could smell her arousal, knew she was ready for him. His body reacted to it, straining against the tethers he’d imposed. Brook was a disciplined man and a patient lover, but he was having more difficulty curbing his urges with Lila than he could remember experiencing before. He hadn’t expected this reaction to an innocent, one who clutched at her modesty and did absolutely nothing to entice him. He’d never been particularly attracted to innocence, but he found hers quite disarming.
Now he would disarm her. His lips moved higher and higher unti
l her legs trembled where his cheek pressed against the warm flesh. Her skirts loosened, and when he kissed his way back to her knee, her fingers had moved to clutch the bedclothes beneath her. Brook didn’t think it was a conscious choice. Her eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
He could give her pleasure if she allowed it. Slowly, he pushed her skirts higher, baring inch after inch of creamy flesh to his gaze. Her legs weren’t particularly long. She wasn’t a tall woman. As was everything else about her, Lila’s height was ideal, neither too tall nor too short. But her legs were round and soft and between them lay ebony curls the same color as her hair. He could just see the pink of her sex, was desperate to part her and see all of it.
Instead, he kissed the flesh of her belly and her inner thighs, of her hip bone and the juncture of leg and pelvis. Lila trembled more, her breath coming in loud gasps and her hands clutched as though she were in agony.
Brook slid his hands up her thighs, parting them until the pink of her flesh was revealed to him. “Beautiful,” he murmured. The light of the fire was hardly enough for him to see her as clearly as he would have liked, but it did not diminish his appreciation.
“This is mortifying,” she murmured.
“By all means, you may ask me to stop at any time.”
He believed she was past that point, but just in case, he bent and pressed his lips to her tender flesh. Her hips rose slightly off the bed, and her body tightened like a violin string. “You might tell me not to kiss you there,” he said. Then he bent and licked a circular path around her core. “Or not to lick you there.”
In response, she moaned and, though he held her legs open, her resistance all but fled.
He bent to taste her, dipping his tongue inside her. She was wet and tight, and his cock throbbed at the thought of entering that glove-like sheath.
Brook clutched at his control. “You might tell me not to taste you or to lick this small nub here.”
He did just that, licking her lightly and quickly and pulling back.
Lila let out a small moan, and her hips arched.
“More?” he asked.
Her eyes were shut, and she refused to look at him.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
He licked her again, this time working the nub with his tongue, conscious of how sensitive she was, and keeping his ministrations light and tender. She panted as his tongue worked her, her hips moving in an unconscious rhythm.
“Let yourself go, Lila,” he murmured against her swelling flesh. “Let me give you this.”
“No,” she grit out. “I don’t want to lose.”
“You only lose when you deny yourself.”
He bent again, and this time showed no mercy. His tongue stroked and flicked, inching her closer and closer to climax with a patience that few men had. Finally, she cried out, and her body rose, pressing hard against his mouth. She shuddered as his tongue continued to work her, drawing out every last ounce of pleasure until she collapsed back with a muffled cry.
He had won the wager; even she could not deny the force of the pleasure he’d given her. But Brook wanted more of her. For a brief moment, she’d wanted him, wanted his mouth, his tongue, his hands on her. He wanted to feel her desire, her need for him again.
Knowing she was not as sensitive now, he was rougher, pushing her legs apart and using a finger to trace her sex. She jerked at the feel of his hands on her, her delicate flesh contracting. When he brushed a thumb over that nub, she jumped in response.
“No. No more,” she moaned, but he wasn’t through yet. He moved his thumb over that small bud until she stopped fighting and opened her legs for him. Her eyes were an impossible shade of gold when she gazed at him. They shined as though they were liquid.
Brook bent again, taking her with his mouth, this time rougher. This time he suckled her, lashed her, laved at her inflamed flesh. His finger teased her entrance, not diving inside but tracing it and teasing the flesh. When he felt the first stirrings of her orgasm, he replaced tongue with the rasp of his thumb and watched her face.
She’d always been beautiful. He’d known few women as lovely as she. But in the throes of passion, she was truly ravishing. Her color was high, her skin glowed, her hair tangled about her like a dark halo. Her reddened lips opened, and she cried out at the same time he felt her jerk against him.
Brook would have given anything if, at that moment, she had opened her eyes and looked at him.
That was when he knew he was in danger.
* * *
Lila had lost. And she had not even lost quietly and with dignity. She had lost loudly and lustily. Good Lord, but the second time, she’d wanted to lose.
She was vaguely aware of her husband—though he would not be that for long now that she’d lost—settling beside her. She could feel his eyes on her as he smoothed the hair back from her brow. She could not look at him. She was too embarrassed at the way she’d reacted to his touch.
She wanted to slink away and bury her head under a mountain of pillows and blankets. Unfortunately, the cottage did not boast such a mountain. Perhaps if she pretended she was asleep, but how could she sleep with her skirts thrown up to her waist?
She pushed them down to cover her legs.
“Lila,” he said.
“I do hope you will not gloat over your victory.” She kept her eyes squeezed shut.
“A gentleman never gloats.”
She opened her eyes and pinned him with them. “You, sir, are no gentleman.”
Instead of being suitably chastised, he grinned. “You, my lady, would be bored to tears if I were a gentleman in bed. You would wonder what all the fanfare was about. I trust now you know the difference between my lovemaking and embroidery.”
“Please do not say anymore.” She could feel her cheeks flaming.
She’d tried to cover her blush with her hands, but he drew them back, holding them lightly in his own. “Your reaction was perfectly normal. Your body experienced what it was designed to experience. You won’t go to hell for an orgasm.”
“But I behaved like a savage.” Her eyes were tightly shut, and she felt tears threatening to spill. She could not allow that.
“You behaved like a passionate woman. You completely undid me.”
She opened her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean”—he stroked her cheek with a tenderness she hadn’t expected—“I didn’t know under all that prissy and prudish loveliness, there was a ravishing beauty.”
Now her cheeks flamed again. She’d received compliments for as long as she could remember, but this one was somehow different. More intimate, more meaningful.
“So that was not a sin?”
“Pleasure is not a sin.”
“Yes, but…the way…what I mean to say is, do all married people do that?”
He opened his mouth to respond and then paused to consider. The look in his eyes rather reminded her of a startled stag she’d once come upon when she’d been walking in the woods at Blakesford.
“I can’t say what other married people do. I’m not in their bedrooms, thank God. I will say cunnilingus, which is what it’s called, is not a secret.”
“Oh, but I thought you said it was French. That sounds Latin.”
He looked as though he might have discussed it further, then shook his head. “Might we discuss linguistics later?”
“Of course. I want to put on my night rail before I sleep.”
“I didn’t say we would sleep. Not yet, at any rate.”
Lila stared at him, at the slow, wicked grin that parted his lips. She had new respect for those lips, for the skills he wielded with them.
And then it occurred to her that she had lost the wager. Not only did that mean he retained the right to petition for annulment, but it also meant he had won. She’d told him he could make one request of her, and now she would have to pay the forfeit. A small thrill of anticipation skittered through her. What would he ask her to do? Would it be someth
ing truly scandalous? Something she must do because to refuse would mean forfeiting the wager.
“Forgive me.” She sat and pushed her hair back. “I owe you a prize. What is it you request?”
He gazed at her for a long, long moment. “I find I don’t wish to claim my prize quite yet.”
“Oh. Then when will you—”
“You would like to know that, wouldn’t you? That would ruin the anticipation.”
“At least tell me what you want.”
“And calm your nerves? I don’t think so. I like you on edge.”
She scowled at him and jumped to her feet. “You’re a horrid man.”
“That’s just what the king said when he dubbed me Sir Brook.”
“The king obviously made a grave error. Please at least attempt to behave as a gentleman and give me privacy so I might dress in my nightgown.”
“Very well. I’ll step outside for a few moments before the rain begins to fall.”
He closed the door behind him, and she sat on the bed, head in her hands. She’d made a grave error. She could hardly be blamed, as she’d been wholly ignorant of what Brook could make her feel. She’d never even imagined some of the things he’d done to her. She didn’t even want to imagine them now or she’d start blushing all over again.
But what was she to do now that she’d lost the wager? He’d annul the marriage and then she’d be back under the protection of her father and Vile Valencia. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to be Brook’s wife. She wanted away from her stepmother.
Except that now that she’d been kissed by Brook—in multiple places—she rather thought she did want to remain his wife. Was that the sort of thing he’d do to her every night if she was his wife? And why was she even considering allowing him to repeat what he’d just done to her? She couldn’t agree to let him touch her again if this would only end in annulment. She shouldn’t want a man to touch her who didn’t love her.