by Ingrid Hahn
He started pulling at his neckcloth. She reached up, their fingers tangling, and helped him. And then started tugging away the rest of his clothing. The heavy wool jacket, tailored exquisitely to his broad form, took a little doing. The waistcoat came next, Phoebe’s shaking fingers stumbling and tripping over each one in her heightened anticipation. The undershirt came last. He helped by pulling it over his head. It, too, landed on the heap growing at their feet.
Her breath was coming slow and deep, every nerve in her body hewn to finely detailed awareness. When had the brush of fabric against her fingertips ever been more pleasurable?
Stripped down to his breeches and boots, Max was a vision. Without clothes, he appeared bigger. And stronger. How delineated his musculature was, a collection of angles working together in perfect harmony to create a beautiful whole. The most beautiful whole Phoebe had ever witnessed. By the faint light of naught but a single candle, his skin glowed.
Her hand hovered over his naked chest, close enough to feel the heat rising from his skin. She glanced at him for permission. Max gave it in a single nod.
Phoebe started at his shoulder, following the smooth curve down over the light covering of hair on his broad chest to the hitch at his waist that disappeared down his breeches. “I love touching you.”
A crooked smile drew over his mouth. Taking her fingers to his lips, he kissed them. “A promising beginning.”
“What’s this?” She rubbed a twisted scar along his wrist.
“Shh. Never mind that, now.” Taking the tips of her fingers within his own, he gently led her to the bed. She took the step to climb upon the mattress and turned to Max for instruction.
“Lie down, my sweet.” He crawled after her.
Doing as she was bid, she settled herself back.
He started at her ankles, skimming his fingers over her skin oh-so-lightly as he brushed her shift up, up, and up…until the fabric was bunched around her waist. Exposing herself to him didn’t provoke a sense of shame or humiliation or wrongdoing.
No. It was wondrous. Right. Thrilling.
“You’re certain, Phoebe?”
Shivering, she whispered an affirmative.
He started at her knees with his mouth. Then he went upward. Slowly. Biting, nipping, kissing, nuzzling, stroking. He ran a hand back and forth over her bare thigh.
“You feel…” Max groaned. “This is difficult for me, you know.”
“Do you expect me to feel sorry for you?”
He smiled, his eyes burning with intensity in the scant light. “A small amount of guilt wouldn’t be amiss.”
“We shall see what happens, and then reassess.”
“Are you bargaining with me in the middle of bed sport?”
“Only if you don’t agree to my terms.”
“As I recall, your bargaining skills are lacking.”
“They’re perfect.” She spoke with light teasing. “It’s my way or nothing.”
Max’s smile broadened into a grin entirely too wolfish. The sight sent pools of longing to places she didn’t know could feel with quite such all-consuming strength. “We shall see about that.”
He parted her legs and Phoebe drew in a sharp breath when he trailed his fingers lazily over the splayed centerline of her sex. “We can stop anytime you like, my sweet.”
“Stop now and I’ll…I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” He reached down to unbutton his falls and took himself in hand. The room didn’t boast enough light for Phoebe to see as well as she’d have liked. The occasional, or not-so-occasional, horse penis wasn’t an uncommon daily sighting, should one care to peer, which Phoebe generally did not. A horse penis wasn’t half so interesting as what this man might have between his legs.
“Just don’t.”
With his thumb, he drew a circle around the hard bit at the top. “You have a beautiful cunny.”
Despite the haze of pleasure, she giggled. “That’s a peculiar word.”
“Mmm. I like it. The pop of the C at the outset. Anybody with that word in their mouth sounds defiant.” His voice dropped. “And wicked.”
“Is that what you like, Max? To sound wicked?”
“I prefer wickedness upon a woman’s tongue.”
The daring thrill rode Phoebe at the notion of saying something a proper lady might balk at. “What would you like me to say?”
His command came out in a harsh whisper. “Tell me what you want me to do to your cunny.”
A new bloom of warmth spread over her. If that’s what he wanted, that’s what he’d have.
Chapter Twenty
Max’s cock was hard and hot in his hand. As usual an occurrence as that was, everything else was fresh and new and about as titillating as a scene could be. Phoebe’s legs were parted before him—enough to think he might be able to catch a glimpse of what she hid there, but not enough that it wasn’t still mostly a tease.
She had long, shapely legs, small ankles, and ample thighs. And her skin—so unbearably soft.
This is where his practice would come to reward him handsomely. Oh, he might never have stuck his prick inside a woman, but his vow never to risk fathering a child hadn’t kept him from putting his mouth between women’s legs.
True, women came with several entrance options. As much as he admired a large arse on a pretty woman, putting himself up a bum had never appealed to him. Though that would have safely averted the risk of conception, he’d opted never to experiment with that alternative.
The cunny was everything to Max. The sweet, pink, fragrant cunny. He’d never met one he hadn’t liked.
He pushed her knees open wider. And Phoebe’s—oh, help him—Phoebe’s… It was enough to stop a connoisseur’s heart. So plump. Such a prominent clitoris. Such lovely petals. Such perfume—that heady scent that only a woman could make.
That it was hers made it different. Touching and tasting her wasn’t about pleasing himself. Not like touching and tasting had been in previous encounters. The act assumed ever so much more significance, all because he engaged in it with her.
“Tell me, Phoebe. Tell me what you want.” He placed a handkerchief in a strategic spot for later.
“I—I hardly know.”
His eyes were adjusted enough to the dim light to know her color was high. Her hips gave a little rock.
Max ran his middle finger through her wet sex and teased the tip around her entrance. “Don’t become reticent now, my sweet.”
She swallowed. When he went back up to gently work back and forth over the pleasure point, her eyes fluttered shut. “I like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it when you touch me there…like that.”
He stroked a fraction harder. She moaned.
“Have you ever come, Phoebe?”
“Come where?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, Max, don’t tease me. Not now. You’re already… I shall die if you do any more than you’re already doing.”
Max laughed. “Well, well. We certainly have something to attend to this evening, haven’t we? Have you ever touched yourself?”
“I—I try not to.”
“But you fail, don’t you, my wicked wife.” It wasn’t a question. It was a firm statement. Women had appetites the same as men did. Max had known too many women to ever believe otherwise. Phoebe, this passionate, curious creature couldn’t have been any different. “Sometimes you just have to give in. The temptation becomes too much for you.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
She shuddered. Her color was high. “Sometimes I have to touch myself.”
“What do you do? Tell me.”
“Sometimes…” Her voice was taut. “Sometimes I have to put my finger in myself and think about what it would be like when I have a husband.”
How delicious. He’d expected touching, certainly, but nothing quite so delightful as that. Max grabbed himself more firmly and worked his erection harder. The pleasur
e was mounting fast. He tensed his stomach muscles to hold himself back. “And that hasn’t made you come?”
“Please, I don’t know what you mean.”
He pushed her shift the rest of the way up her body to expose her rounded belly and substantial breasts. Her coral nipples were bunched and pointed.
“We’re going to work on that. We’re going to ensure you’ll be able to make yourself come whenever you please. But first, I’m going to indulge myself. You relax. All you have to do is enjoy what I do to you. And whatever you do, my sweet, keep talking. Keep talking as long as you can.”
That was when he finally pushed her thighs all the way apart. She spread before him, wide as her hips would open, her sex fully exposed. When he bent and ran his tongue over the sweet wetness, she drew in a ragged inhalation. “Oh, Max. Oh God, Max…what are you…what are you doing?”
“You’ll see.”
He started with the petals, nipping and tugging. He drew his tongue along her, up and down, up and down. Then, pausing at the entrance, he pushed the end of his tongue partway into the opening. Phoebe’s hips moved, urging him upward.
So up he went. Never let it be said that Lord Maxfeld didn’t do precisely as his lady wished. He played his tongue over the clitoris. Back and forth. Around.
He growled. “Tell me what I’m doing to you.”
“You have your tongue on my…oh!” Her hips moved harder.
“Say it.”
Her breath was coming hard and fast. “On my cunny.”
“Shall I stop?”
She dug her fingers into his hair, pushing his head back down. “I want you here.”
“You want what, my lady?”
“I want you to keep doing that to my cunny.”
He began sucking on her, applying all the placid care in the world. It was the middle of the night. They were in his bed. They didn’t have to rush. They didn’t have anywhere to be. Contrary to his assertion, he wasn’t expected anywhere tomorrow at an early hour. Or any hour, actually.
Phoebe, apparently, became a pious creature while experiencing the pleasures of the flesh, calling out for her God again and again.
The way she tensed said she was close.
He worked himself harder as he redoubled his efforts on her sex.
One part of him raged to gallop ahead to the finish line. Another part, weaker but more pleading, begged him never to stop—to never allow the moment to end.
…
Phoebe was beyond thought, beyond reason, and beyond stopping. The totality of her existence had been refined to a single point—the point between her legs where he fashioned her into this new being with his tongue. She was nothing but a vessel for opulent arousal.
It wouldn’t stop building within her, and she strained, reaching for she knew not what.
Until suddenly, she did know. The sensation was like a small vial finally, finally breaking within her and releasing wave upon wave of heated tremors.
Under the control of the pleasure devouring her, her hips rose off the mattress. Her fingers dug into the linens. The feelings would not be contained, and the only thing she could do was be taken hostage by the sensations. She cried out, head arching backward.
Gasping for breath, Phoebe fell back against the bed, warm and limp. She was still riding the pleasured aftershocks of the experience.
The extraordinary experience. It was like a veil had been lifted to reveal a hidden world that had existed in parallel to her own. Lax and spent, she was aware enough only to move her eyes because, whatever that had been, it had not quelled her curiosity.
Max grabbed for the white square of fabric that he’d placed nearby and brought it down between his legs. His face twisted in anguish—the sort that might have provoked her concern, had she not been born anew by her recent initiation into these carnal delights. He made a straining sound. And then he, too, relaxed, wiping himself briefly before tossing the handkerchief off the side of the bed. Then he snuffed out the light.
But beyond the windows, dawn was upon the sky, and the drapery had not been pulled fully closed.
He curled his large form around her. She burrowed close to him, nose pressed against his fragrant warm skin where she could experience his smell with each breath.
“Are you all right, my sweet?” He stroked her hair reverently.
What sort of question was that? Didn’t he know? Until she’d come, she’d gone through the world woefully blind.
More than that, though…there was something in her heart, something new and not a little bit frightening. Something she wouldn’t have dared to name for fear of discovering later she’d been fooled into believing a lie—a lie born of a momentary lunacy.
She pushed herself up on her arms. “Can we do it again?”
He flung an arm up over his head, his eyes blinking in that heavy way when a person is losing his fight against drowsiness. A small smile came to his lips. “Tomorrow.”
“How can you not want to do more?” And by more, of course, she meant true congress. “We’re married, Max. Isn’t marriage one of the sanctioned remedies against the sin of fornication?”
His smile faded, and he angled his head away from her. But he couldn’t have been displeased, for he pulled her back down against him and flung the covers over them. “There’s no other ‘sanctioned remedy,’ as you say, that I know of.”
She ran her hand back and forth over the hard contours of his broad chest. “Max?”
He took a breath. “Yes, my sweet?”
“I’ll never hurt you, you know.” She’d no sooner spoken the words than a shadow fell over her heart.
He placed a kiss on the top of her head. “Go to sleep, wife.”
But she couldn’t—not for hearing the echo of her assertion in her head again and again, and wondering if she’d made a promise that somehow, someway, in the unforeseen future, she wouldn’t be able to keep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Phoebe awoke later that morning—alone. Truth be told, she wasn’t half surprised. Disappointed that he’d gone as he’d said he would, but not surprised that he hadn’t stayed. But she did sigh, push herself to sitting, stretched, and slipped her shift over her head before returning to her own room where she rang for a servant.
“See I’m not disturbed for the next hour—not for any reason.” An hour? No, that wouldn’t do. She might want time to herself, but she also wanted breakfast. “On second thought, half an hour. Send Albina up to dress me.”
The maid, an undersized little thing with a pale, solemn face, dipped from her knees and left.
Phoebe shucked her shift to allow her skin to experience the full extent of the cool morning air. Even alone in this quiet bedchamber, the world was new. And not because Max’s home was new.
With no small amount of daring, she went, utterly nude, to the window and peered into the street, careful to keep behind the window dressing.
And what a thing it was to be on the other side of this secret.
Surely some of the people coming and going below had experienced what she’d experienced. How did they not lock away the whole of the day long to do it again and again?
Well. Even she remembered she’d be hungry sooner or later, even if it didn’t seem possible just now.
Then again, women were notorious for being indisposed. Perhaps they weren’t as sickly as Phoebe had been led to believe. Perhaps some of them sometimes had better things to do than wander about following the polite rules of society. That idea had a ring of truth.
At the bedside table, she picked up the rose Max had placed atop the books and pressed it against her nose to luxuriate in the sweet fragrance.
She settled back upon the bed and let her hands roam her body. Her imagination played through the events of last night. The way his head had looked between her open legs. The way his hair had felt when she’d run her fingers through it, thick and slightly coarse. The way his tongue had felt upon that delicate hidden flesh.
As Phoebe relived
the previous night in her mind, all the feelings came rushing back. Her heart sped up, the rest of the world shrunk to oblivion. And this time, she didn’t have any compunction about dipping her fingers between her legs. Nor of rubbing herself where Max had licked and sucked. Being able to control the speed and pressure made everything different. Not that she didn’t want Max back in bed with her to do this—and more—but for now, she wanted to come again.
So she did.
And again.
And again.
Then it was time to dress for breakfast. Warm, sated, and fairly humming with an infinitely pleasant mood, she submitted to Albina, was dressed, and had her hair arranged.
Perhaps in the future, she’d simply have a tray sent up. If Max weren’t about, there was no point in descending to be the only soul in the breakfast room. Today, however, it was likely the servants would enjoy the pleasure of serving their new mistress. She couldn’t disappoint them.
So it was a surprise when she found him there, leaning back in his chair reading a newspaper, a cup of tea in a dish on the stark white cloth before him.
He looked the picture of propriety. The perfect gentleman, in an ordinary bluish-gray morning room, wearing the perfect bottle-green jacket and a somber waistcoat. Flawless breeches. A white neckcloth tied in a simple knot. Dark hair artlessly falling over his brow.
Fewer than twelve hours ago, she’d stripped him and run her hands over his bare skin. Her hands curled, fingers brushing back and forth over her warm palms.
Without moving his head, he darted his gaze up to her. His startling bright eyes were lit with unholy knowledge. He didn’t smile. He didn’t greet her.
But the intensity with which he simply looked at her—with that secret knowledge they shared of last night’s doings—turned her knees to butter. An energy surged through the air. An awareness. His lips gave a little twitch—the same lips he’d pressed against her there only last night.
After a period of silence so thick she could have tied it in ribbons, his voice emerged—low, filling the space of the room and settling into the nooks and crannies of her bones. “Good morning, wife.”
Such ordinary words, yet laden with depths of meaning she hadn’t the vocabulary to begin to express.