Taking Liberties

by Jackie Barbosa

  Fortunately she didn’t seem inclined to take offense. “You were taking so long to return to the house, I thought perhaps you’d gotten lost. And it seems I was right.”

  He wasn’t remotely lost, of course, but he didn’t think it wise to admit the truth. So he said, “Yes, I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

  “Several of them, I should say,” she said with a weak laugh. “If I didn’t know better, my lord, I would say you were avoiding me.”

  “Not at all,” he lied.

  “Are you certain?” Her gaze dropped to study a spot of ground a few inches distant from the hem of her frock. “It occurred to me you might have changed your mind.”

  Nash blinked, nonplussed. “Changed my mind? About what?”

  A slippered toe peeked out from beneath her white skirt and dug into the gravel. “About everything.” When he continued to stare at her uncomprehendingly, she elaborated, “About taking liberties with me. About wanting to marry me at all.”

  It was the misery in her voice more than her words that sent him sprinting to her. However befuddled he might be by having discovered this thread of perversity within him, none of his feelings toward Tish had changed. If anything, he desired her more now than ever. And there was no way in hell he would allow her to doubt his intentions.

  She had no time to react as he reached her and grabbed her hand. Reflexively she tried to pull away, but he was not to be deterred. He guided her hand to his crotch and pressed her palm, firmly but gently, over the bulge in his breeches. Her eyes widened, and her cheeks grew pink as her fingers closed, small and warm, around the exposed edges of his aching shaft. His flesh twitched in immediate, happy response to her touch, and her eyes grew round.

  “Does it feel as if I’ve changed my mind?” He took it as an article of faith that, between this afternoon’s encounter with Hapsborough and the torrid embrace he’d shared with her yesterday, she grasped the implications of a rock-hard erection—both figuratively and literally.

  She shook her head gravely, but then looked up at him through feathery lashes and gave him a sly smile. “Although I’m not entirely convinced your mind is involved in the matter.”

  He emitted a low, pained chuckle. “Although I will admit it is not always the case, in this particular instance, my mind is in complete accord with my cock.”

  Having made his point, he released her hand, but she did not remove it from his body. Instead she ran her fingers up and down his length, making him so light-headed he briefly feared he might lose consciousness.

  “Is that what you call it? A cock?” she asked.

  “That’s one word, yes. There are others.” Nash hoped she didn’t ask him to list them. He was having a difficult time enough remembering his own name, let alone euphemisms for the male member.

  Fortunately she seemed satisfied with gaining a single addition to her vocabulary, for she nodded as she continued to stroke him. “And you like it when I touch your cock this way?”

  “Very much,” he answered, his voice hoarse. Although I’d like it better if there weren’t so two layers of fabric between my prick and your hand.

  “And it feels good when…well, when a man spills his seed?”

  “Christ, yes.”

  “Then there’s something I don’t understand.”

  “What is that?” Nash asked as his balls tightened with the effort of suppressing his rising arousal.

  “Why did Hapsborough behave the way he did after…” She hesitated, obviously struggling for the proper word and failing to find it in her vocabulary. “Well, after? As if I’d done something unforgivable and unpleasant to him?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t anything to do with you. He was simply embarrassed.”

  Tish raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Embarrassed? But why?”

  “The duke has a reputation for being—hmm, how shall I say it?—a bit short on stamina. I believe he was ashamed that he came so quickly and afraid you realized his shortcomings.”

  Her hand stilled. “So it was supposed to take longer than that?”

  Nash chuckled. “I hate to put it so bluntly, sweetheart, but yes. A man who can’t hold himself off longer than that is never going to satisfy a woman in bed. And it would be you to whom something unforgivable and unpleasant was done.” Nash took her hand in his and brought it up to his mouth, pressing a light kiss to her ungloved fingers. “A proper gentleman always puts a lady’s needs before his own. Like this.”

  Tish had no time to analyze his intentions let alone consider whether she approved of them, for Nash had already dropped to his knees in front of her, the fine gravel crunching softly beneath his weight. She had just long enough to wonder whether the pea-size rocks would hurt him before his hands found her ankles beneath the hem of her gown, and then she forgot everything else as his palms began to coast upward along the outside of her legs. Yard after yard of skirts and petticoats gathered in folds at his wrists as he progressed over her silk-stockinged calves to her knees and then—shockingly, wonderfully—to her thighs. There, his fingers brushed across bare skin as he reached the tops of her stockings and the garters holding them in place…and kept right on going.

  Tish’s knees wobbled dangerously and anticipation coiled in her belly. She understood his destination now, if not what he planned to do when he arrived there. The flesh between her legs grew thick and heavy, pulsing with the liquid heat of her arousal, aching to be touched.

  And Nash was going to touch her. Touch her there. How, she wasn’t sure, nor did she particularly care. As long as he eased the hungry, needful core of her being, she would permit him any liberty he desired.

  Her skirts reached her hips, and Nash released a low whistle, at which point Tish remembered she had chosen to forego wearing drawers because they spoiled the line of her gown. Or so she told herself. Perhaps, however, she hadn’t been entirely truthful with herself, because she was profoundly glad there was nothing between the tantalizing whoosh of Nash’s warm breath and the mass of ginger curls at the apex of her thighs.

  “You came prepared,” he murmured approvingly, his mouth drawn tight, nostrils flaring. He looked as if he were hungry, too. As if he planned, somehow, to devour her.

  “Hold up your skirts,” he commanded.

  The possibility of disobeying simply didn’t occur to her. She gripped the fabric gathered at her waist, baring everything below to the intensity of his gaze. Her legs trembled and her heart thudded wildly. All at once, she was acutely aware that they were standing in the middle of a garden path: she with her skirts bunched up to her waist and he with his hand nestled mere inches from the most intimate place. Anyone could interrupt them at any moment—Beatrice, one of the servants, even Albemarle himself should he suddenly conceive the atypical desire to pay a visit to his wife. Tish knew she should be mortified by that possibility, shamed by her wanton willingness to allow Nash to touch her so privately in such a public setting.

  But the thought did no such thing. In fact, the idea that someone might stumble upon them in flagrante only served to intensify her arousal, just as knowing Nash had been observing her encounter with Hapsborough had magnified her pleasure. Her skin flushed at the realization that this was almost certainly not normal, and yet, she couldn’t bring herself to worry about it. Not now, at any rate.

  Nash released his grip on her gown and slid his now free hands between her thighs. “Spread your legs,” he instructed, pressing outward with his palms to demonstrate his intent.

  She obliged, opening up to his fingers like a daisy to the sun. He traced the delicate outer folds of her cleft, the barest of contacts, and her muscles clenched in expectation.

  “You’re hot and achy here, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

  “Yes,” she croaked, her mouth as dry as the place between her legs was wet.

  His fingertips slipped effortlessly into and along the damp crease, closer to but not quite touching the place she wanted them most. Instinctively she bent her knees to give him better ac
cess and tilted her hips in a silent plea. There. Please. Now.

  He didn’t oblige her unspoken demand, however. Instead he moved his fingers backward and pressed one into the slick channel of her sex. She gasped at the intrusion, which wasn’t at all what she had wanted yet, strangely, precisely what she needed.

  “So wet. So ready,” he murmured, more to himself than to her it seemed. “God, I wish I hadn’t promised not to fuck you, but this will have to do for now.”

  The single digit slid in and out as he spoke, and Tish closed her eyes, awed by the intensity of sensation that came from such a simple act. How could she not have known how good such a thing would feel—the friction, the fullness, the forbiddances? No wonder they kept young ladies ignorant of such matters. It would be so easy to become addicted to this feeling, to crave it above all else.

  With his free hand, he parted her folds, and she felt his breath feather across the small, sensitive nexus of nerve endings just before something wet and supple stroked across it. What…? And then she realized.

  His tongue. Oh, God, he was licking her. There. Devouring her, just as his gaze had promised, as if she were the sweetest of desserts. And, oh my, it was delicious! Wasn’t that a paradox?

  She teetered gracelessly, barely able to maintain her balance as the enormity—and wickedness—of what he was doing to her threatened to overcome her. Her body suffused with heat as his tongue caressed and teased, circled and stabbed, tormented and soothed. All the while, he continued to thrust that wicked finger—or was it two, now?—driving her with relentless determination toward the peak.

  Tish had never been a modest, retiring sort of girl. She had discovered years before that she could bring herself to pleasurable release by rubbing the place between her legs until the tension crested and broke. But nothing she had ever experienced approached the…fever that gripped her now. She felt as if she had been reduced to pure sensation, her entire being concentrated in no more than two square inches of flesh. She was nearing the pinnacle, and when she reached it, she would not merely break, but shatter into a thousand brilliant pieces.

  She ached for disintegration. But she feared it, too. What if this became all she was?

  As if sensing she held back, Nash’s thrusts became stronger, deeper, the pressure of his tongue more insistent and demanding. He gave her no respite, no chance for retreat. And suddenly, there it was—the point of no return—and she grabbed for the edge, seized it, clung to it as if her life depended upon it.

  “Let go,” he rasped against her skin, all heated urgency and need. As if her release meant more to him than his own. As if he shared in whatever pleasure he gave her.

  With that thought, there could be no more resistance. She let go and fell into shimmering, shuddering rapture.

  And knew she would never be quite the same again.

  Chapter Six

  Nash leaned his head against the tree he was hiding behind and struggled to calm his racing pulse and ragged breath. He closed his eyes, disgusted with himself. So much for any hope he had nurtured that his response to watching Tish with Hapsborough had been a one-time occurrence. After bringing her to orgasm in the garden yesterday, Nash had almost managed to convince himself that he had only been so because he had known the notoriously quick-to-spend duke would leave Tish in a state of frustration that Nash could use to his advantage. And it had, indeed, worked out that way.

  He could no longer comfort himself with that explanation, however. Not when Randley had just done a more than adequate job of satisfying Tish’s physical needs—as well as his own—and yet, here Nash stood with his cock hard as stone and his balls tight as an old lady’s purse strings.

  Try as he might, he couldn’t get the image of the two of them pleasuring each other out of his mind.

  Events had proceeded much as they had with Randley the day before. Lady Albemarle had accompanied the earl and Tish on their picnic, but soon excused herself back to the house. Her sister gone, Tish had flirted with the earl, encouraging him to kiss her. Eventually kissing had led to fondling and then to the earl dropping his drawers. Except that, rather than simply allowing Tish to toss him off as the duke had done, Randley had got her to suck his cock. And then, while she did so, he’d had her raise her skirts, straddle his face, and allow him to lick her sweet, sensitive cunny until they both came in one another’s mouths.

  Not once during the entire encounter had Tish demurred or hesitated at any of the earl’s advances.

  Nash ought to be enraged. Jealous. Horrified that the woman he loved and wished to marry was so wanton and faithless that she could allow any man other than him to take such liberties.

  So why in the name of all that was unholy did he want nothing more than to take her in his arms and fuck her until they were both limp and witless? And then, perhaps, watch her do the same thing with someone else?

  Somehow, in some strange way he could not begin to fathom, her passion was his passion; her needs, his needs; her pleasure, his pleasure. Nash had felt her climax today as plainly as he had yesterday when he’d had his fingers in her snug, slick channel and her muscles had had clenched around him like a tight, wet fist.

  Christ, what sort of perverse monster was he? It was one thing—a perfectly natural thing—to become aroused by the sight of two people in a carnal embrace. In fact, it was quite possibly an unavoidable response. But to feel that way when one of the participants was the woman he planned to marry…and to such an extreme degree? He was actually a little frightened by the intensity of his desire to watch her making love to other men. What sort of man enjoyed the idea of sharing his wife’s body with anyone else?

  Lord Fitzgerald, his mind whispered traitorously. And Fitzgerald seemed a reasonably content and well-balanced human being. Not to mention a happily married one, despite his apparent perversity.

  Nash opened his eyes and shook his head. No, he couldn’t go there. Tish was, despite her obvious delight in the pleasures of the flesh, an innocent and a lady. Knowing what he now knew about himself, Nash could no longer assure himself he was the best man for her. Leticia Blake deserved a husband who could fulfill her without resorting to debauchery. Without whoring her out to other men like a common strumpet…

  Someone like Randley, who was obviously every bit as capable of satisfying her carnal desires as Nash himself.

  He had to let her go. Even if it killed him.

  But before he did, there was one matter he had to take in hand. He reached down and unbuttoned his fall.

  After levering herself to a sitting position, Tish smoothed her pale blue lawn skirt back into place and did her best to direct her scattered wits. The bitter-salt flavor of the earl’s seed settled on her tongue, not unpleasant but odd. Her limbs were languid and heavy with spent desire, but she was far from fulfillment.

  Only one thing—or more accurately, one person—could bring her that.

  She glanced over her shoulder, searching the tree-lined hillside behind her picnic site for some hint of Nash’s whereabouts. He was there somewhere, she knew, and the certainty that he was watching had fueled her response to Randley’s attentions. Randley was an adequate lover, but his skills with his hands and tongue truly couldn’t hold a candle to Nash’s. Without the benefit of Nash’s presence as an aphrodisiac, she did not believe she would have found release.

  Something was dreadfully wrong with her. She had thought it yesterday when the thought of someone interrupting her tryst with Nash in the garden had heightened her arousal, but she had been able to dismiss it then. Or at least forget about it…

  But this afternoon, she could not, for although it was Nash she desired first and foremost, Nash’s touch that set her senses ablaze and her heart afire, she was not sure she could truly be satisfied with just one dessert for the rest of her life. Not that she wanted other desserts without him, of course. What she wanted was to taste every confection the world had to offer—with him by her side.

  But that was madness. What sane gentleman would
accept such a preposterous arrangement? And Nash was certainly among the sanest gentlemen of her acquaintance.

  Tears pricked behind her eyelids. She had to tell him, had to explain to him that she could not marry him. He deserved a chaste, faithful wife. In other words, anyone but her.

  “Are you all right, my dear?” the earl asked, his tone laced with concern. “Did I frighten you with my passions?”

  Tish managed a tremulous smile. “No, not at all.” At least, unlike the duke, Randley did not behave as if she had committed some grievous sin against him by bringing him to pleasure. “It is just that—” she glanced up in to the trees again, her cheeks heating “—I need to relieve myself.”

  Randley, who had tucked his shirt back into his breeches and rebuttoned his fall, pulled an indulgent expression. “Of course, my dear. I quite understand.”

  Tish felt absurdly as if he were patting her on the head and sending her off to bed with milk and a biscuit, but she took the opportunity nonetheless. After rising to her feet, she began to climb the hill, her slippers crunching in the heavy layer of leaves beneath her feet. She peered left and right as she ascended. He was well-camouflaged by the underbrush, however, and she nearly walked right by him before seeing him.

  She froze in her tracks.

  Nash leaned back against the gnarled trunk of a very large tree. His eyes were closed and an expression of bleak concentration marred his handsome features.

  The look ripped Tish’s heart apart. She had done this to him. She had forced him into supporting this experiment, and he was paying the price with his anguish. What sort of woman would do this to the man she loved?

  And there was no question in her mind that Nash was the man she loved.

  All the more reason she must let him go. Even if she suppressed and denied her strange desires for the rest of her life, he knew now who she was, what she was. How deep her depravity ran. She couldn’t saddle him with such a burden. Even if he loved her in return.