Especially if he loved her in return.
She spared a brief glance down the hill to reassure herself that Randley was paying her no mind. He had politely turned his back and appeared to be digging through the picnic basket in search of something to eat.
With a sigh that was half relief, half resignation, she took the first step in Nash’s direction. He must have heard the crackle of her footfalls, because he turned to look at her.
“What are you doing here?” Although he didn’t whisper, his hoarse voice was barely audible.
She continued to pick her way toward him through the small bushes that pushed up through the carpet of leaves. “I came to tell you—”
She broke off on an in-drawn breath as she got close enough to see that he was not standing there in deep contemplation. His fall was open. He gripped his cock—gloriously long and thick and hard—in his hand, pumping it with his fist.
Fierce, biting desire leaped to instant life between her thighs, and her heart thudded wildly with sudden, unexpected hope. Perhaps Nash wasn’t disgusted by what he had seen. Perhaps he was as aroused by it as she was.
He stopped what he was doing, his eyes meeting hers with piercing intensity. “Came to tell me what?”
She licked her lips, hesitating. What she’d come to say no longer seemed nearly as important as the longing that pounded in her veins. The need to touch him, to fuck him.
To love him.
The words tumbled out at last. “I came to tell you I decided to marry the earl.”
He released his cock abruptly. The shaft bobbed free, pointing toward her like a divining rod. “The hell you are,” he growled, pushing away from the tree. “You love me.”
She didn’t think to ask how he could be sure of that. “I know. But…I didn’t think you’d want me once I told you…” Her voice trailed off. Was there any way for a woman to tell the man she loved that she gained the most exquisite pleasure imaginable by having him watch her engage in intimate relations with other men? How did one explain the inexplicable?
While she tried to summon the words to describe the indescribable, Nash reached out for her and pulled her into the shadow of the tree. “I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman. Nothing can change that.”
Love and fear collided in her chest. “Not even if I don’t think I can swear off all other desserts for the rest of my life?”
His forehead furrowed in puzzlement, and then let out a soft bark of laughter as comprehension smoothed his features. He dragged her into his arms, the ridge of his cock folding up and pressing, hard and insistent, against her stomach as he brushed his lips to her forehead. “Desserts, my love, or hors d’oeuvres?”
Now Tish was puzzled. “Hors d’oeuvres?”
His hands traversed the distance from her shoulders to the small of her back and then down to cup her buttocks, fitting her more closely to him. She moaned softly with contentment at the way their bodies seemed made for each other, every angle and plane of his body having a matching curve or pillow on hers.
“A little taste before the meal. Something to whet your appetite before the main course,” he clarified. “The main course being, I hope, me.”
She slid her arms around his neck. “Oh, God, of course, it’s you. Everything comes back to you. Even down there…with him, it was about you. That you were watching.” She buried her face in the sweet tobacco-scented expanse of his waistcoat and took a shuddery breath. “I thought there must be something terribly wrong with me that I could take such pleasure in that.”
He drew away slightly and shook his head, a rueful grin lighting his features. “And I feared there was something terribly wrong with me that I could take such pleasure in watching it. But I did, and I do. As you can tell,” he added with a roll of his hips.
The hope that had been fluttering weakly in her chest spread its wings and poised to take flight. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I…well, if I partake of an hors d’ouevres now and then?”
“To the contrary, my love. As long as you allow me to watch and then fuck you within an inch of your life afterward, I will actively encourage it.”
Joy and raw lust threatened to overcome her, but she could not quite believe what he was saying. “But…why? Why would you want a faithless wife?”
He shrugged. “I don’t understand it myself. I thought I would be racked with rage and jealousy when I saw you with Hapsborough, but I wasn’t. At first, I told myself it was because I knew he hadn’t satisfied you and I was certain I would. But today…” He made a low, rumbling sound in his throat and tightened his grip on her backside. “Christ, I’ve never seen anything more erotic you sucking Randley’s cock while he ate your delectable little pussy. And when you came, I damn near spilled in my breeches. It was as if I were a part of you, feeling what you felt…”
Tish nodded. Strangely she understood exactly what he meant. Because she felt it, too, if in a different way. “And I wouldn’t have come at all if I hadn’t known you were up here in the trees, watching me, experiencing it with me.”
With a chuckle, he buried his face in her hair, which had been released from the restraints of her bonnet some time earlier. “It would seem we are two sides of the same debauched coin, Leticia Blake. I can’t pretend to understand it, but I do know this--we are plainly meant for one another.”
“Does this mean you still want to marry me?” she asked.
“It means I want to fuck you right now and make sure you never have the chance to even think of marrying anyone but me.”
“Oh.” Tish’s body responded with instant, liquid heat even as the bird of hope took wing inside her. But… “Now?” she asked.
“Now,” he rumbled, beginning to raise her skirts by gathering them up in his fingers.
“But what about Randley? I told him I came up here to relieve myself.”
“And so you did, my love. So you did.” Cool air blew across her bare skin as her skirt cleared her garters.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” she protested with a light swat on his shoulder. “He’s waiting for me. He’ll be expecting me any min—ah!”
Nash’s fingers found the part in her drawers, dipped into her slick, swollen slit. “This won’t take much time,” he said on a raspy laugh. “We’re both so hot for each other, it will be over in a minute. Two at the most.”
The way her flesh leaped as his touch grazed her there, she was fairly certain he was right. She arched into his touch, a hot rush of need sluicing through her core.
“I wish I could take longer with you, my love,” he murmured apologetically against her head. “We ought to take it slow your first time, gentle. But I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Joy bubbled up in her chest, counterbalancing the heavy longing in the pit of her belly. She could either fly or sink to earth. Or both.
“That’s all right,” she said, lifting her face to meet his eyes. “I don’t want you to be slow or gentle.”
“Thank God,” he muttered.
And then he was kissing her, his mouth not merely taking hers, but laying claim as if her lips were an undiscovered country and he was in charge of placing the king’s flag. Without once breaking the kiss, he eased them both to the forest floor until he sat with his back against the tree trunk, Tish on her knees straddling his hips, his cock jutting upward between her legs.
Nash’s fingers delved into her sex, finding her most sensitive spot with unerring precision. Her climax was swift and hard but somehow unfulfilling. She needed more, so much more.
He seemed to read her mind. Breaking their kiss, he grasped his cock in one hand and slid the other to rest on Tish’s hip. “Lower yourself onto it, my love.”
Even though she had no confidence that such a thing could work, as she was quite certain this was not at all the proper way to go about this—she did as he bid her. She was too needful to do otherwise.
He angled his cock so that, as she eased downward, the pliant tip rested against her opening. At that point,
he released his hold on himself and placed his hand on her other hip.
“Kiss me,” he ordered.
She leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his, reveling in the tangy-sweet taste of his mouth. More delicious than any dessert, more fulfilling than any hors d’ouevres. Definitely the main course…
Without warning, he thrust upward, breaching her maidenhead and burying himself to the hilt within her. Splitting her in half.
“Ow!” Her cry of pain was muffled by his mouth. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes at the sharp, tearing sensation.
He brushed tender, soothing kisses to her lips and cheeks. “I’m sorry, love. It gets better, I promise.”
He was right. It did get better. As he continued to hold her steady, their bodies joined, the sting of invasion gave way to an intoxicating sense of fullness and an overwhelming desire to move. She shifted her hips in an unconscious effort to appease her body’s demands for motion, for friction, for completion.
“That was faster than I expected,” Nash muttered. “Christ, you are the most amazing woman, Tish Langston.”
“Blake,” she corrected, confused.
“I’m inside you, love. That makes you Tish Langston.”
“But we’re not married yet.”
“As far as I’m concerned, we are. The wedding is just a formality.” He steadied her hips with his hands. “This,” he said, withdrawing and driving back inside her, giving her exactly what she had wanted without even knowing she was asking for it, “is all that matters.”
He was right about that, too. Time and place and even Tish’s sense of where she ended and Nash began dissolved away, leaving only the exquisite pleasure of their bodies melding into one. They moved in opposition and yet in unison, exchanged fierce kisses and tender bites, groaned both hosannas and imprecations.
The crisis overtook her first with rhythmic convulsions of rapture that stole both breath and thought. Nash followed her in seconds, stiffening beneath her, his cock pulsing inside her, bathing her womb with life and lust…and love.
Tish felt possessed…and more free than she had ever been. At last, with Nash, she had permission—even approval—to be her true self. Wild. Wicked. Wanton. And beloved.
Epilogue
The handsome young man gaped at Nash with a mix of horror and surprise. “You want me to…take liberties with your bride?”
Nash suppressed a grin. He couldn’t blame the fellow for his confusion. “Yes, Mr. Drayton, that is precisely what I want you to do. Kiss her, fondle her breasts, eat her pussy. Anything short of fucking her.”
“And she doesn’t object to this?”
The door clicked shut, drawing the young man’s attention. Tish stood with her back against the door, clad in a nothing but a smile. “She not only doesn’t object, she heartily approves.”
Nash’s cock rose to instant attention at the sight of her and thrilled the unmistakable look of lust that crossed Mr. Drayton’s features. Nash loved seeing the effect she had on other men, loved to watch them worship at the temple of her body.
Tish crossed to the chair in which the poor, puzzled Mr. Drayton was sitting and knelt at his feet. She ran her fingers over the placket of his trousers, revealing the thickening bulge of his cock. “May I suck him, too, darling?”
Nash arched an eyebrow at Mr. Drayton, whose eyes were now wide as saucers. “I believe that’s up to him. Would you like her to suck your cock, Drayton?”
“Er, I don’t…that is…” He let out a low, shuddering breath as Tish released him from his breeches and drawers. “Oh, God, yes.”
Tish grasped his cock in her hand and looked at Nash. “Thank you for the hors d’ouevres. I didn’t expect such a gift on our wedding night.”
Nash leaned back in his own chair, retrieving his whiskey tumbler from the table at his elbow. “You know I don’t care where you get your appetite, my love, as long as I am the main course.”
And so he was. And mighty tasty, too.
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-8551-8
Taking Liberties
Copyright © 2011 by Jackie Barbosa
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Taking Liberties Page 5