Bound with Honor

by Megan Mulry

  “What are you doing?” She was surprised her voice sounded normal while her heart pounded wildly.

  “You despise gloves. I’m removing them for you.” He was meticulous, neither rushing nor becoming frustrated with the small, annoying closures that always infuriated her. He slipped one, then two fingers into the opening and pressed against her wrist. “Are you well?”

  She smiled despite herself. He behaved exactly like a country doctor, checking her pulse. “I seem to have a bit of a condition.” She had never flirted with a man before Archie. She’d never had a season in London to perfect the snap of her fan or hone the edge of her repartee. But something about the marquess suddenly made her want to be that young woman, the wallflower who captures the attention of the most dashing man in the ballroom—neither the bookish writer spending the summer at Camburton Castle, nor the brash hoyden who revealed herself in a closed coach. Simply a young woman flirting with an eligible young man.

  He began undoing the buttons on her other glove. “Tell me your symptoms.”

  “I feel extremely agitated on certain occasions.”

  He finished with the second glove and was inserting his two fingers in the same way. “Really? What brings it on?” The throbbing between her legs mimicked the pulse where he touched her, skin against skin.

  “Whenever I am near certain people—”

  “People?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Person.” Her voice was no longer even. “A certain person.”

  “And this person makes you ill?”

  She leaned back into the luxurious velvet squabs, tucked her feet up to the right of her thighs, and gave herself over to his playful tone. “Not ill, precisely. It’s more of a passing fever.”

  “Is there nothing you can do to assuage it?” His fingers pressed more firmly against her skin, and her pulse skittered in response.

  “I have tried.”

  “And did you find relief?”

  She stared into his eyes. He was still nervous, she could tell, but he was eager just the same. “Yes and no. I’ve been told I’m very high-strung.”

  He began to pull at the fingers of the glove. “Perhaps you need something for your nerves.”

  “I do have certain . . . methods . . . for managing my condition.”

  The first glove was off. He began tugging gently on the other. “Excellent. I’ve always believed that once we learn how to manage our own health, we are so much better equipped to aid others.”

  Her breathing was shallow as he examined the back of her hand, touching his fingertip against her knuckles, tracing the creases and lines between her fingers, then turning over her hand as if seeing it for the first time. He bent down and kissed the center of her palm.

  “What are you doing?” She gasped out the words.

  “I am apologizing.” His voice was so quiet, so sincere.

  She reached up to touch his cheek with a trembling hand, loving the way he leaned into her palm.

  “Archie . . .”

  “You overwhelm me, Selina.” His eyes closed, as if he were absorbing the power of her touch against his face.

  “And you overwhelm me.” She caressed his eyebrow with the pad of her thumb, then the edge of his temple where it met his hairline. “I never thought I would feel this way.” More precisely, she never thought she would feel this physically attracted to a man, but she didn’t see the point in saying so to him.

  She tilted her head up and pulled his face to hers. He resisted ever so slightly, in a way that made her want him even more. The tension in his neck and shoulders seemed to say, Show me you can take me, show me you will assuage my condition as well as yours.

  When her lips touched his, Archie felt the air rush from his lungs. As the horses sped along at a brisk pace, his heart pounded right along with them. The kiss under the tree, and even her blatant, erotic display last week, were nothing compared to this possessive, greedy play of her lips over his. He let his hands move tentatively up to her hair, the gleaming blonde strands even silkier than he remembered. His grip intensified, and she pulled away slightly, speaking so her lips kissed him as she spoke.

  “That’s it, hold on to me.”

  Her encouragement roared through him. He tightened his hold on her, and she cried out. Worried he might’ve hurt her, he slackened his fingers.

  “No, keep it like that, tighter,” she panted. “I love the feel of your hands on me. I love the feel of you.”

  Something snapped inside him then—respect, lust, the future—everything fell away and there was only skin and heat and the molecular points where their bodies were joined, combining mouths, fingers, and skin to make this new element between them.

  “Please let me see you.” Her hand pressed suggestively against his hard length. “I’ve dreamt of you.”

  He thought he should protest. “We . . . I don’t know . . . Perhaps . . .”

  She rubbed him slowly and looked up into his eyes. Without glancing away, she molded and warmed the outline of his erection through the buckskin. Any hint of teasing was gone; the frivolity of last week was distinctly absent. “You don’t have to know. Just let me look at you.” Her eyes held his, offering so much.

  He nodded, and her smile came; she appeared to be so pleased with him. She leaned in and kissed him again. “Thank you.”

  Why is she thanking me? His mind reeled as, starting with one of the top buttons, Selina began to undo his breeches with maddening patience. She worked the buttons free while petting him and rubbing her hand along his length, once or twice bending down to kiss him through the fabric or inhale the scent of his arousal. She started to speak without looking up. “I never thought . . .” But her voice faltered when his cock sprang free, her warm breath tantalizing along its length as she examined him.

  It was bizarrely thrilling how much he wanted her to scrutinize him. She tasted him with small catlike licks, and then smelled him, sniffing and burrowing as if she were an animal familiarizing herself with his scent. His hands tightened uncontrollably in her hair, and she moaned her pleasure. “Yessssssss,” she exhaled, then took him full in her mouth.

  Selina was crouched on her knees on the seat by then, trying different angles with her neck and mouth, swirling her tongue, attempting different levels of suction. Any time he responded—the slightest moan or sigh—she hummed her approval and did more of whatever that was. She was learning him.

  He was lost in his own bliss, eyes nearly closed, when he realized she was moving her upturned hips and arse in time with her mouth. Oh dear God. He released one hand from the snarl he had created with her lovely hair, and reached for the turn of her bottom. As soon as he touched the fabric over her bum she cried out, a muffled burst against the head of his cock. He reacted by squeezing her arse and pushing his fingers greedily down between her legs. The fabric of her gray-blue velvet dress was warmer there from the obvious pleasure she was deriving from what she was doing to him.

  The realization slammed through him of how much she wanted this, how natural and just it all was (in her mind, at least). Her pace quickened on his cock and with her hips. Unable to resist, he tugged at the heavy folds of her winter dress, bunching the fabric on her lower back, and finally found the warm, slick center of her through the slit in her drawers.

  “Oh God . . .” He felt her—this other heart of hers—his fingers probing and inelegant at first, eagerly seeking her. Then he forgot every nicety as he discovered the smooth lips, the warm nest of pubic hair, the stiff nub of her arousal. Blindly, he penetrated her in time with her movements, first one finger, then two, dipping and searching for whatever would bring her the most pleasure. She was frantically sucking him now, sloppy and carefree, but he kept trying to please her, as best he could when he could barely remember who or where he was. He wanted to give and give and—

  Her inner passage clamped around his thrusting fingers and her high-pitched scream reverberated around his cock like a primal cry. His body reacted immediately, filling her, sho
oting his hot seed into her mouth. Some shred of forgotten decency made him attempt to withdraw, but she was feral in her growling demand to keep him deep in her mouth until she was finished.

  The haze of lust and forgetting receded as fast as it had come. Within seconds, he felt awkward and confused, his fingers stuck in a woman’s vagina, his other hand tangled in her formerly beautiful coiffure.

  He shifted self-consciously, trying to get out from under her, away from her, away from himself. Extracting his hand from between her legs, he wondered how best to get his handkerchief from his jacket pocket without making too much of a nuisance of himself. He pulled her skirts down and smoothed the fabric, just as he would smooth a tablecloth to remove stray crumbs after a meal. And tried to ignore the fact that his spent cock still remained in Miss Ashby’s mouth.

  Selina hummed happily and finally released him; escape was near, he thought fretfully. And then not. She turned slightly, but kept her cheek resting high on his buckskin-covered thigh. She looked up at him with an expression of angelic bliss. How could something so filthy make her appear downright beatific?

  “You are delicious, Archibald Cambury.” She licked her lips and sighed.

  He blushed furiously and tried to shove his cock back into his pants.

  “Oh, please don’t.” Her voice was listless and wanting all at once, as she rested her fingers lightly on his cock. “Let me revel in you for a few moments longer.”

  He was wretched sitting there, patiently waiting for her to recover her senses. And then the waves of awkwardness would crash over her as well, he assumed, and she would be brittle and angry and—

  “Oh my, that was delightful!” She inhaled and came up to a sitting position and tossed her mussed hair over her right shoulder. Her eyes were gleaming, bright chips of emerald that shone with happiness. She stared into his eyes—which must have plainly shown his confusion and near terror—and then burst out laughing. “Oh, my darling Archie!” She reached up and placed the palms of her delicate hands on his cheeks, then leaned in to kiss him—

  Kiss him with her mouth full of his semen!

  “Selina!”

  He held her away from him by her shoulders.

  “Oh dear.” Her face fell. “Are we to endure a period of regret and penance every time?”

  “No.” He shook his head. He could not process the combination of joy and trepidation the words every time evoked. She was tracing her thumbs over his cheekbones and it was exceedingly distracting.

  “No? So . . . then . . . may I kiss you again?” She leaned in to do just that.

  “Selina! Your mouth!”

  “Ah. My filthy mouth that has been sucking your filthy cock, you mean?”

  “Please. There’s no need to be so . . . specific.”

  She released his face and kissed his cheek, a small smile playing on her lips. “Very well. I shan’t go on and on about your beautiful cock . . .” She began fixing her hair while she looked at him. “Or about how wonderful it felt pressed against the back of my throat . . . especially when all that hot—”

  “I am begging you,” he interrupted desperately.

  She raised a suggestive eyebrow, and then turned so she was facing out the window while she fussed with her dislodged hairpins. “Nor shall I talk about how it was the first cock I’ve ever tasted . . .” Her voice was low there at the end, and he was sure he had misheard. He was busily rebuttoning his buckskins, and the shuffling of fabric and the two of them putting themselves back to rights must have distorted her words. For the first time in his life he chose to ignore, rather than pursue, that which he did not understand.

  He finished with his pants and then looked down to make sure his shirt was neatly tucked and his neck cloth still properly folded. “Do you require any assistance with your toilette or your dress? I’m sorry I’ve made such a mess of you—”

  When she turned to face him, her eyes were even brighter, but this time it was the precarious sheen of emotion rather than raw lust. “Is that all you have to say to me?”

  “What do you wish me to say? You confuse me beyond measure. I can barely think, much less speak, when I am around you.”

  “I have never been with a man before!”

  The bounce and rumble of the well-sprung carriage, which had seemed nearly quiet during their lovemaking, was suddenly loud and clattering in the loaded silence. “I never would have known.”

  “Archie!” She huffed and clenched her hands into small fists. He wanted to kiss them and rub his cheek along her knuckles. “How can you be so brilliant and then be so thick?” She tugged on his earlobe as if he were an errant child, then released him.

  “I only meant . . .” He was disturbed by how much he enjoyed her small punishment, wishing she would continue to chastise him. “I thought I was complimenting you.”

  She shook her head and widened her eyes as he sank deeper and deeper into this morass.

  “I wished very much to compliment you. You were . . . You are . . . wonderful.” He sighed like a schoolboy, letting the feeling of her wonderfulness wash over him. But she kept staring at him with that look of consummate disbelief. He furrowed his brow, suspecting that was perhaps not the right thing to say after all.

  This was what he’d meant about being friends with Christopher! Christopher had never once, in their ten years of friendship and physical intimacy, looked at him in that beseeching way. Selina wanted some type of emotional recompense, and he had no idea how to provide it. He suspected he could offer her his hand in marriage long before he would ever be able to offer anything resembling sensitive understanding. And even he knew it was far too soon to tell her that he wanted to take the coach directly to Gretna Green.

  On the other hand, when she was behaving like Christopher—laughing and enjoying the physical act for its own sake and nothing more—that didn’t sit well with him at all. He wanted something far richer and deeper with Selina than simple physical release.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to weave the myriad parts of her—or himself—together.

  She kept reminding herself that Archie’s confusion and conflicting desires were part of what she most adored about him. His honesty was raw and immediate; he couldn’t help but show how he felt, poor thing. He was all torn up inside about how delectably raunchy the two of them had become in the heat of their shared passion.

  He was a man—dear God, was he a glorious man—but he was not a typical one for his time or social standing. Archie’s place in society had never mattered to him, insofar as he never courted the admiration or fawning appreciation of others. His respect for tradition and propriety were not mere social conventions to which he adhered to for public approbation. Archibald Cambury truly believed in the sanctity of his noble life and his aristocratic responsibilities, both in his public role and, apparently, in his private engagements as well.

  Had she wanted some especial tenderness, some acknowledgment that it had been her first time with a man? Yes. Was that a sign of her own vanity or some coy neediness? Perhaps. Why should she rely on him to say things in a particular way? To flatter her? She almost laughed aloud because that was exactly what he had tried—in his very bumbling fashion—to do.

  “Thank you, Archie.” She meant it kindly. “I think you are wonderful too.” She had finished repairing her appearance and waited with her hands clasped loosely in her lap while her temper righted itself. He turned to face her with a look of such profound relief that she realized he had been prepared for some bout of feminine weeping or flailing about.

  “So, we are still friends?” He appeared nearly incredulous.

  It was a wonderful, heart-pounding question coming from this man of so few intimate acquaintances. “Oh, yes, I—” Her voice snagged on an unanticipated emotion. “I am so grateful to be your friend. If my . . . eagerness has ever led you to believe that I have anything but the highest regard for you and the burgeoning friendship we now share, then I am desperately sorry. Perhaps in my foolishness, I had h
oped my ardor would bolster, rather than hinder our feelings for one another.”

  He started to speak, but she held up her hand. “If I may continue?”

  He nodded for her to go on.

  “If, on the other hand, it is not possible for you to be friends with someone to whom you are also, er, physically engaged, then I will respect that as well.”

  His face clouded, and she had a moment’s pause. Was there someone else—someone for whom he felt both a physical and an emotional bond? She kept looking at him, trying not to convey too much curiosity . . . or envy. Surely there would’ve been whispers in London of his having a mistress or favorite merry widow. Her aunt was privy to all the latest on-dits. And most certainly there would be out-and-out talk of his having a favorite young virgin in the running to be the next marchioness. There was no such talk. He was so rarely in town, and when he did make the trip, it was invariably to attend a lecture or meet with his scientific colleagues.

  “It seems to be difficult for me to reconcile.” He looked at his lap. “I have never wanted someone the way I want you. I don’t know how to go about it.”

  Her girlish heart soared, but she held her tone steady. “Then all is well. I shan’t torture you—” he inhaled sharply and she forcibly ignored it “—with my constant advances. Please know that I am always thinking of you fondly, but perhaps it is best if we set aside our physical attraction.” For now, she added silently.

  “Yes, I believe that would be best.”

  “Friends?” She extended her hand.

  He hesitated for a split second, probably dreading the jolt that always passed between them when they touched—the jolt she craved.

  “Friends,” he agreed, taking her hand.

  She shook on it in one firm movement, as if they were a pair of old chums agreeing to an insignificant wager, then pulled quickly away. “Very well. It’s all settled, then.” She bent down to pick up a novel from her traveling bag and smiled at him easily before turning her attention to the pages.