Barbarous

by Minerva Spencer

  Hugh reached both arms around her and located the laces. He loosened the first few eyes, but then, instead of releasing her from her bondage, he pulled the laces tighter. She gasped as he tightened the bone-and-cloth prison, the corset forcing her breasts higher.

  Hugh wrapped the silken cording around his fist and held her away from him to inspect his work. Creamy breasts spilled over the corset, her nipples jutting upward, two hard, pink pebbles.

  “Bloody hell.”

  Only when she shuddered did Hugh realize he’d spoken out loud. He felt as if he’d been struck in the head by a boom mast. He bent low and sucked a nipple into his mouth, grazing her with his teeth. She moaned and arched. Encouraged, he suckled her harder, ruthlessly stiffening the already hard peak even more before doing the same thing to her other breast.

  She shuddered and Hugh’s fingers took matters into their own hands, working in a blind frenzy to loosen the laces enough to push the garment down over her slim hips.

  Without being bidden she stepped daintily out of the circle of clothes and stood in her chemise, partly transparent from the moist trail his mouth had made.

  “My God.” His throat was so thick he could barely speak. She raised her hands instinctively to cover herself from his gaze. Hugh caught them and shook his head emphatically. “Oh no, darling, fair is fair.” He gawked like a schoolboy at the beautiful sight before him while his mind raged; his own private parliament engaged in a critical debate: Naked? Not naked? Naked? Not naked—

  She turned her head to the side, the taut column of her throat flushed.

  “Daphne.”

  But she wouldn’t turn.

  He circled her, enjoying the view from all angles. Like every good governing body, his brain reached a compromise: leave her chemise and stockings—an erotic package to unwrap later at his leisure.

  He smiled at his decision and buried his nose in her hair and inhaled before asking, “Don’t you like me looking at you?”

  Receiving no response, he stopped behind her and pressed himself against the whisper-thin muslin of her chemise.

  “You can feel how much you excite me, can you not?” he said, nuzzling her thick hair as his hands explored her from throat to hips, all the while stroking his erection against the sweet curve of her back. She didn’t speak, but he felt her nod slightly.

  His hand moved lower, grazing her mound with his palm while his other arm formed a rigid band around her slim waist. He felt the answering pressure of her buttocks pressed against his thighs, firm and round through the thin muslin.

  Hugh laughed softly as she moved against him, provoking his hardness, teasing him until it hurt.

  “That is a sweet torture, my love, but you move far too quickly and I like to wait for my pleasure.” He scooped her into his arms and laid her out on the bed. His eye roamed her body as he straddled her and pressed his erection into the crease between her thighs, stroking against her silky skin as he bent his head to savage her mouth. She responded with equal ardor, pressing herself against him while her hands explored his body, kneading the muscles of his back on the way to his buttocks, which she caressed and teased over and over with a firm, forceful touch.

  A distant part of his mind reminded him that although Daphne had children—and had apparently done a damned fine job of memorizing the racier bits of Fanny Hill—she’d never consciously engaged in the sexual act. He was dangerously aroused by the feel of her hands on him and he needed to slow down.

  She made a small, disgruntled sound as he moved out of her grasp, her lips clinging to his as he pulled away. He smiled at her irritable moue and gently pushed her back onto the bed, propping himself up on his elbow beside her.

  Her lids were heavy and low, her eyes mere crescents of blue. Hugh smiled at what looked very much like sexual frustration. Good. As long as she wanted more, he wouldn’t be overwhelming her.

  Her chemise had bunched up behind her, the fabric pulled so tight over her chest and hips it fit her sleek form like a rosy second skin. He circled her nipples through the thin fabric, brushing over her again and again with his palm, only gradually allowing his hand to drift from her breasts toward the swell of her stomach, his finger dipping into the dimple of her navel. Daphne made a sound suspiciously like a laugh.

  “Ah, you are ticklish here.” He tucked away that information for future exploration and took her lobe into his mouth while his hand worked from her breasts to her stomach, stopping only when he felt the soft curls at the apex of her thighs. He circled his hand over her, stroking her pelvis from side to side until her hips pressed against his palm on the next sweep over her sex.

  Hugh smiled at the familiar gesture of need and cupped her in his hand before dipping a finger between her swollen lips. She reacted with a convulsive thrust and he probed deeper, working her with a gentle but persistent rhythm, each stroke a little deeper, a little harder. She swelled around him and her hot wetness told him when she could take more. A second finger joined the first and her hips responded eagerly, thrusting in time to the motion of his hand.

  “God, you’re so wet. So sweet and tight,” he whispered, the words causing her body to shake.

  Hugh felt as though he’d barely begun when she contracted, her hips bucking hard, as if she couldn’t get him deep enough. He watched her face as the first wave of pleasure hit her, her eyes squeezed shut to contain the sensation within herself. She shook her head back and forth as the waves washed over her, her skin sheened with sweat and as luminescent as a pearl.

  Hugh gently stroked her quivering stomach in the aftermath and she opened her eyes.

  “Hello, Daphne.” Her already flushed cheeks darkened. “I need to be inside you before I go mad.” He ran a string of kisses down her throat and smiled into her neck when he heard the two words he wanted.

  “Yes, please.” Her thighs spread wider in silent invitation.

  Hugh groaned. “I want to feel your skin beneath me. Lift a little so that I might remove your chemise.” Hugh left her stockings on, the sight of them against her flushed, spread thighs almost bringing him to climax as he lowered himself over her.

  “Take me in your hand and guide me inside.”

  Her hand closed around him before he’d even finished speaking. She tightened her grip and then slid her hand up, and then back down.

  Hugh shuddered. “Please, darling,” he murmured. “You are being cruel.”

  The witch chuckled but guided his slick, pulsing head between her legs, gasping when he breached her.

  Hugh fisted the bedding with both hands to hold himself in check, gently rocking back and forth, filling her slowly, easing deeper and deeper. “You fit me just like a glove. A very tight, wet glove.” He forced himself to pause. “Are you in any discomfort, love?” he asked shakily, teetering on the brink of no longer caring about anything but his pleasure—his need.

  “It feels . . . strange, but very . . . pleasant.”

  Hugh choked out a laugh and slid into her until he was fully sheathed and then stopped, enjoying the surge of raw possession and the further, almost painful, hardening of his body inside hers.

  “Does it still feel good, Daphne?”

  She nodded, her eyes wide. “I want you, Hugh. I want to give you the same pleasure you gave me.”

  Holding her gaze, he withdrew almost all the way and then filled her with a single slick thrust. Her eyelids fluttered and her body tightened around his and a groan tore out of his chest.

  “Touch me, Daphne. Stroke me while I stroke you.” Again he pulled all the way out and drove himself home, harder this time. Her hands began to roam his body, exploring his torso, his chest, his buttocks. He moved faster and pumped harder, driving into her with powerful, deep thrusts, holding nothing back.

  He was nearing the edge of reason when her mouth grazed his nipple. He gasped and then rammed into her hard enough to reach her core. She stiffened, and then deliberately raised her hips to take him deeper. The erotic gesture frayed the last of his control
and he let himself go.

  She met him stroke for brutal stroke, until his body was about to fly apart. He was afraid he could no longer wait when she contracted around him.

  “Yes, Daphne, yes. Come for me.” He punctuated his words with one savage thrust after another. She sank her teeth into his chest, her crisis coming fast and hard and triggering his own petite mort. Hugh threw back his head and yelled something mindless as he drove himself home and spent deep inside her.

  The only sound for some time was that of labored breathing.

  “Mm, my darling,” Hugh moaned, his arms no longer willing to hold him. He rolled to the side and pulled her close before draping a leg over her slim hips. He brushed the curls from her face and sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of her throat. “Oh, sweetheart—your neck—is it paining you?”

  She smiled and it was the lazy, satisfied smile of a well-pleasured woman. Hugh allowed himself a moment of smugness.

  “I’d completely forgotten about it. I think it looks more painful than it is. He did not have me long before you stopped him.”

  “Too long,” he corrected. “I hate to see your beautiful skin with such angry marks.”

  She ran a hand over the scars on his shoulders and chest, her eyes never leaving his. “I know the feeling.”

  He dropped a kiss on her nose and steered the subject in another direction. “I hope I was not too rough, and did not use you too hard.”

  “I feel deliciously well-used, my lord.” She gave him a shy smile, which was suddenly distorted by a huge yawn. “I’m sorry, Hugh. I don’t know what came over me.”

  Hugh pulled her close and curled his body around hers. “I came over you, darling.” She laughed and snuggled closer. “You’d better get some sleep,” he murmured into her hair, “because I’m likely to come over you again before the night is through.”

  Daphne chuckled, opened her mouth to say something, and fell asleep.

  * * *

  The next time she opened her eyes it was to see Hugh watching her, his eyes drowsy, a faintly arrogant smile on his lips as his hand stroked her softly between her legs.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you would ever wake up,” he said, dipping a finger into her.

  “Mm,” Daphne moaned, her hips beginning to rock with the movement of his hand. “What time is it?”

  “Time for your next lesson,” he murmured, moving away from her. She blinked her eyes and tried to wake herself from her torpid state, rising to her elbows and watching as he backed down the bed until he lay between her legs, pushing them apart before bracing his forearms along the length of each thigh, his face only inches from the place that she knew was already soaked and swollen in anticipation.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice was breathy as his forearms inexorably pushed against her inner thighs, spreading them wider until she felt an exquisite tightness in her hips.

  “I’m going to do something I’ve been dreaming of doing for a long time,” he said, his attention riveted by what he saw.

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You dream about things like this, too?”

  He grinned up at her. “You wouldn’t believe the things I dream about, Daphne. But trust me, I’ll show them all to you, in time.” He brushed his lips over the sensitive skin at the top of her thighs, his hot mouth ripping a harsh gasp from her.

  “So soft,” he murmured, his hands drifting toward her triangle of blond hair with agonizing slowness.

  “Mmmm,” he hummed, his fingers delving into her curls and parting her, caressing her.

  Daphne shuddered and bit her lip to keep from crying out as he lightly flicked her core.

  “You are so wet for me,” he said in a tone of wonder, stroking her again and again and again, until her hips bucked and twitched with frustration.

  “I want you to watch me, Daphne.” He cut her a look with his mismatched eyes—one so green and warm and the other forever unknowable—and then he lowered his mouth.

  “Oh my,” she groaned, her vision becoming even blurrier as his tongue danced, flicked, and tormented that most sensitive part of her, circling and circling until she teetered on the brink of madness.

  Until he stopped . . . And then commenced the exquisite torture all over again. And again.

  Daphne fisted the blankets beside her until her hands ached and she could stand it no longer.

  “Hugh!” She sounded like a woman at the end of her tether, but she didn’t care. Instead, she used the last of her strength to thrust her hips hard, her message clear.

  His low, satisfied laugh vibrated through her and sent spirals of pleasure to every part of her body. For a moment she feared he would continue his relentless teasing, but then he relaxed his weight on her thighs, lowered his head, and took her into the hot embrace of his mouth.

  Daphne gasped, her gaze riveted to the sight of him between her thighs: a sight that was almost as amazing as what he was doing.

  The sculpted muscles of his back and shoulders bunched with controlled power as his blond head moved rhythmically, his skilled tongue and fingers working their magic. Daphne gave herself up to pure pleasure and rode the crest of the wave that had been a long time coming. A wave that built and built until it crashed, taking her with it and pummeling her body over and over, until she was weak, breathless, and limp.

  “Hugh,” she whispered, her hands slipping from his hair, where they’d somehow become tangled.

  He kissed his way back to her breasts, lightly grazing their too sensitive tips before rising to his knees, proof of his arousal jutting from his taut, powerful hips. He looked the very image of some ancient warrior as he towered above her, the scars that marked his glorious body telling a silent tale of battles won and lost.

  And when he lifted one hand to push back his damp curls, the muscles that rippled across his chest, shoulders, and arm were enough to make her weep. Daphne knew the proper reaction for a woman who’d just engaged in such a raw activity should be shame—or perhaps entering a convent—but the only thing she felt as she looked up at her beautiful lover was the hunger to have him inside her.

  She spread her legs and his lips curved into a smile that was pure sin.

  “Good girl,” he said, mischief and lust mingling on his expressive features as he took her thighs in his hands and kneeled between them.

  Daphne gave a weak chuckle. “Hugh?” The word was barely a sigh.

  “Yes, darling?” he asked as his palms slid beneath her bottom, positioning her.

  “I—I want . . .” Daphne had no recollection of what she’d meant to say.

  He laughed wickedly. “You want . . . this?” He entered her in one slick, endless thrust, driving her in to the mattress with the force of his action.

  Daphne groaned, her head falling back, her eyes closing. It was . . . too much, too intense, too—

  And then he began to pound her with merciless, measured thrusts, each invasion deeper than the last.

  “Your body is heaven,” he gasped, halting his savage thrusting and instead pushing slowly into her, inch by inch by inch. “Take all of me, darling.”

  She wrapped her legs around him, tilted her pelvis, and tightened.

  “My God, Daphne!” He shuddered violently enough to shake the four-poster bed, lifting her higher, his fingers digging into her hips while he drove into her, his body taut and slick with the strength of his need.

  Daphne slid her hands from his waist to the bunching muscles of his buttocks, splaying her fingers and pulling him deeper. She was already beginning to unravel when the unmistakable signs of his impending climax gripped his big body. He uttered something unintelligible, stiffened, and then froze, buried deep inside her, pulsing into her, filling her. Completing her. Driving her over the edge and into obliterating pleasure once again.

  The familiar lassitude swept over her and she was already drifting toward sleep when he lowered himself to his forearms and then rolled alongside her.

  Daphne groaned when their bodies parted, missi
ng him already. “That was . . .”

  Hugh chuckled. “Yes, it was.”

  “I’m so . . .”

  “Hmmm?” He stroked her hair and she smiled, pushing and snuggling against him, molding her body to his. She wanted to stay awake but her eyes were so heavy and she was so tired—as if the worries of the previous months and weeks had finally taken their toll.

  “I just need to close my eyes for a moment, Hugh,” she mumbled.

  A featherlight kiss landed on her lips. “Rest, sweetheart, just rest.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Daphne woke at first light, her eyes bleary and her neck oddly sore. She extended her arms over her head to stretch and realized she was nude. Utterly nude. Memories of last night came hurtling into her half-awake mind with breathtaking clarity. She grabbed the pillow that still bore his imprint and buried her face in it: bergamot.

  It hadn’t been a dream!

  Daphne had finally made love—three times—at the grand old age of twenty-seven, and it had been world-shattering—she yawned hugely—and apparently exhausting. Well, she had nothing to do today. Nothing at all. She cradled the pillow in her arms and drifted back toward sleep—

  Only to be shocked bolt upright: she was nude.

  Rowena!

  Daphne glanced at the clock: ten after eight. She jumped out of bed and grabbed the nightgown Rowena had left laid out the night before and fastened the buttons up to her neck.

  Her dress and underclothes from last night—which she’d left on the floor—were now draped over the back of the chair. The same chair where Hugh’s clothes had been after he’d stripped for her. Daphne closed her eyes and put her hands to her flaming cheeks. What an evening. What a wanton she’d been. The things she’d done were—

  “What happened?”

  Daphne’s eyes flew open to find Rowena standing in the open doorway.

  For a moment, Daphne thought her maid meant what she’d done last night—in her bed, with Hugh—but then she saw that Rowena’s horrified gaze was on her throat.