by Darcy Burke
The carriage ride to her new residence seemed to go faster than she thought it would. Perhaps that was because she was going to Giles’ townhouse not as the fallen Lucy Whitaker, but as Lady Norcourt—Giles’ wife.
She peered up at her still grinning bridegroom as he helped her descend the carriage in front of his house and intertwined their fingers together again. The past week had been a whirlwind filled with fittings and making plans for this wedding. Mrs. Appleton had been a wonderful help to her navigating the shops and placing orders, but it had certainly interfered with any time Lucy might have gotten to spend with Giles. That was about to be rectified, now and forever, though.
“Nervous?” Giles whispered in her ear when she was safely off the bottom step.
“Just a bit,” she admitted. It had been a long time since she’d been alone with a man who had the gleam in his eyes that Giles did. It had only been the once, but she did remember the activity well enough. What she didn’t remember was being excited about it.
“Don’t be.” He unlocked the front door, then put one arm about her shoulders and hooked the other under her knees and lifted her.
Lucy looped her arms around his neck as he carried her across the threshold and kicked the front door shut before carrying her upstairs. This time, instead of taking her to the room she’d assumed was meant for the baroness, he carried her to his room. He paused just inside the threshold to kick that door closed. “Can’t have anyone peeking in on the new Lady Norcourt. It wouldn’t be proper.”
She giggled and brought her lips to his. It had been five days since they’d last been able to sneak a kiss, which had been nothing worse than torture, but made this one that much more exciting.
Giles carried her across the room and to the bed. Then slowly, almost reverently, he lowered her to the thick feather mattress. “You’re beautiful.”
She kissed him. “Thank you. You’re quite handsome, yourself.”
“Am I now?” He asked between kisses.
It was on the tip of Lucy’s tongue to confirm, but all words and thoughts of them faded away when his lips left hers and started to kiss a slow path across her cheek and down to her jaw.
She lolled her head to the opposite side to give him better access. Which, of course, he took.
His hands released their hold on her from when he’d carried her into the room and moved to the bottom of her throat to untie the velvet emerald cape she had draped over her shoulders to match her silver gown. Freeing the knot, he pushed the thick fabric away from her skin and moved his lips down to where he’d just exposed.
Lucy’s skin tingled beneath his lips. “Giles,” she whispered, digging her fingers into the back of his thick, silky hair.
Giles murmured her name against her collarbone then moved his lips back up to hers, his hands sliding underneath her body. He slowly guided her up to a sitting position with her legs hanging off the end of the bed. Satisfied, he sank to his knees in front of her, bringing his face just two inches above hers.
Lucy lowered her hands from his hair to rest on his broad shoulders. He really was a handsome man. And now he was all hers.
Neither spoke, the only sound between them was their heavy breathing and pounding hearts.
Tentatively, she ran her hands down his shoulders and to the V of his coat. She slipped her hands inside and slid her fingers under the top of his waistcoat, then moved them up to his shoulders. She could feel so much more now with only his thin lawn shirt separating their skin.
“May I?” His rasped words made her skin tingle with excitement at what he might do. Where he might touch her.
She nodded and began kneading the thick muscles in his shoulders.
He skimmed his fingers from her shoulder blades halfway down her spine then across her ribs before lifting them to the silver chord that held her bodice closed. With an audible swallow, he tugged both ends of the chord until the bow was gone and the knot slipped loose.
Lucy didn’t know whose body became more frozen at that moment, his or hers. She was nearly thirty and had a child. Would he be satisfied with what he saw?
With another swallow that resembled a gulp, Giles released the ends of the silver chord and began to loosen her bodice. It wouldn’t reveal everything to him, but it’d be enough for him to be able to imagine the rest.
After loosening the top two crosses, he moved his hand lower and brushed her breast with his palm. His fingers stilled, his palm pressing ever-so-lightly against her breast, leading them both to swell in a way she’d never expected.
A boldness, she didn’t recognize came over her and prompted her to remove her hands from his shoulders and take hold of his wrists. She guided his hands away from the center of her chest and placed them directly on her breasts. “Touch me.”
As if he’d been waiting for that sort of an invitation for a decade, he did just that. His touch was slow and tentative at first as he moved his palms over the curve of her breasts, from the top to the bottom then back and forth across the sides. “They’re soft,” he commented before cupping them. He gave them a gentle squeeze, looking at her face as he did so.
She didn’t realize her hands were still on his wrists and gave him what she hoped he’d understand to be an encouraging squeeze.
He did.
His touches and caresses became bolder and more intense as he massaged and kneaded every inch of her breasts until she was almost certain they were going to burst right out of her bodice.
“Would you like to see them?”
“Of course,” he said automatically, frantically moving his hands back to the ties that ran down the front of her bodice. Jerkily, he tugged on the ties, loosening them only marginally.
Lucy touched his wrists again, staying him. Releasing his hands, she stood and turned her back to him.
It took him only a moment to start slipping the buttons that ran down the back of her gown. With every one he slipped Lucy’s pulse sped up just a little more until he reached her waist. Pushing her gown open just enough in the back, he began loosening the ties on that blasted corset she was made to wear.
With a grunt, he untied the last one. He gripped the edge of the thick fabric of both her gown and her corset and between his pushing and her maneuvering, the offending garments were off her shoulders and in a heap on the floor.
Lucy spun around to face her groom wearing nothing but a thin chemise and stockings as coverings.
“Beautiful,” he rasped.
“I believe you’ve already said that,” she teased.
“Doesn’t make it any less true.” His eyes drifted down her body, settling on her thinly covered breasts.
Taking a deep breath, Lucy reached her trembling fingers up to the thin straps of her chemise, gripped them tightly, then dragged them across her shoulders to the ends and without giving herself time to change her course, let them drop.
Every last muscle in Giles’ body went rigid.
He’d heard talk of women’s bodies and what men did to them between their legs, but he’d never given much thought to what Lucy would look like unclothed.
She was beautiful. Nay, she was magnificent. He released a pent up breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. She’d allowed him to touch her soft parts earlier, would she again now that she was naked?
He dropped back down to his knees in front of her and hesitantly, brought both of his hands to her bare shoulder and locking eyes with her, trailed his fingers down her soft, pale skin. Excitement built within him as his fingertips moved over the softness of her chest. He reached the peak and she sucked in a breath, making his own catch. She must like that. He brushed his thumbs over her nipples again then brought his hands down to the under-curve and tested their weight.
Reluctantly, he released them. With his hands at least. There was little hope of him ever removing his eyes from those two perfect globes.
He moved his hands down her abdomen until his thumb brushed the patch of curly hair just below her waist. He flushed and moved
his hands back up her body with a slowness that almost drove him insane as he neared her chest.
With a sureness he didn’t feel, he cupped her perfect mounds of flesh and gave them another gentle squeeze.
She arched her back, pushing them more firmly into his hands. His eyes shot to her face.
She was biting the edge of her lip, her skin flushed.
He squeezed them again, a fraction harder.
Her hands flew to his shoulders, the tips of her fingers digging in. Blood pounding in his ears, he released his hold on her and brought his fingers to the hardened tips. He closed his fingers firmly around the tips, eliciting a gasp from her. He did it again, with a little more pressure and a strangled gasp was her response, her hands gripping his shoulders tighter if such a thing were possible.
Giles released her body and covered her hands with his as he took to his feet. He was considerably taller than her and at his full height her face was somewhere in his chest. For but a moment he wished it was the other way around. Pushing away the thought, he brought his hands back to her chest and idly brushed the tips with his thumbs.
“Do you like it when I touch you here?” He couldn’t say why, but her answer was important to him.
She relinquished her teeth’s hold on her lip. “Yes, Giles. I like it when you touch my breasts.”
Her words were almost his undoing. He gave her breasts one final squeeze before letting go and taking a step back to regather his wits or this would be over too fast and as one fellow had mentioned at White’s that left the woman disappointed. He didn’t want Lucy disappointed.
Just the idea of disappointing Lucy cooled his ardor. But not too much.
Closing the space between them again, he brought his lips to hers and kissed her mouth. Then her chin. Then her throat. Then he dropped to his knees again and kissed the top of her chest. Then scattered kisses down her sternum. When he reached the bottom, he turned his head just slightly to the left and scattered kisses below her left breast. He turned the other way and this time used his parted lips to press open-mouthed kisses to the skin under her right one.
She nearly melted in his hands.
Without removing his lips from her skin, he gripped her hips, stood and carried her to the bed and pulled away from her just long enough to divest himself of his clothing, then came back to join her. Settling himself between her parted thighs, he brought his mouth back to her chest and pressed open-mouthed kisses over and around her left breast while using his hand to explore the right. He’d squeezed and held, tested the firmness, then circled and rolled her budded nipple.
Beneath him, Lucy bucked and arched her back, offering him more. Greedy man he was, he took what was offered and kissed and touched every inch he could until he couldn’t take it any longer. It was time. He couldn’t wait a moment longer to be inside her. To join with her in a way that no other ever would.
Kissing his way back up to her mouth, he repositioned his lower body and moved the tip of his erection over her soft, warm, womanly flesh. He stilled and bit the inside of his lip. It was too soon. He released a breath and mentally recounted the scale of C Major, then resumed his pursuit of her opening.
When he found it, he was on the brink of spending and shoved inside as fast as he could, then stilled and fought to regain his breath and composure.
Lucy’s once labored breathing had slowed, presumably due to his lack of attention on her breasts. He’d have to rectify that.
Keeping himself still buried inside her, he kissed and nipped and licked and tasted her until she was writhing beneath him once more.
“Ready?” he whispered.
Her only response was to clutch his shoulders.
He accepted that as a yes, and began to move inside her.
The feeling was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. It was a mixture of pleasure coupled with an intense pressure that drove him to move faster and harder in hopes of relieving it.
Then suddenly everything from the painful coil of pressure just above his waist to the images in his mind exploded as his muscles tightened and released in waves of numbing ecstasy.
TWENTY-NINE
Lucy twisted her fingers into the counterpane and tried to regain control of her breathing.
She’d known that Giles would touch her breasts.
What she hadn’t known was that she’d enjoy it.
She hadn’t the first time she was touched there. It had felt cold and mechanical. Forced and humiliating. Sam had just tugged her bodice down until her small, pert breasts were exposed, made some glib remark about how “they’d do”, then groped and pinched at them until they hurt.
Then he’d flipped up her skirt and poked around between her legs for a few seconds before he’d found what he was looking for then pushed into her like she was some tried tavern wench and moved in and out, grunting for what felt like an eternity before letting out something akin to a battle cry directly in her ear.
Giles hadn’t done any of that. His touch had been far more gentle and his kiss... She already knew it had the power to make her knees buckle with the mere brush of his lips. She’d never have imagined that she’d buck and twist and writhe like a madwoman under him, though!
Surely, he must think her a wanton.
The object of her thoughts sweetly kissed her cheek then separated their bodies. She immediately felt at a loss without him there.
He stood next to the bed and lifted the counterpane just a little higher than his waist. Taking his cue, she quickly crawled under the covers and waited for him to join her.
A moment later he was at her side and she rested her cheek on his broad chest.
She hadn’t been afforded the same opportunity to look at his body and under lowered lashes, she let her gaze travel over what was uncovered.
Just as she’d imagined from his stature, his shoulders and upper arms were thick with hard, rounded muscles. As were his lower arms, his abdomen and chest. In fact, everything she could see of his that was exposed above the covers pooled at his waist looked like it had been sculpted from marble. Except perhaps the thick mat of curling hair that covered the center of his chest and made a line down his stomach.
Her fingers itched to touch it. Would it be as crisp and coarse as it looked? Or would it be soft and silky like the hair that covered his head?
“Something wrong?”
She jerked. Had he been watching her? “No. Should there be?”
“Your eyes are open.” He reached down to the covers that were resting at his waist and pulled them up to cover the exposed skin of his abdomen and chest.
“Sorry,” she murmured, closing her eyes.
“Don’t be sorry.” He lifted his right hand up to cup her cheek and idly rubbed his fingertips along the edge of her jaw. “Did you enjoy it?”
Was he talking about the view she had been enjoying until he covered himself or what they’d been doing before? She nearly laughed. He was a man. He’d meant their former activity. “Of course.”
His fingers stilled. “Are you sure? You didn’t call out my name and jerk my hair like the other ladies do.”
She went rigid. Other ladies? She’d never pinned him as one who frequented other ladies’ bedchambers. Perhaps she’d been wrong on that score. Somehow his hold didn’t feel quite as comforting as before and she moved to free herself.
He let her go.
Lucy pulled her arms out from under the covers and moved them on the top of the counterpane, trapping her safely under its shield.
Seemingly oblivious to her rapidly fading joy, Giles rolled onto his side and ran the back of a single finger the length of her arm, starting at her wrist and ending at her shoulder. “Lucy?”
“Hmm?”
He lowered his hand to the bed. “Was it that unenjoyable?”
It hadn’t been until he’d mentioned other ladies. Which was ridiculous for her to even be upset over. Gentlemen were expected to be experienced in such matters before marriage. She’d just thought he wa
s different for some reason. “It was all right.”
“All right?” he echoed quietly. “Can I have another chance?”
A cutting retort was on the tip of her tongue. She repressed it. “How about tomorrow, instead?”
He blanched. “Did I bungle it that badly?”
“No. You did just fine until you mentioned your other lovers.” She couldn’t believe she’d just said that, but since she had, she felt relieved. It was better to just say it than to hold onto it and let it fester, wasn’t it?
If Giles’ slack jaw was any indication, he couldn’t believe she’d put voice to her feelings, either. “My other what?”
Lucy closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. “Please forgive me for saying anything. Can we just go to sleep?”
He pulled her right hand away from her face. When she didn’t immediately open her newly uncovered eye to look at him, he pretended to pry it open. “There aren’t... I haven’t...” He cleared his throat. “You’re it.”
“But you just said that the other ladies call your name and pull at your hair while...” she waved a hand through the air— “you know.”
“Not mine,” he burst out, his already wide eyes nearly bulging.
Lucy furrowed her brow. “Then whose?” And how did he know of such?
Giles rolled onto his back with a groan. “At White’s. The men... They speak of relations with the women they bed.”
“They do?” she practically squealed.
He nodded, then reached for her hand. “I won’t.”
She squeezed his in return, her heart slamming in her chest at his declaration that he’d never talk to others about their private moments. “I know you won’t.” Without relinquishing his hand, she rolled onto her side to face him. “I’m sorry that I misunderstood.”
“Don’t be,” he mumbled. “I’m the one who said it and ruined everything.”
“You didn’t ruin everything,” she assured him, although it had certainly tainted the moment. There was no need to mention that, though. She moved closer to him and kissed his cheek. “I enjoyed it very much,” she whispered in his ear.