The Untouchable Earl

by Amy Sandas

  Avenell maintained a steady flow of breath as he accustomed himself to the feel of her limbs entwined around him, the roving attention of her hands, the desirous intention of her embrace. Just knowing how much she wanted this made him anxious to allow more.

  She shifted against him and brought her mouth to the side of his throat. Her tongue glided hot and wet over his skin, giving rise to gooseflesh in its wake. Then she bowed her head and pressed her open mouth to his chest. His fingers grasped her more tightly as he fought to remain patient under her exploration.

  But when her sweet tongue flicked out over his nipple, a rush of sexual poignancy so intricate and specific struck him like a bolt of lightning. In a split instant, it ignited every inch of his being.

  There was no pain now. Only pleasure. Deep, piercing points of pleasure.

  “Lily,” he groaned.

  She tipped her face to look up at him, and he wasted no time in claiming her wayward tongue and drawing it into his mouth. Their lips crushed against their teeth, and their tongues tangled with the increasing wildness of their mutual desire for more.

  Avenell couldn’t get enough of the sweet and heady taste of her mouth. Even when her arms came up to wind around his neck and her fingers delved through his hair to clutch at the back of his head, he did not pull back.

  There was a time such a thing would have triggered instant panic. But that had been before he had allowed himself to accept that he didn’t have to guard himself every moment. Before this woman had convinced him that with her, he was safe.

  Finally, he drew back, but only enough to where he could look into her eyes. Her yearning was palpable. Her love was like a drug that soothed and inflamed at once.

  Very gently, she brought her hands to his chest, exerting just enough pressure to push him back a small step.

  His lungs so tight he could barely breathe, Avenell did as she bade him.

  As he lowered himself into the chair again, she dropped gracefully to her knees before him. Her hands eased up his legs and smoothed confidently over the tense surface of his thighs.

  Nervousness and lust clawed at him in tandem, both fighting for the strongest grip as he balanced precariously between sexual delights and the darkness of his deeper passions. He did not think he could endure it. He gripped the arms of the chair so tightly, his forearms bulged with the effort to hold himself still.

  Her full attention fell to the hard evidence of his need. She gazed at him with a look of bold hunger. Her hand lifted to hover over the pulsing length of him, and Avenell bit hard on his lip. But she hesitated. Before touching him, she slid her focus up along his reclining form, the appreciation in her gaze warming him further, until she reached his face.

  “What are you feeling?” she asked.

  Avenell shook his head, unable to find the words.

  What was he feeling?

  Everything.

  His inability to respond brought a small frown to her forehead, and she rose up on her knees. Planting her hands on the surface of his thighs, she leaned forward against him, stretching her body along his. Her soft, smooth heat covered him, slid skin over skin from where her hips pressed against his inner thighs to her belly over his erection and the lush cushions of her breasts flattening on his chest.

  She melted against him and lifted her hand to curl her fingers around the back of his neck. Looking intently into his eyes, she drew his mouth to hers.

  With her kiss, she challenged him. She tilted her head and opened her mouth, coaxing his open as well. Her teeth scored his lower lip. Her tongue tangled with his, and her breath puffed into his mouth.

  The purity of her passion, her need for him, was better than the most potent wine, and he savored it. He surrendered to the whirlwind she created inside him, barely realizing he had brought his arms around her back. He held her so tightly that her breath shortened, and a small laugh slid from her throat.

  Drawing back, she smiled.

  His short rush of response to her kiss had pleased her. He could see it shining in her eyes, making them sparkle.

  “Someday you will have the words, my lord,” she assured him.

  She pushed at his shoulders until his arms loosened, and he relaxed back in the chair. With another flashing smile, she trailed brief, hot kisses across his chest where his nerves had long expressed only pain, but now sparked hot with new sensations. She did not stop there. She pressed more kisses across his abdomen while her hands smoothed over his thighs.

  Avenell suspected her intention, and his muscles seized with bright and sudden anticipation. He was alarmed by how badly he wanted to feel her mouth on him. He could barely breathe for the bone-deep need inside him at that moment.

  At his obvious tensing, Lily had ceased her exploration. She straightened her upper body, but she did not withdraw her attention entirely. She looked into his face with an expression of love so pure and unassuming it made his heart ache. Very gently, she slid her hands up along the surface of his thighs. Then, still holding his gaze, she took his erection in her hand.

  “I want to feel you against my lips, Avenell,” she murmured thickly, her eyes dark and needful. “I want to taste you with my tongue and take you into my mouth. I have read of this particular pleasure and would give anything to share it with you.”

  His muscles twitched as he forced them to relax by degrees. Her words shocked him and aroused him near to bursting. He did not think he would be able to maintain control through such delightful torment.

  “Please, Avenell,” she whispered, shifting her hand to close her fingers around him more securely. His breath stopped moving through his lungs.

  Holding his gaze, she began to caress along the length of his erection. With drifting fingertips and gentle squeezes, she learned the shape and feel of him.

  “Lily,” he gasped, “I don’t know if I can…”

  “Trust me,” she insisted.

  Watching her expression closely, Avenell could see the pleasure it brought her as her lips parted with her breath and her eyelids grew heavy. He focused on that, drawing it into himself. Slowly, he sank into the sensations she roused in him with her loving attention.

  Just as he began to absorb the intensity of her touch, she lowered her head and flicked her tongue against his tip.

  He groaned and arched his neck.

  She flicked her tongue again, then immediately circled it around the sensitive ridge in a luscious stroke that drew another groan from his tight throat.

  She murmured soothing words as she gripped him securely at the base of his erection, then she slid her full lips down over him. Her mouth encompassed his hard, aching flesh in wet heat. He could not resist looking down at her as she knelt between his taut thighs. He had never known anything as erotic as the sight of her loving him with her mouth.

  And when she looked up at him with a flutter of her lashes, the love inside him expanded. What little remained of his control was maintained with just a thin thread wound tight around his heart.

  Shivers coursed through him, his chest grew tight, and the fire in his blood roared with an intensity that threatened the last fiber of his determination to remain submissive to her direction.

  She moved over him. Drawing him deeply into her mouth with lovely, silken swirls of her tongue. A fierce and heavy throbbing initiated in his brain. His body buzzed from head to toe. A million pinpoints of pleasure rolled over one another until the brilliant physical sensation of her touch was all he knew.

  His release was building. Roaring through his blood, chasing away all thought but one—he needed to be inside her. Now.

  In a sudden burst of strength, he curled his spine toward her and fisted his hand in her hair. It took all available effort to gently ease her mouth up along the length of his erection. Her head fell back as he leaned over her. He plundered her mouth with his tongue, releasing the pent-up fury of his d
eepest need.

  The sound of her throaty moan shot through him.

  He tore his mouth away to mutter thickly, “I can take no more.”

  His hand fell away from her as she rose swiftly to her feet. Pressing her hand gently to his chest, she urged him back.

  Avenell reclined in the chair as she came up over him, settling her knees on either side of his hips. She grasped him in her hands once again to position him between her thighs.

  The heat of her core against him felt like heaven and hell at once. She was slick and ready. Avenell grasped her hips in his hands, but she held herself strong over him, allowing the tip of him to barely kiss the entrance of her body.

  He loved seeing her command at that moment. Her body was that of a goddess, regal and strong, as she knelt over him. He could have used his superior strength to plunge into her, could have risen from the chair to drive her down onto the floor and claim her like a conqueror.

  Instead, he submitted. He gave himself over to her desire, knowing he would reap all the benefits. He released his hands from her hips and returned his grip to the arms of the chair.

  Accepting his surrender with a soft murmur, she rewarded him with a gentle roll of her hips. It was a small movement, but it allowed his erection to glide just a short way into her body.

  A growl rumbled in his throat, and he arched his head back. How would he make it through this?

  She rocked again.

  He reached deeper.

  Her chin lowered, and a visible shiver coursed through her body. Her breath shortened, and the rocking of her body became tighter, more confined. She teased him with the suggestion of taking him all the way in—then denied him.

  Avenell yielded. His body became hers to mold; his senses were hers to command. He trusted her. As she took him bit by bit into her body, he offered himself up to her in every way possible. His body. His heart. His soul.

  And her passion possessed him.

  In the midst of a black haze of lust, Avenell acknowledged the beauty of giving himself over to this amazing woman. The realization was astounding.

  But before he could explore it further, she leaned forward over him and gripped the top edge of the chair. Then she brought her weight down on him in one forceful move, taking him in completely.

  He groaned and grasped her buttocks as her heat surrounded him in a luscious caress.

  She lifted herself off him, then took him all the way again. A hot, plunging stroke. A mind-stealing arc of pleasure. The rhythm she chose was relentless and demanding. Avenell had never known anything so consuming. She swept them both along with an intensity that scared him and thrilled him.

  And as he sensed her nearing her peak, he pushed up, wrapping his arms low around her hips, drawing her completely into his embrace. He pressed his open mouth to her throat, stunned by the deep pleasure he experienced as her legs clamped tight against his hips and her arms lifted to encircle his head and neck.

  In those moments, they seemed to become one being. Melded. Complete.

  As a heavy thickness rose in his throat, she stiffened and arched in his arms. Her inner muscles fluttered, and a strangled sound issued from her lips as her climax pulsed through her body.

  Avenell stopped breathing.

  He shook deep in his core as the world expanded. All at once, he experienced the deepest pleasure, entirely devoid of pain. It was everything. It was what he no longer feared and what he had always needed.

  It was her.

  A long time passed before either of them were ready to move again.

  Keeping his arms wrapped around her, Avenell stood and lifted her. He crossed to the bed in long strides and carefully settled them beneath the covers.

  He drew her against his side. She laid her hand gently over his belly, and he covered it with his own, keeping her there. Though the sensitivity of his nerves was returning by slow but inexorable degrees, it could not disrupt his desire to hold her. To feel her heartbeat against his rib cage and the waft of her breath over his skin.

  “I love you, Lily.” His low-spoken words blended seamlessly with the rhythm of their breathing, but he knew she had heard him when she pressed her lips to his skin.

  “I did not want to love you,” he continued, tightening his arm around her back when he felt her stiffen. “The last person I had loved could not accept the way I was after the illness. My father was not a man who cared to understand weakness of any kind. He expected his heir to display courage and strength. A boy who cried out in pain whenever someone brushed against him was an aberration. Something to be derided and belittled.”

  She shifted her hand to link her fingers between his but did not interrupt. Her quiet acceptance and gentle offer of support were enough to encourage him to continue.

  “As I started to recover from the illness and felt the return of some small bit of strength to my muscles, I vowed to prove to him I was strong enough and brave enough to be an earl’s son. I forced myself to walk every day, though extreme fatigue forced me to go slow in the beginning, and my muscles did not want to cooperate. Eventually, I regained my strength and full physical capabilities. But it was not enough. I was damaged. The pain I continued to experience belied my accomplishments. My father could not accept a child with such an affliction. A weakling who cowered in pain at the slightest touch.

  “He left me in the country and never came back again.”

  A small sound slipped from Lily’s lips, and she lifted her head from his shoulder to look into his face.

  “He was the aberration, Avenell. Not you.”

  “He was not alone. The nurses who had been my comfort before the illness grew tired in dealing with the challenges I presented. Their patience ran thin as they began to believe I was just a spoiled child seeking attention. They could not understand why I might still be feeling pain so long after the illness had left my body.”

  “Were you ever seen by a doctor?”

  “By many, in the beginning, but none of them knew what to make of my continued symptoms.”

  She lifted her hand to the side of his face. Her eyes were soft with emotion, and her lips quivered as she spoke. “I hate it that you went through that. You must have been so frightened, so hurt by your father’s actions… I wish I could take all that pain away.”

  He took her hand in his and brought her fingertips to his lips. “You do, Lily. With every smile and every touch, you sweep it out of existence. I am sorry it took me so long to see that. I am sorry I hurt you before I understood.”

  She shook her head to stop him and rose up to press her lips sweetly to his. He would have allowed the kiss to deepen, but he had not finished all he wished to say. Curling his fingers around the back of her neck, he urged her to lift her head.

  As her lips hovered a breath above his and her smoky gaze looked deep into his soul, he murmured, “I love you, Lily. Promise to love me forever, and I swear I will devote myself to your happiness. Marry me, Lily.”

  She smiled. “This promise will be far easier than the others you asked of me. Nothing would make me happier than to be your wife.”

  Epilogue

  October 1817

  Lily stood at the window, gazing out at the sleepy city as the rising sun turned all that was black and gray to various shades of lavender and gold.

  It was getting late. She should go before Angelique’s household began to rise, but she didn’t want to miss the transformation of night into day.

  “It is strange,” she mused out loud, “how different the sunrise seems when you view it after being up all night versus rising early.”

  “How so?” the earl asked from the bed behind her. His voice was warm and intimate.

  Lily tipped her head and softened her gaze. “I am not sure I can explain it,” she murmured.

  She wrapped her arms around herself. She had dressed only in her shift after
rising from bed, and the fire that had warmed the room had died down hours ago. A moment later, Avenell stepped up behind her to drape a cashmere shawl about her shoulders. It had been a gift from him. She kept it there in his bedroom to prevent her sisters from discovering it and wondering where it had come from.

  Lily accepted his gesture with a smile and drew the wrap around her shoulders. Then she leaned back against him, craving the warmth of his body far more than what the swath of cloth could provide.

  She felt his hesitation in the moment before he slid his arms around her waist, lowering his head to rest the side of his jaw against her temple. He still had some trouble with the more subtle gestures of intimacy, but Lily believed he would continue to relax over time—if she remained patient. Already, he seemed capable of tolerating so much more than he had in the past.

  She knew it was because every prickle of discomfort was tempered by love.

  “Tell me about the sunrise,” he murmured against the curve of her ear.

  She tilted her head, her gaze still soaking in the surreal beauty of the world shifting from dark to light. “I often used to rise before dawn, but I do not suppose I took the time to observe the awakening of the world around me. I started my day, trusting morning would come. And it did.”

  The brush of his lips across her temple sent a delightful thrill through her body. Lily sighed, feeling almost guilty for the wealth of happiness she had discovered with this man.

  “I love the quiet beauty of the night sky,” she continued thoughtfully, “filled with mystery and starlight, but there is something magical about the dawn. It is strange. When the sky begins to lighten and soft colors first appear, the transition is so gentle you hardly notice it. But if you are aware enough to observe, if you take the time to really be a part of the transformation, it feels…”

  Her explanation trailed off. She found it difficult to find the words to properly describe the wonder she felt as she experienced the very common daily occurrence.

  “It feels like it possesses all the possibilities of life,” Avenell offered quietly.