He stilled, waiting, heart beating in competition with hers. What did she want to know? What did she want to hear? He hoped it had nothing to do with the past, for he could not—would not—allow it to intrude upon them now. Nothing could shatter this fantasy in which he pretended he was an ordinary man, that madness and death had never scarred him. That he was a husband hopelessly in his wife’s thrall, newly wed and free to lose himself in her.
How he wished all that was true.
But it wasn’t.
It was fantasy bound to be dismantled.
For the moment, however, he could convince himself. He could forget everything, everyone, every black moment of his past, just by her responsive curves merging with his hard planes. Just with her earnest gaze on his. Just with her, so that it seemed that they were the only two people in all the world.
“Your question,” he asked again, for she had seemed to come undone, her body thrusting against his, riding him, bringing him to the edge of reason.
“The book.” Her eyes were bright, insistent. “Tell me what you read.”
Hell. Thoughts of the book did not bode well for his longevity. He had not been wrong with his initial estimation of it, not entirely. Yes, it was bawdy. Yes, it was also forbidden. The obscenity laws barred literature of its sort from being printed. But the devil of it was, that the more he had read, the more he had wanted to read. He had not been able to put the thing down. Each page he turned, he could not help but think of Boadicea eagerly scanning the page, reading the same wanton words as he.
And he had wondered, God how he had wondered. Had the stories aroused her? Shocked her? Had she read the letter from Lady Lovelorn to her friend Lady Pearl about their adventures in finishing school? The mere thought of Boadicea reading such licentious words made him go hard as a marble bust.
He held her gaze, unwavering. “All of it.”
Her mouth fell open in a perfectly formed ‘o’ of surprise before she gathered herself and schooled her features back into a semblance of order. “All of it?”
He continued his regard. “Allof it.”
Her lips pursed. “The birching?”
“The birching,” he confirmed.
“Lady Lovelorn’s letters?” she asked next, sliding her warm, wet cove across him again.
His cheekbones felt red as any virgin’s at the mere mentioning of those wicked epistles, and he was decidedly not a bloody virgin. He cleared his throat. “The letters, the groom and Lady Letitia, the French governess who had a fondness for His Lordship’s Priapus. I read the whole bloody thing. I read it because you had read it, and I wanted to see and know what you had seen and read.”
He was aware that he was being crude, but she had pushed him and surely she knew better than anyone how to accept vulgarities. After all, the book he had read was hers before he had taken possession of it. The words he read, the situations he referred to, the unhindered nature of the language, it was all to be expected by Lady Boadicea Harrington.
Strike that, for she was no longer Boadicea Harrington, was she? No indeed, she was Boadicea Bainbridge, his duchess. She was his.
She stayed her torturous moving over him, her eyes going wide. “Oh. I had not yet finished the volume in question, because it was taken from me. Therefore, you are, I daresay, ahead of me in your reading.”
“You still have not kissed me,” he pointed out, rolling his hips beneath her. “You can read the remainder of it when I return it to you.IfI return it to you.”
She arched back, rubbing her soft folds over him. “Do you wish me to kiss you, Your Grace? I confess, I have forgotten in our lengthy dialogue. Remind me, won’t you? You are the winner, and I am at your mercy. What would you have me do?”
Saucy wench.
One more twitch of her hips against his, and he almost lost himself, lost sight of what he was about and what he was meant to do. She teased him with such practiced ease, and if he had not known he had taken her maidenhead, he would swear she was a polished flirt.
But she was not a practiced flirt. She was his wife. His outrageous, rebellious, beautiful, daring, fearless duchess. “Give me your mouth,” he told her. “And your pretty little pussy. That is what I want. Take control. Show me what you want, what you desire.”
He did not need to urge her twice. Her mouth crashed over his, open and wanting. It was a messy kiss, hungry and needy, sudden and demanding. He clamped his arms around her, drawing her nearer, opening to her onslaught. When her tongue slipped inside his mouth, he sucked.
The delicious anticipation that had made each interaction so heady and delicious vanished. They became one, mouths fusing, tongues thrusting, bodies moving. He undid her bodice. She opened his waistcoat and shirt. Her breasts, perfect handfuls topped with hungry nipples that poked into his palms, sprang free. She found the fastening of his trousers. Thank Christ he wasn’t wearing smalls this morning. When her hand closed over his shaft, he nearly came all over her dainty fingers.
His touch traveled beneath her voluminous riding habit, between them, finding the center of her without err. She was pure, molten heat. Smooth and wet. Warm and soft. Everything he wanted. He stroked down her slit, then back up again, found her clitoris engorged and eager. As he played with her, she jerked into him, moaning.
“Yes.” The single word was a hiss, torn from her.
He agreed wholeheartedly. His fingers continued to work the eager flesh between her thighs. Wet, so wet. He could not wait a moment more. He gripped his cock, positioned himself at her entrance, and guided her downward.
He impaled, hot and hard, straight to her core. Her tight channel sucked him deep. He lost his breath. Nothing had ever felt so bloody good, so bloody right. If he never did another thing worthwhile in his life, at least he could remember this moment, when he was ballocks deep inside the most beautiful, maddening, intelligent, and determined woman he had ever met.
