She had read about such matters, of course, in the sinful books she had managed to find, but she had thought the scenes she’d read were the hyperbolic imaginings of wicked authors.
“Relax, darling,” he said soothingly, dropping a kiss on her inner thigh. “Let me show you.”
Surely, she had thought, a man would not place his lips on a woman’s… Trevor’s head settled firmly between her legs.
Oh.
This man would. And that was his tongue upon her, lapping gently at first, as if he were consuming something delicious that he didn’t wish to devour all at once. How wonderful it felt, the warm glide of his lips and tongue. He made another sound, a lowmmmthat rumbled against her flesh.
“So sweet,” he murmured against her aching sex. “Sweet as honey, just like your lips.”
All she could offer as a response was a weak moan as he had his way with her, feasting on her sex until she was squirming beneath him, breathless, gasping. Shameless, arching into his wicked mouth, her fingers seeking purchase once again in his hair. She tugged and he answered by lavishing more attention upon her nub, licking faster before suckling.
“Oh,” she breathed, the quickening already beginning in her belly.
He released her and then placed a kiss atop the throbbing bud.
“Not yet,” he said, as if he sensed her body’s terrible need. “I want to savor you a bit first.”
Savor her. She shivered, and not because of the lack of fire in the grate. He licked into her, following the same path his fingers had taken, his tongue sinking inside, then out again. Another noise left her, a strangled moan and plea in unison.
If she didn’t take care, she’d bring all the servants down upon them.
“Bite the back of your hand,” he ordered her gently, and then traced the seam of her back to her clitoris.
She obeyed, catching her knuckles in her teeth and biting down as he sucked on her whilst one of his fingers returned to her entrance. There was the same delicious pressure, heightened by his demanding mouth, the hard suction and light nips of his teeth alternating until she was writhing beneath him, the pleasure so exquisite she could scarcely bear more.
His finger slid slowly, out and then in, with each pass moving deeper. Filling her in a way his tongue had not. And then more. Another finger. She was impossibly stretched. His mouth gave no quarter, demanding a release as his hand pumped in time to her labored breaths.
Harder. Faster.Her heart was galloping in her chest. Until she came apart. This release was quicker than the last, shooting through her like fireworks into a night sky. Glorious bursts, so beautiful, so very good. She was certain she was going to die from the pleasure of it.
In the aftermath, she lay there, utterly spent and limp, a languid lusciousness settling over her, and thought she may have, quite unintentionally and ridiculously, fallen in love with the Duke of Ridgely.
* * *
What had Trevor done?
Restraint? He clearly possessed none. Honor? Had he ever owned a shred of it? If he had, the last bit had been obliterated the moment he’d lifted Virtue’s skirts and licked her until she’d come on his tongue and fingers.
The taste of her lingered in his mouth, on his lips.
Honey and musk. Sweet and sensual. Just like her.
Regrets? God, not a single one.
With hands that trembled from the force of his reaction to her, he reluctantly flipped down her hems, restoring her modesty and ruining the most bewitching sight he had ever beheld: Virtue on the window seat, nearly naked and looking thoroughly ravished.
By him.
He rose from his knees and leaned over her with the intention of restoring her bodice to rights. Instead, he paused, mesmerized by the dreamy expression on her lovely countenance. He had been wrong before.Thiswas how he would paint her—dark tendrils of mahogany escaped from her chignon and framing her face, lips swollen and dark, full breasts spilling from her gown, all creamy and perfect and tipped with hard, pink nipples. Sunlight streaming down on her like gilded gossamer.
No Venus captured in oils had ever been so alluring.
There was only one solution for the current dilemma in which he found himself.
He’d spent the last few weeks convinced he must marry Lady Virtue Walcot off with all expediency so that he could carry on with his life. But it was apparent that the only man he could marry her off to was himself.
His achingly hard cock told him it was the sole way. Eventually, he must marry someone. Produce an heir. Otherwise, his odious cousin Ferdinand Clutterbuck would inherit the title and run the estates and all their people firmly into the ground.
