“Forgive me,” he murmured. “I was too eager.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
She threw the undergarment over her shoulder, not caring where it went, and, holding his stare, reached for the hairpins keeping her unruly curls in submission. Heavy tendrils fell as she removed the pins, stacking them in her palm until she was finished and a curtain of hair fell down her back.
“Joceline.” His voice was hoarse and raw, tinged with amazement and awe.
She’d never been naked like this with a man before, and she knew she ought to feel some need for modesty. That she should cover herself—or, at the very least, lie beneath the bedclothes and await him rather than to put her body on bold display. But the hungry look he gave her was all she needed to know he appreciated her boldness.
That and the way he insinuated himself between her thighs, nudging them apart, and with a sound of pure carnal delight, took her nipple in his mouth again. This time, she was rewarded with wet heat, the play of his tongue. She arched her back, offering herself to him, giving him so much more than just her body. Giving him her heart, herself, all that she had to give.
She ran her fingers through his hair, and he laved indecent attention upon first one breast, then the other.
“Quint,” she whispered, the sound of her own breathing and the suction of his mouth joining the popping of the fire to make wicked music.
Every part of her was intensely aware, her senses almost painfully acute.
He moved back to her other breast. “So beautiful. More beautiful than I imagined.”
She bit her lip to keep from making more noise, mesmerized by the sight of his handsome face nestled against her, his mouth on her nipple. She was melting. Mindless. His hands were in her hair, running through the strands with such reverence, as if they were fashioned of gold, his tongue flicking over the distended peak of her breast. And then he kissed a path of fire down her rib cage, his mouth finding the indentation of her navel, his hands guiding her legs farther apart, lips traveling lower still. Nothing could have prepared her for the kiss he pressed there, between her legs, in that most sensitive place of all.
Good heavens. His mouth was… He was… His tongue. His tongue?
Sweet God, histongue.
He was devouring her as if she were a feast, lustily licking and kissing and sucking, spreading her folds with his thumbs, moaning into her, the vibration echoing in the bud of her sex.
A squeak emerged from her. She clapped a hand over her mouth. It was sinful. She was sure it was wrong, what he was doing, but she was also sure that nothing had ever felt as good, nor had any sin been more worthwhile, than the Duke of Sedgewick on his knees before her, face buried between her legs, tongue coaxing the sort of pleasure from her she’d never previously known existed.
She was embarrassingly wet between her legs, a state that was only heightened by his tongue, which was circling, licking, driving her ever closer to the edge of some dark and dangerous height. He licked lower, his tongue swirling over her entrance, then dipping inside, and her hips bucked when his thumb rolled over the small bundle that only she had ever teased. The poor footman hadn’t known how to please a woman any more than she had known how to please a man.
The pleasure was wondrous. Impossible. His tongue glided deeper, in and out, as his thumb swirled. And the pleasureroared over her, fast and intense as a runaway locomotive on a track.
Her body seized, bliss ricocheting up and down her spine. She bit her palm to keep from screaming, wave after wave of ecstasy washing over her. And still, he was relentless, tonguing her, working her nub, until somehow his mouth had returned, and he was suckling as he had her breast, only this time it was the most secret part of her, and the tip of his finger traced over her seam, finding her channel with ease. He plunged into her effortlessly, the stretch a shock—it had been years for her since she had hastily coupled, scarcely even knowing what was happening, still fully clothed.
But this, oh this. It was glorious. A second finger joined the first, probing, sliding in and out, then in deeper and deeper. Meanwhile, his mouth was locked on her bud, sucking sweetly, so sweetly, the sound of him taking his fill of her mingling with her ragged breaths. She felt the demanding pressure of his teeth then, in a place where she was particularly sensitive, timed with the drive of a third finger, and everything inside her shattered. She came with a strangled cry and a wet rush from her core, and as the bliss undulated through her ravished body, he kissed her inner thigh tenderly, his lips glistening with her desire.
“So sweet, Joceline,” he said, dispelling any lingering hint of self-consciousness she might have been harboring. “You taste even better than I’d hoped.”
His fingers were still inside her, stretching her, filling her. But that wasn’t enough. Unlike that lone time from her past, she didn’t wish the physical joining to end. There was no pain, only astonishing pleasure. His gaze was on her sex, watching, she thought, the way she gripped those fingers, her inner muscles still convulsing, though with less fury now than they originally had.
“Are you a virgin, Joceline?” he asked softly, those knowing fingers still pumping inside her, drawing more sensation from her when she thought it impossible there could be more.
“No,” she answered honestly. “Many years ago, when I was young…I was foolish…”
It felt strange to speak of such matters when he was lodged inside her, and yet the pressure he was renewing deep within her was so glorious she didn’t care. She thought that she might do anything he asked of her, answer any question, run naked about all of Blackwell Abbey if he but requested, just for more of this.
“Hush,” he said, kissing her sex again, his fingers gliding free. “It doesn’t matter other than that I’m quite desperate. I didn’t want to hurt you.” Another kiss, reverent, the swipe of his tongue over her highly sensitized bud.
“You won’t hurt me,” she promised, not even sure if it was true.
Last time, it had not been pleasant. Intervening years had fogged her memory. She’d forgotten the experience, the young man. It hadn’t mattered—her life had been given to service. And it no longer mattered now. She didn’t even care if Quint caused her pain. She just wanted him.
He stood abruptly, tearing at the fall of his trousers, and then his cock emerged, thick and long and ready. That part of him was untouched by flame, and much larger than the footman’s had been. Much, much larger.
“Lie back on the bed, love,” he said, his voice strained with tamped-down desire.
Love.
