But they were in the library, with its garden windows and doorway to the hall. Surely nothing much more than this could happen between them? Not in here…
“And this?” Ambrose asked, his caresses moving only a very little higher, to Frances’ wrists and lower arms. “Does this feel good too?”
“Yes,” Frances breathed, sensing herself moving gradually into ever deeper water. “Oh!”
Leaning forward a little further in his chair, the duke now ran his hands the full length of her bare arms and then bent his head to kiss the sensitive skin inside Frances’ elbow. Good God, how that small touch of his lips echoed through her body…
“What if someone should come in?” blurted Frances, the exposed location of the library having subtly shifted from a defense to a threat in the last few minutes.
“We are married, Frances, and in our own home,” the duke reminded her, lifting his head and pausing the movement of his hands although he did not remove them. “No one but you may object to such innocent embrace as this. Do you?”
“I do not,” she conceded and then gave another little gasp as Ambrose gently stroked her face. “It is only, what if, what if…”
“There is nothing to fear,” he repeated himself. “If you wish me to continue, I will continue. If you wish me to stop, I will stop. Is the worst thing that could happen that that you might enjoy my touch?”
Frances closed her eyes again and nodded, all too conscious of that warm hand now cupping her jaw. She felt the duke’s breath on her face before the featherlight touch of his lips brushing hers for a fraction of a second.
“Ah!” she moaned. “I don’t know. I’m afraid of what might happen if I do enjoy it. I’m afraid of…”
“Losing control?” he suggested very softly. “I promise you that is no bad thing either, although it might seem so when you have never experienced it.”
Losing control? Or rather giving in, to Frances’ mind. It meant making oneself prey to animal instincts regardless of right and wrong, regardless of sense and logic, regardless of promises and responsibilities to others.
“I cannot,” she said but with little conviction now.
“You never have, have you? Physically lost control, I mean, even in touching yourself?”
“I don’t understand,” Frances replied, her words a response both to Ambrose’s question and to his hands now unpinning and stroking her hair.
“May I show you? You will come to no harm, I promise.”
Frances did not know whether she was now swimming or drowning in the sensations that the Duke of Westall was so slowly and deliberately arousing in her. Still, she nodded, somehow trusting him despite everything. When one of his hands took hers and drew her onto his lap, she did not resist.
At such close quarters, Frances was completely lost, the warmth of his body and scent of his skin driving the last of her rational reservations from her head. The kisses that Ambrose bestowed on her lips were deep and sensuous but still gentle, calling forth some fierceness in Frances herself. Had her hand really reached around to pull his head down to hers more tightly?
When the duke’s hand cupped her bosom through her dress, Frances pressed into him rather than breaking away. The effect of his kisses seemed to open her to appreciation of such touch and a few seconds later Ambrose’s mouth trailed down to kiss the skin of the shoulder he had just bared of its short sleeve.
A soft blanket lay over the back of the chair and the duke now pulled it loosely over them although the summer air was not at all cold. While Frances was still pondering this move, the duke’s hand slipped inside the low silken neckline of her dress and settled over her naked breast.
Frances cried out at the heated thrills that shot through her with this unprecedentedly intimate contact. She could not help the movement of her body on his lap, although such wriggling was into the duke’s arms rather than away from him.
“Oh, what is this…I’m afraid…Oh God!”
“Trust me,” Ambrose whispered back, returning his kisses to her face although his hand kept possession of her breast. “You will lose control, and it will be wonderful, Frances.”
Frances whimpered and shifted again on his lap, feeling something rock hard beneath her hip as she did so, and guessing what it must be. There was little space to think about this however, as the duke had now fully lowered the neckline of her dress and was caressing both of her breasts, softly at first, but with full attention, his lips soon joining his hands.
“You are so very lovely,” Ambrose murmured, his voice noticeably lower and more breathless, as though the handling of her breasts had some strong effect on him, like exercise or strong drink.
“That feels so good…Oh, Ambrose…But I should not…”
““Your breasts are the most beautiful I have ever seen, Frances. What a gift you give me in permitting my caresses.”
A gift? Was Ambrose feeling something as intense as Frances through his exploration of her body? The duke’s language was strangely seductive, making her want to cease all remaining internal resistance and give in entirely to the currents of pleasure. It was all so strange but wonderful too.
While Ambrose’s skilled mouth was still at her breasts, one of his hands had begun to caress Frances’ legs beneath the blanket, accustoming her to this touch before raising her silken skirts and sliding beneath. She moaned and writhed restlessly as his hand found her stocking tops and lingered there for a while, tantalizing the sensitive bare skin above her garters and gently urging her thighs apart.
The jolt that ran through her as he cupped her Mount of Venus was so powerful that Frances feared somehow falling although she was still held securely across the duke’s knees. Her most intimate flesh throbbed almost painfully and the rest of her body quivered with need.
