She gasped when her bare back hit the cold linens and gasped again when he crawled atop her. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered, spreading her legs in anticipation of him impaling her. Instead, he was kissing his way down the front of her body. “Where are you going?” she asked, giving up her hold on his shoulders.
He chuckled and mumbled something incoherent, and a moment later, Ivy inhaled sharply when his whiskers scraped the insides of her thighs. “Robert!”
The sensation of his thumbs and tongue on her most private place had her attempting to pull her knees together. She stopped when the first frissons skittered through her thighs and belly. “Oh!” When his tongue circled her womanhood, she mewled first in protest and then in pleasure until whatever he was doing had her insides tumbling about in a maelstrom of welcome sensations. When the frissons coalesced into a single wave of pleasure, she cried out, her hands reaching down to cup the sides of his head. “You have to stop,” she whimpered, her breaths sounding labored.
She felt more than heard his chuckle and inhaled sharply when he was once again atop her. She inhaled again at the sensation of the tip of his manhood at her entrance. “Hurry,” she whispered.
“We have all night,” he countered, although his entry into her was quick. Both of them gasped when he was suddenly buried to the hilt. “Oh, Ivy,” he breathed. He pulled nearly all the way out of her before thrusting into her again.
Her hips met his on his next thrust, and he groaned. “I was going to make this last,” he murmured, as if in protest.
“Next time,” she managed between gasps for breath.
He growled in response, and from the way his body seized and his face lifted, she knew he was in the throes of hisorgasm. Deep within, she felt his last desperate thrust as the wash of warmth filled her, and she sighed happily.
Breathing heavily, Robert rolled off of Ivy and landed on his back, groaning as he did so.
Tittering, Ivy turned her head and regarded him with a grin. “How is it we can be so good together when we’re in a bed and so... distant with one another when we’re out of one?”
He regarded her with an expression of hurt. “I don’t think that’s an entirely fair assessment of us at all,” he replied, sliding his arm beneath her shoulders in an effort to pull her closer. “Our first few years of marriage were rather pleasant, as I recall.” He grunted. “Our first twenty years, even.”
“That’s because we spent most of them in bed,” she countered, grinning with the memory.
Robert rubbed a hand over his face, felt the evening stubble of his beard. “How could we not? When you were expecting Charity, you were insatiable,” he accused. “You were the same with Grace and Michael, too.”
She giggled softly. “You were so accommodating.”
“I had to be your cock on demand,” he said on an exaggerated sigh. “I was afraid you might decide a footman was good enough.”
Gasping, Ivy turned her head to regard him with disbelief. “Never,” she responded. “Eww.”
He guffawed. “I’ll never forget the time you sent a footman to Parliament with a note saying my presence was required post-haste. I don’t think I ever had Walker drive the town coach as fast as he did that day. I was sure I was going to arrive to find the house on fire, and instead, I discovered you, bare naked, round with child...” He motioned the shape of aball with a hand over his own midsection. “In the middle of my bed, demanding my cock.”
She grinned at the reminder of what had occurred when she was pregnant with their first son, Michael. “I was so in need of you,” she insisted. “Right up until the end. And as I recall, you didn’t seem to mind one bit.”
Once again sounding a guffaw, he said, “That’s because I was able to leave an especially boring session of Parliament. Some ancient earl was droning on about corn or wheat or some such.” He turned to look at her. “You were far more fun to plow.”
She reached out and slapped a hand on his thigh. “Don’t be crass,” she scolded.
They both sighed, and Robert reached for her hand with one of his. He brought it to his lips and kissed the palm. “I spent so many nights wondering...”
She stared at him, her auburn brows crinkling. “Wondering what?”
He displayed a grimace. “More of a whom,” he murmured. “I was sure you had taken a lover in London. I feared I even knew his identity?—”
“What?” she interrupted, pulling back her hand so she could lift herself up on her elbows. As a result, the bed linens shifted so her breasts were exposed. She stared down at him. “I don’t have a lover,” she claimed. “That’s what you thought? All this time?”
Robert swallowed, his gaze going briefly to her nipples. He rolled onto his side, pressed an elbow into the mattress, and held his head on his hand. “Did you ever think about taking one?” he asked, before leaning forward to kiss the side of the breast closest to him. He closed his eyes and buried his nose in the soft flesh, his eyelids barely touching her skin.
She inhaled sharply at the tickling sensation. “No. Never,”she insisted, lowering herself back onto the bed and pulling up the linens so she was once again covered.
Emitting a sound of disappointment, Robert furrowed a brow even as he felt profound relief at hearing her declaration. “All these years... and you haven’t made love to anyone?”
She blinked and swallowed. “Robert, you have a terrible memory,” she accused.
“What are you saying?”
“Every Season when you’re in London...” She paused, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t tell me you actually slept through all those times I sneaked into your bedchamber when I was in need of you.”
