She arched a brow.“Surely you know how to...”She pointed down to his crotch.“Perform sexual congress?”
His mouth rounding into an ‘o’, David stared at her in shock.“I...I suppose I do,” he finally replied.Apparently his manhood did, because it was suddenly doing its best to escape his pantaloons.“Are you asking me to make love to you?Right now?”
She lifted a shoulder.“If we’re to be married within a fortnight, then I would prefer to know what I’m to do on my wedding night,” she said.
David swallowed.“Oh.So much for you being raised as a sheltered young lady,” he murmured.
“Nikky said that in England, betrothed couples always make love before they are wed,” she claimed.
“Did she now?”he countered.He glanced around.“You wish to do it here?”
She nodded and stood from the sofa, standing so her back was turned to him.“If it’s all right with you, I would like to keep my...I’m not sure whats it’s called in English...but you can take off the corset.”
David furrowed a brow as he rose to his feet.“If I’m to remove your corset, then I’ll be removing your gown and all your petticoats,” he reasoned, undoing the buttons down her back.The mere act had his breath catching when the nape of her neck was exposed.He used the tip of a finger to push away the tiny hairs that formed a ‘v’, and he placed a kiss there.
She inhaled softly as her entire body shook in his hold.“That tickles,” she whispered, although she was grinning when she said it.
“It’s rather likely we’ll create a good deal of noise,” he warned.
“Noise?”she repeated, turning in his arms to face him.
He watched as her bodice seemed to free itself from her bosom and slide down.When he stepped back, the heavy gown slipped down her body to land in a puddle at his feet.He swallowed.“I have spent the past year overhearing my cousins make love to their wives,” he whispered.“At night and in the mornings?—”
“The mornings?”she repeated in awe.
“Yes, and they’re quite...loud about it.”
Her eyes rounded.“So the ladies like what their men are doing to them?”
He nodded.“Well, yes,” he hedged.
“Then do that to me,” she said.
David let out his breath in awhoosh.“You’re sure?”He waved to the velvet-clad sofa.“Here?”
She nodded.
“I cannot believe this is happening,” he whispered, turning her around to undo the ties of her petticoats.
“You did not expect I would wish to be bedded?”she asked, stepping out of the garments that had dropped to the floor.She bent down and gathered them into her arms before dropping them in a heap on a nearby chair.
“To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect.Two nights ago, you were squeezing the balls of a man who wanted to perform this very same act with you.”His gaze dropped to her torso, where her corset displayed a pair of rising moons that had his manhood doing the same.
“He only wanted to marry me for my dowry,” she countered, reaching to undo the buttons of his top coat and waistcoat.
Deciding he may as well do her bidding, David kicked off his shoes and went to work on the knot of his cravat.“So...just so I understand, you never felt affection for him?”
For a moment, Vittoria looked as if she had been slapped across the face.“When I was younger, I imagined we would one day marry.I would have lots of babies, and he would be a doting father, and he would never share another woman’s bed,” she whispered.“But then I grew up, and I learned he had lots of lovers, and I realized he would always.”
David shook his head as he pulled his cravat from around his neck.“I will be faithful to you and only you,” he promised.“But...”
“What?”she prompted, pushing the coats from his shoulders.
“You cannot take a lover.It would be the death of me,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to see her bare legs beyond the hem of her shift—her stockings ended at the top of her calves.Below them were the half-boots he had bought for her, a sight he found rather touching.She should have been wearing dainty slippers.
Her eyes rounding in surprise, Vittoria shook her head.“I would not.I will not,” she assured him.
David wasn’t sure if she was the first to make a move or if it was him, but soon the two were kissing with wild abandon, their hands smoothing down one another’s bodies as he searched for the ties of her corset, and she pulled the shirt from his torso.Soon they were both free of the garments and falling to the sofa, their bodies pressed together as they continued to kiss.
