Page 66 of The Marriage Wager

His engorged shaft sprang free of the confining cloth as she pushed his breeches down, her fingers skimming over the curve of his buttocks and down onto the backs of his thighs. She gave a final push, and the cloth fell down his legs in a last caress. Dominic stepped out of his breeches and kicked them aside, his body taut with desire.

Constance curled her hand around him, her fingers teasing up and down the hard length. He sucked in his breath and, after one small jerk of surprised pleasure, stood still under her ministrations, though she could see the quiver of strain along his thighs, indicating what the effort cost him. Seeing that, she was drawn to reach out and slide her hands over his thighs.

Everything about him was so new and intriguing—the textures of his skin, the sounds of his hunger, the shape and strength of his musculature, the myriad signs of his arousal. She wanted to taste and touch and explore them all in this one night, to take every precious memory of him that she could.

She pulled her eyes from her contemplation of his beautifully masculine body and looked up at him. His face was heavy with passion, his eyes slumberous and dark, his lips full and slack.

“When you look at me like that…” he breathed, then stopped, swallowing. “It is all I can do not to explode.”

“I love to look at you,” she told him honestly, and her answer brought a laughing groan from him.

“Constance, you will have me tumbling you like a green lad,” he warned hoarsely.

“I would not mind,” she murmured, her fingertips stroking up the length of his surging manhood and teasing onto the heavy sac that lay behind.

He made a muffled noise and moved his legs apart, giving her questing fingers access to him. She cupped him as though measuring his weight. Then she released him and lay back on the bed, her arms stretching languorously above her head.

She smiled up at him as he gazed at her, his eyes roaming hotly over her body. She was amazed at her own boldness, at the delight she felt to have his eyes upon her naked body.

Dominic climbed onto the bed and straddled her. Leaning back on his heels, he placed his hands upon her chest and moved them slowly down her body. He took his time with her, caressing and stroking, seeking out each little spot that caused her to moan or sigh or writhe with pleasure.

He slipped his fingers between her legs, opening her to him. He watched her face as he caressed her, his fingers separating the slick folds, teasing and stroking, circling the tiny nub until she dug her heels into the sheets beneath her, arching up off the mattress, almost sobbing with the need that thrilled through her.

The pleasure built in her, propelling her toward that shattering conclusion that she remembered so well, but just as she approached it, he slid his hand away.

“Not yet,” he murmured, and bent to kiss her breasts.

She was hot and pulsing, aching for release, and she groaned in protest at the delay, but the touch of his tongue and lips on the soft flesh of her breasts was a delightful counterpoint to the heavy throb of need between her legs. Each flicker of his tongue, each pull of his mouth upon the hard bud of her nipple, elevated her desire, yet it was teasingly not enough to send her racing to completion.

Constance moved her hips restlessly on the bed, sighing his name. “Dominic…please. I want you. I want to feel you inside me.”

His answer was a groan of pure lust, and he moved between her legs, lifting her hips and sliding into her. Constance was aware of a faint soreness, but her body was too eager for him to pay heed to that. She took him into her, wrapping her legs around him and luxuriating in the way he filled her.

Then there was no holding back, only a hard, slamming race to fulfillment, their bodies hungry and demanding, moving together to the completion they both desired. Dominic let out a hoarse cry as he shuddered to his climax, and Constance turned her head, sinking her teeth into his arm to hold back her words of love as she, too, found her sweet release.

He collapsed upon her, breathing raggedly. “Sweet Jesus,” he murmured against her skin. “I think you have finished me.”

With a low growl, he nuzzled her neck, rolling over onto his back and carrying her with him, so that she lay stretched out on top of him. Constance chuckled and raised her head, looking down at him. She felt that she could have gazed at him forever. His face was soft with contentment, his eyes lambent, his cheeks flushed. Love rose up in her so fiercely that it was all she could do to hold back the words. But she knew she must not say them. She could not offer that most precious piece of her heart to him and face the pain of not having her feelings returned.

So she simply smiled and bent to place a tender kiss upon his chest, then laid her head upon it. They lay in contentment, unwilling to move, extending the moment of pleasure. He twined his fingers idly through her hair, wrapping it around his hand and bringing it to his lips. Constance drew lazy circles on his arm.

She could feel him relax beneath her, his hand growing heavy and sliding from her hair. Carefully, she rose onto her elbow and looked at him. He was asleep, his face relaxed, his eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks. Her heart squeezed tenderly in her chest.

How could she bear to leave him?

In that moment she was horribly tempted to stay. To take her things back out of her bag and put them away, to let the Rutherford women depart on their journey to London without her. Dominic might not love her, but she had brought him pleasure. Surely that was enough to build on. It seemed too much to ask of her to give all this up.

With a sigh, she turned and lay back on the bed. She stared up at the tester above them. She knew she could not do what she was thinking. She loved Dominic too much; she could not let her desires override what she knew was right. She could not hold him to the pledge his gentlemanly code of conduct had forced him to make. She had to set him free.

She propped herself up on her elbow again and studied his face. It was late, and she knew that she should get some sleep, but she did not care. She could sleep tomorrow. Right now, this moment, was the last that she would ever have of Dominic.

So she watched him sleep, sometimes dropping her head to his shoulder and lying against him, feeling the warmth of his body, the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath her head.

Finally, when she began to fear that the servants might soon be up, she eased from the bed and tiptoed over to where her clothes lay. She pulled on her nightgown and dressing gown, belting it securely. Picking up her candle, burned down now to a stub, she cast one long look back at the man sleeping in the bed. Then she opened the door and looked cautiously outside.

There was no sign of anyone, so she slipped out into the hall, shutting the door noiselessly behind her, and hurried down the corridor to her room. She reached it and closed the door behind her before the tears came.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN