Page 26 of The Rogue and the Viscountess

He shifted, and his member brushed her hip, and Prunella stared. Edwin had called this his manroot, and he liked to show it off, though Prunella had never taken the interest in it that Edwin had. But Pete was different. Every part of him interested her. And his virility made that place between her legs warm again, wanting his caress. It could happen like this? She could be utterly shaken with passion, robbed of breath, and then after a moment want him again, and more of him this time?

She slid her hand between them and ran her fingers over his manroot, closing around the hard length of him, and Pete sucked in his breath. The smolder in his eyes turned to a burn.

“I want to be inside you, Nell. But I won’t give you a babe. Unless you wish it.” His voice was a smoky rumble, his eyes bright in the candlelight.

She’d never been concerned about children before, not when she was married, but of course widows couldn’t go about swelling with child. “How do you prevent it?” She’d heard rumors of such things at St. Sefin’s, from Gwen and the others involved in herbs and midwifery. She should have inquired when she had such female wisdom available.

“I don’t plant my seed in you. That should do the trick.”

Plant, as if she were ground to be plowed and sowed. Prunella was debating whether to take issue at this image when he rolled atop her and brought his hand between her legs, sliding a finger through the valley and smiling to find her moist.

“You want me,” he said, smug and pleased.

“I believe I will be able to tolerate—oh.” Her taunt ended on a gasp as he hooked a muscled arm beneath her knee, poised himself, and then slid inside. Somehow that enormous length fit in her. “Oh,” she breathed again, for Edwin had never excited her like this.

“Good?”

It was endearing, how he paid attention to her, watching her face for signs of her pleasure. Her eyelids fell closed as she reveled in the heat that went everywhere, and the pleasure, dear God that insane pleasure building again as he moved. She wondered how she was supposed to bear it. She wondered if it would hurt this time. His moans as he drove deep made her a goddess, a queen. She plucked at his arms, cradling him to her, lifting her hips to meet him, abandoning herself to the wave as it rose into a great dizzying spiral, and then there—she broke apart once more, the pleasure shaking all through her frame and leaving her riven, as if she were split apart.

He withdrew and spent into some scrap of fabric, his entire frame shuddering with the force of his climax, and Prunella felt the tiniest sense of loss. They could have shared that together, joined bodies making them one, instead of separately. And she suddenly longed to be joined to him, indefinitely. As if the shattered parts of her could reform around him and this knowledge of what they were together, and she would be stronger and richer and deeper because of it.

This was what it meant to worship with one’s body. This, with Pete, was what marriage was meant to be.

The thought felt important, but she was drowsy and so very satisfied. He rose and she made a small mewl of complaint as his warmth left her. But he simply blew out the candle, discarded his scrap of fabric, and joined her on the bed. He tugged the coverlet from beneath her, laughing as she rolled this way and that, then slapped her rump, pulled her into his arms, and arranged the coverlet over them both.

Being naked was a delicious wantonness, something she’d never done, certainly not with a man’s body throwing heat beside her. She nestled against him into the arm around her middle, his hand clenching her hip as if he meant to hold and keep her, and the warmth of her satisfaction deepened, grew roots. She felt cherished and adored and protected, possessed in a way, but also safe. She meant to explore these new feelings, and tell him about them, but first she smiled at the press of his lips against her forehead and the way he whispered her name, “Nell,” and then she was asleep.

Chapter Seven

He was a fool, a fool, a fool. Pete reminded himself of this with every sink of his shovel into the soil, every clump of dirt that flew through the air.

Morys was not helping him dig but instead sat perched on an enormous rock some distance way, watching Pete and keeping an eye on the curious sheep who kept walking by to sniff at his leather shoes and investigate the line of dirt Pete was leaving behind him.

“So ye swived ’er,” Morys clarified, “but ye din’ tell ’er ye mean for the two of ye to be married.”

Pete grunted as he dug in the shovel. The soil was heavy, a clayey loam rich with lime. The ha-ha, a sunken ditch that delineated the sheep pasture from the ornamental and kitchen gardens, had been dug years ago but had begun to fill in. Deepening the ditch would keep the animals from trampling the flowerbeds and eating his grandmother’s apples, and he had some notion it might help with drainage during the wet season, too.

More importantly, the work gave him an excuse to be out-of-doors, and the physical labor would give him means to clear the fog currently enveloping his brain box.

All he could think about was Nell. How it had felt to hold Nell. Kiss her. The sounds she made when he pleasured her, the gasps when he explored new territory. The warm clench of her body around his.

He was going to get himself excited at the memory, and wouldn’t Morys enjoy that.

“She said she doesn’t want to be married again. Said so quite clearly at dinner last night. To Barbara and to me.”

“Because she don’t want the old beldam forcing her into the leg shackle. Nor you, for that matter,” Morys surmised. “But she was willing enough, aye?”

“That, I am not going to discuss with you,” Pete said. “She didn’t turn me away. But I didn’t ask about her intentions, or tell her mine.”

“Oh, whoever does when there’s pleasanter business to hand?” Morys shrugged. “So ye tell her this morn. Ye goes to the lady, hat in hand.” He pulled his round felt hat off his head and blinked at Pete as if batting his eyelashes. The effect was comical on Morys’s rough, wizened face. He looked as if he were trying to get a cinder out of his eye.

“Ye says to ’er, yer a fine lady, Prunella Price.” He wasn’t done with his pantomime.

“Lady Penrydd to you.” Pete stabbed his shovel into the earth and heaved up another load.

“And I know I’m a rotten bet, with my past an’ all, but many a fine lady ’as reformed a rogue such as I.”

“You should be on the stage,” Pete muttered, attacking a thick clump of clay and breaking it apart with his blade.