Page 73 of The Earl’s Hoyden

“Then why are we standing here?” He swept her into his arms and carried her up the flight of stairs as if she weighed almost nothing.

“Aren’t I heavy?” she asked, laughing.

“Not at all.” He wasn’t even out of breath.

He nudged open the door to a massive room with polished mahogany furnishings and heavy blue velvet. There was a familiar scent to the room that made it smell completely and intimately like her husband.

“I hope it was all right to bring you to my room.” He set her gently to the ground and looked around with a sheepish grin. “I thought perhaps we might share the chamber, rather than have separate beds.” With a small half-shrug, he added, “since we are doing what we want rather than abiding by tradition.”

“I love that idea.” She stared up at him, her handsome husband with blond waves slightly too long to be fashionable. With poignance, she reached up and swept his hair from his eyes, reveling in the silky feel.

Finally, she could kiss him, touch him, experience him in the entirety that her body had ached for in the last few months. Memories of how he had touched her at Vauxhall Gardens seared her mind and played out in her thoughts constantly.

A low pulse of hot temptation thudded to life between her thighs. In an eye-opening and confidential chat with Lucy, Hannah had been told how she could slake such desires. The way Lucien had done that one night amid the popping fireworks. But Hannah had held off, wanting to share the experience of her releases with Lucien.

“I have waited so long for his moment,” he said, his ragged voice snagged at a primal part of her. One that desired him as desperately as he so obviously desired her.

His hands skimmed down her dress, brushing the sides of her breasts and resting at her narrow waist. With a groan, he drew her body against the length of him. Already the hardness of what her mother had called “his manness” nudged low at her belly.

Lucy had called it a “prick” and a “cock” interchangeably. Those words appealed to Hannah far more. They felt more mature. More desirable. Something she wanted to take into her hand, as Lucy had mentioned.

Hannah’s heart thundered in her ears as her mother’s advice tangled with Lucy’s whispered giggles. It would hurt the first time. It would be the most divine sensation in the world. One mustn’t completely disrobe if one did not desire to. If he were a true lover, he would lick her like a treat.

Heat scorched through her body on that last bit, as Lucy had pointed to the excerpt in a well-handled pamphlet with a satisfied smirk.

“I don’t know what to do,” Hannah whispered.

“Whatever you wish.” Lucien smiled patiently at her and caressed her cheek, then her throat and over the swell of her breasts where her skin was suddenly exquisitely sensitive.

“Whatever feels good.” His eyes followed the path of his hand. “There is no wrong way unless it is something you do not wish.”

A shuddering exhale escaped her. There was nothing she wanted omitted. She wanted all of what loving entailed in that instant. Starting with a kiss she knew would ignite into so much more.

She rose onto her toes as she closed her eyes, her chin tilting toward him. He caught the back of her head in his large hands and kissed her, his lips whispering over hers, his tongue sweeping into her mouth.

Her moan was quiet at first in the recesses of her throat, but when he cupped her bottom and angled her pelvis against his, so his prick pressed more firmly against her, the sounds coming from her did not remain quiet.

With no one about in the massive house, there was no need to stifle their enjoyment. If it felt good, she would openly moan and scream as she so chose. The idea was liberating.

She gasped in delight and met his tongue with her own, eager to fulfill the yearning that burned through her for what felt like an eternity.

He rested his forehead against hers, panting. “I’ve wanted you for so long, Hannah. From that first moment that I saw you in the field last January.”

“Was it my grace?” she laughed.

“It was your beauty, your heart and the goodness to save a cat.” He grinned. “And it might have had something to do with a bare, shapely leg with a fallen stocking.”

“You are wicked,” she accused with a mock look of outrage. “You were not supposed to look.”

“I am wicked,” he said raggedly. “And I want you as I have never wanted anything.”

“Then you may have me.” She put her hands to his chest, her fingers trembling. “All of me.”

With a tentative glance up at him, she undid the buttons of his jacket, so it gaped open, then pushed it from his shoulders. He’d returned to wearing his looser garments, but for their wedding, he wore a fitted suit that displayed his fine body.

He reached for her, carefully plucking the pins from her hair and letting them drop in muted plops against the carpet until her red tresses tumbled around her. “Beautiful.” He studied her. “So beautiful.”

Then, without another word, he lowered his mouth to hers again and kissed her with the passion she had been craving. Their lips slanted against one another in desperation, their tongues mating. He nudged his knee between her legs, so his strong thigh rested exactly where the pulse of her desire flared brightest.