Page 55 of Better Off Wed

Her hips bucked as he began to suck, the unexpected power offering a pleasure she had never known, the sensation echoed in the greedy pulse of her sex, as if a silken cord connected those two parts of her body.

As she had last night, she ran her fingertips through the crisp golden-brown hair that guarded her mound, unwilling—nay, unable—to deny herself. He raised his head from her breast and ran his hand back down her side, coming to rest near her knee, pushing her legs ever so slightly apart. No hiding that most secret part of herself from his gaze. While he watched, she slicked her fingers between her folds and began to circle her nub.

“Laura,” he whispered reverently, and she could feel his breath against her bare skin. “So beautiful. Everywhere.” Her fingers began to move faster. “Do you never tease yourself? Draw out the sensation?”

“Yes, sometimes. But right now, I—I—”

“Shhh.” He raised his mouth to hers in a gentling kiss, and then looked into her eyes, his own dark as sapphires. “May I?”

She nodded and would have withdrawn her hand, but his was there before she had the chance, tracing the delicate bones of her fingers, sliding over them into her slick folds, learning everything she could teach. And oh, he was a quick study. Gentle, curious, sure, taking the lead when she grew weak with need, teasing her when she would have hurried to the crisis point, circling the entrance to her body until she began to plead with incoherent sobs, and finally bringing her to a release that made her see stars.

Slowly he called her back to earth with soft but hungry kisses, smoothing her skirts once more down her legs before settling a possessive hand over her hip.

She had not anticipated how the pleasure would be different when shared, that another’s touch could find places, sensations she had not discovered on her own. It would ruin her, the knowledge that wanting him and needing him were one and the same.

Worse still was the discovery that she wanted to be ruined.

“Jeremy,” she whispered against his lips, his name both a question and an answer. “Can I see you? Touch you?”

His soft laugh stirred the curls on her forehead. “You must know by now, I can deny you nothing.”

She levered herself more upright and managed to kneel beside him on the padded bench seat, her injured ankle all but forgotten as she raked her gaze up and down his body. His coat, though not in the first stare of fashion, was too tight-fitting to be easily removed within the space of the carriage. The many buttons of his double-breasted waistcoat and the knot of his cravat were similarly intimidating. She wanted to be able to touch and see the arms and chest and back that had carried her about so effortlessly for the past two days.

“Gentlemen’s clothes are not conducive to trysts,” she declared, in a tone of voice just shy of a pout.

He answered her with a sly smile. “Consider that part of the pleasure may be in the unwrapping.” Lifting her hand from his shoulder, where she had been gripping him for balance, he planted a soft kiss on her palm and then brought that hand to his chest.

Her hand slid easily beneath the silk of his waistcoat, coming to rest over his heart. Through the thin cambric of his shirt, she traced the hard wall of muscle. “Can you—?” she began, her mouth suddenly dry, “Can you retie your neckcloth without aid of a looking glass?”

“I’ll manage.”

Her hurrying fingers at first made the knot of his cravat tighter, and she hissed in frustration at her ineptitude. His only answer was to gather up her fingers in both hands and kiss them, one by one, before setting them once more to their task, his eyes never leaving her face. After that piece of magic, the strip of cambric seemed almost to untie and unwind itself. Tossing it aside, she unbuttoned the single small button and laid open his collar to reveal that delightful notch at the base of his throat and a wedge of skin dusted with dark hair.

She’d seen as much last night, of course, but now she was at liberty to touch, to acquaint herself with all the textures of him, soft and smooth and silky and—

“I wish I hadn’t asked you to shave,” she said, running the backs of her knuckles over his cheek and jaw.

He reached up and trailed his first finger down her throat and along the neckline of her gown. “You’re as delicate as a rose petal, my dear. My whiskers would’ve left a mark everywhere I kissed you.”

Her breath caught. “Yes.”

And then she kissed him, afraid she had said too much already, afraid of saying more. Now that she was in the dominant position, slightly above him, he gripped her waist beneath her pelisse with both hands and held her steady, freeing her to set the tempo of their kisses, freeing her to plunder his mouth and discover what pleased him.

Inside his shirt, her fingers roamed across his chest, and when her nails scratched lightly through the fur there, she felt another growl rumble through him and swallowed it with eager delight. He let go with one hand only as long as it took to rip his shirt free of his breeches so that she might run her hands underneath it, over his whole abdomen, tracing the contours of muscle and bone, eliciting shivers of delight. When one fingertip slipped inside the band of his breeches, he gasped, and his hips jerked.

“Did you not just counsel me against impatience?” she teased, drawing back to study the bulge tenting his breeches just below where her hand rested. “Tsk, tsk. More troublesome buttons to undo.”

“I’ll help you.” His breath was ragged as one hand dropped to his fall and made quick work of it.

His manhood sprang from its prison of linen and wool, dark with need, surrounded by a nest of black curling hair. “Oh,” she breathed, leaning forward, fascinated and slightly awed by the sight of it. “Now I understand.”

“What?” he managed to ask, sounding dazed.

“Thornton’s chess set. You’re quite the, um, kingly figure.” She tilted her head, curious as to how one would go about putting something of that size inside—

Pink streaked across his cheekbones, although she did not think embarrassment was the cause. “Another time, you may shower me with extravagant compliments. But for now, touch me, please, before I disgrace myself—”

At once eager and uncertain, she ran a fingertip along his length, discovering the extraordinary combination of velvet over steel. “You and I have very different notions of disgrace.”