AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I apologize—”
“There is no need.” Elizabeth turned in his arms so that their faces were now only inches apart on the pillows as they lay side by side, the front of Elizabeth’s body pressing against Sterling’s. She looked directly into his eyes. “Ihave been lying here for that same half an hour waiting for you to wake up.” She lifted her hands to cup either side of his face. “You, my dear Sterling, have been keeping secrets.”
He tensed. “I— What— No! It was always my intention to tell you—”
“That you are a fraud?” Her smile negated there being any accusation in the question.
Sterling eyed her warily. Hehadalways intended to tell Elizabeth the reason for his coming to Cornwall. Not immediately, because one did not approach a complete stranger, as Elizabeth had been only days ago, and demand to know if her dead husband was capable of murder.
Although Elizabeth did not seem to be angry or upset at the thought of that…
Instead, she chuckled. “To the outside world, you are every inch the cold and haughty Duke of Bristol, but beneath that, you are something else entirely. I admit to having believed Society’s opinion of you until I came to know you better. Indeed, I thought you as cold as ice the first day we met, and incapable of passion. I pitied your future duchess having to share the bed of such a cold and aloof gentleman. But now I know that you are warm. Caring. Passionate. You are also protective and kind.” She looked at him in wonder.
“I do not believe I am all, or possibly any, of those things,” he protested.
“To me you are,” she insisted huskily, tilting her head so that her lips might brush lightly over Sterling’s.
It felt as if the touch of Elizabeth’s lips was all Sterling had been waiting for as he gently pulled her bruised body against his own to return and deepen the kiss.
A kiss, despite Sterling’s inner warnings to be gentle, that quickly became wild and passionate as their lips tasted, tongues stroked, and teeth gently bit.
Sterling was so aroused from those kisses, it felt as if he might come in his drawers. “Will you allow me to make love to you, Elizabeth? I promise I will be careful not to hurt you,” he added quickly. “I just need— I want to caress and taste all of you.”
She studied him for several seconds, her cheeks flushed, eyes fever-bright, before nodding.
Sterling sat up to untie and then carefully assist her in removing her night rail. Once he had done so, his breath caught in his throat as, bruises aside, he could not help but stare at the beauty of the pale and silky luster of Elizabeth’s completely naked body.
Her breasts were small and uptilting, tipped with pale rose nipples, her waist slender, hips curving slightly above slender thighs, her legs slim, her feet tiny.
“You’re far too thin,” he realized. “Is Whitlow responsible for this?” he demanded angrily. “Does he actually starve you?” God knows Sterling had several times witnessed the other man’s comments cautioning Elizabeth not to eat too much when she barely ate enough to keep a bird alive.
“Not quite.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “Am I too thin for you to find me desirable?”
He gave a self-derisive laugh. “My darling Elizabeth, if I found you any more desirable than I already do, I should have already released inside my drawers!” As it was, that garment was damp from the release of pre-cum from his cockhead.
She gave a husky laugh before requesting shyly, “Would you take off your shirt?”
Sterling didn’t hesitate in pulling the garment over his head and discarding it onto the floor beside her night rail.
Elizabeth’s fingertips caressed lightly across his shoulders and chest, lingering at each dip in the muscles of his abdomen. “You are very beautiful,” she complimented huskily before her gaze rose to meet his. “Will you remove your pantaloons and drawers too so that I might see all of you?”
Sterling had never been in the least self-conscious of his body, and he wasn’t now, but his breathing became erratic as he stood beside the bed to allow his pantaloons and drawers to fall to the floor before stepping out of them.
Elizabeth reached out a tentative hand to run a single fingertip along the length of his stiffly aroused and copiously leaking cock.
“Do not overexert yourself,” Sterling cautioned when sitting up higher in the bed obviously caused her some discomfort.
Her glance was shy. “Would you step closer, then, so that I might kiss and touch you?”
The hot rush down the length of his cock, the liquid beading out of the slit at the top, told Sterling how much his body approved of that suggestion.
“I have a better idea,” he explained as he moved around the bed to once again lie beside her. But this time, he lay with his head toward the bottom of the bed, his cock now easily reachable by Elizabeth’s hands and mouth as he gently rolled her so that she was lying on top of him.
Placing the sweet and tempting nectar glistening between her parted thighs on a level with Sterling’s mouth and caressing hands.
“Are you comfortable like this?” he prompted.
“Very. You?”
