Page 103 of A Gentleman's Wager

“I wanted to die.”

“Oh, no. No, Louisa, that would be a dreadful loss.”

“I thought he loved me.”

“Perhaps he does.” He threaded his finger into her clenched palm, providing something which she could squeeze tight. “You realise that love and sex are not one and the same.”

“Well how should I ever know? It’s not as if I’m experienced at either.”

“We can change that.”

She dragged her teeth across her lower lip. “I shouldn’t.”

“Shouldn’t. Says who?”

“Near everybody that matters. The church, society, my aunt—”

“I matter, and I say otherwise. Come closer into my web, little fly. Raise your skirts.”

She took a tentative step forward between his thighs as if caught in a snare. Vaughan’s smile stretched, slow and malicious. Louisa raised her skirts a couple of inches.

“Higher. I’m about to get your fleece stuck between my teeth, so let’s see it.”

She batted at him, prompting him to raise his arms. “You’re hideously lewd.”

He cackled as he easily warded off the attack. “My dear sweet thing, in approximately ten minutes, you’re going to thank God and all his angels for that. Now, are you going to sit on my face, or not?”

His hands wrapped around the backs of her thighs, pulled her forwards so that she straddled his chin. His lips met her quim and fire ignited across her body. It sizzled in her cheeks, prompted her to gasp for air. Louisa cried out once for shame, then all embarrassment left her. Her fists formed around the wooden sofa back, and she clung on tight, making her fingertips ache and then grow numb. What he was doing was impossibly rude. Not content with kissing her nether regions, he was licking her in long strokes while encouraging her to rock back and forth. His tongue speared between the swollen lips of her delta, pushed inside of her. He lapped across and around her pearl, until it grew hard, and she could hardly stand him to touch her there any longer, but equally couldn’t perceive of backing away.

It no longer mattered that this was a mere diversion for him. Likewise, the fact that she sometimes hated him.

A part of her wished he were Frederick, but she pushed those thoughts deep, locking them away.

Honey-sweet darts were assailing her, making her tingle in hitherto undiscovered places. Something was building inside of her. It made her want to claw at her skin. She wriggled against his mouth. He had his hands up her skirts on her arse, holding her, groping her, and goddammit if it wasn’t the sweetest thing. She raised a fist to her mouth, bit into the fleshy part at the base of her thumb. Her blood was rushing in her ears, and everything felt impossibly tight.

“Are you going to scream, Louisa?” he rasped against her sodden skin.

Something burst. A convulsion hit her, and she squealed, only ceasing when she was wrung out and bent double over him.

-55-

Vaughan

Vaughan passed between her legs to regain his feet. When she faced him, only the smallest rim of blue iris remained around her pupils. She stared at his mouth, while hers hung open. Bemused, he wiped the moisture from his chin with the back of his hand. It was always gratifying to know he hadn’t lost his touch. Plus, there was a perverse sense of satisfaction he derived from knowing he could arouse her to this degree despite her aversion to him, and that he could, if he wished, choose to walk away at this juncture and deny her any further knowledge.

However, there was a wager to win, which as a matter of principle… Not that he wouldn’t have shagged her anyway even if there’d been no handshake with Charles.

“Do—do husbands and wives do that?” she asked breathlessly.

“Some, perhaps. Mostly, I should say not. I’m told the sport between married folk is a rather tedious, dutiful affair, concerned primarily with procreation, and largely absent of anything that might make it compelling.”

“I’m sure that can’t be—”

Vaughan disguised a smirk by drawing his brows into a contemplative frown. “Do you doubt me, Louisa? Or do you simply fear the boredom of it?”

“I want…”

He widened his eyes when her words petered out. “You want? What do you want? Tell me. Spell it out.”