Page 106 of A Gentleman's Wager

Louisa did as he asked, as best as she was able. She felt stretched. Invaded. No longer wholly herself, as if he’d possessed every part of her, not just the place where he was embedded.

“Look at me. The pain will pass.”

He kept moving within her, muffling her moans with kisses, until she could no longer determine whether it was the pain or pleasure she was responding to. Prickly heat spread out from the point of their joining, moving upwards and outwards. It caused the breath in her lungs to catch. This was not how she’d expected it to feel, though she did not have a clear vision of what she thought it might be.

“Am I pleasing you?” she gasped.

Vaughan’s breath hummed against her neck. “Your cunny’s kissing my cock, what do you think?”

“That you’re not so breathless as I.”

“This is not the first time I’ve dipped my wick, whereas it is yours, and I want you to remember it. I’ll take my pleasure once I’m assured of yours. That seems fair, do you not think?”

Louisa answered by smashing her mouth against his. She didn’t want to talk, or think, only to live in the moment and exist for sensation. He did not feel as if he were so tightly squashed within her anymore, her body had stretched to better fit him, had grown wetter. So very much wetter. She would have been embarrassed by the noises it caused, if she was not so focused upon the here and now.

Her, Vaughan.

No Frederick. No outside world.

No rules to adhere to. No judgement.

Only the two of them—bound.

Each brush of her nub against his cock drew a cry from her. When he thrust deep and she sank down upon him so that he filled her to the root, she grunted, and pleasure swaddled her in a tight embrace. Even after only a single experience of it, Louisa recognised the siren call of approaching rapture. Her spine arched as it captured her.

It eviscerated her. Took her to heaven. Pounded through her body with such intensity she feared her heart… and her eardrums would burst.

Vaughan fucked her until she was thoroughly spent. Then he pulled out and she watched fascinated as he pumped his fist along his length. After only a few such strokes, a stream of liquid shot from the tip splattering them both.

“Tis the milk from which babes are born,” he remarked, when she dipped a finger in it out of curiosity. “Best not to sow it in fertile ground.”

He used the corner of the sheet to wipe it away, then rested his head against her milky thigh.

Louisa sighed. Now it was done, she could feel him closing himself off from her again. She stroked his dark hair, but it felt akin to petting an alligator. She’d seen one at a menagerie one time, all teeth and scales and unnatural stillness. One wrong move, and you’d be subjected to a vicious bite.

It was curious; she felt no remorse at having lain with him. He had shown her the only pleasure of recent days, and while doubtless his motive was selfish, so was hers.

The truth was that she still loved Frederick Wakefield. Despite all—his abandonment, the infidelity, his cowardice, she still loved him. Maybe that was foolish. Maybe it made her a contemptible mouse, but it was what it was. Her truth.

She’d lain with his enemy because she wanted him to hear of it and for it to hurt him.

Vaughan kissed his way up her body to her mouth. His lips were still soft and warm against her skin. She would lie with him again if he initiated it, but no…for all that he was still caressing her, the connection between them had already been severed.

He propped himself on one arm and regarded her meditatively. “Beautiful Louisa, how exquisite you look with your hair loose and your skirts thrown awry. Wakefield would be positively dazzled.”

She thought perhaps he was being sarcastic, but a glimpse at herself in the mirror only proved his words. Her cheeks were flushed crimson, and she had never looked or felt so alive.

Vaughan leaned over the edge of the bed and retrieved his rumpled shirt from the floor. He shook out the worst of the creases and pulled it over his head whilst grinning to himself.

“What are you smiling about?” she asked. Not at all surprised that he was leaving.

He stood and fastened his breeches over his shirt. “A wager won. I had a bet with Aubury. Sixty guineas that I could bed yourself and Miss Rushdale before either Wakefield or Lucerne.”

Louisa rolled over and tugged a sheet over herself. Somehow, his revelation didn’t shock her. “I wish you joy of your earnings.”

Vaughan laughed. “How philosophical you’ve become.” Then he bowed mockingly and departed.

Louisa waited until she heard the door close then collapsed into the pillows with a sigh. A measly sixty guineas. She was surprised he’d gone to the trouble for such a small sum, but then, it was simply the reward, not the motivation, and as she had learned over these last few hours, one could be driven to many an interesting deed with the right incentive.