Page 133 of A Gentleman's Wager

When she clasped the seat of his breeches and locked their hips together, he damn near spent over his shirt tails.

“Claim me.” Her hot breath skimmed his ear.

The bed sat right there as if placed ready to catch them. He pushed her onto it. Louisa drew up her skirts, while he tore open his falls releasing his staff.

Her hands were on him at once, pulling him down, pulling him onto her, squeezing his bared arse, her breaths coming as raggedly as his own. She wrapped her legs around his hips anchoring him against her opening. And there he paused, right on the brink, staring down into her wide black pupils, their colour reduced to two azure rings.

“Louisa.” Saying her name made it real. And how very different it was to being with Millicent. Tupping her had been like sliding into a pool of water. Making love to Louisa, more akin to fitting a key in a lock. She matched him, and he her. He withdrew several inches and pushed back in purely to relive the sensation.

Louisa’s eyes blazed with passion. “Hold me down,” she mouthed, surprising him.

“Because he did?” A twisted feeling assaulted his guts and threatened to steal away his erection.

“Because he didn’t.”

He caught her wrists at once, pinned them fast either side of her head, then changed his mind and held her palm to palm instead.

Her fingers curled over his knuckles. “My answer’s yes.”

He slammed into her at once, no longer able to hold back the roaring in his veins. She writhed beneath him, meeting the desperate churning of his hips. He knew immediately that he’d come too quickly, but there was no stopping it. The thunderbolt of his orgasm started at the base of his cock and rushed wide from there. It shook and jerked him around, burned through him, filling his head with white hot flashes. For a fraction of a second, he swore he blacked out. Then when his head cleared, he kissed her long and slow. Louisa urged him down to her breasts. She bleated encouragement when he speared his tongue between the lips of her quim and tasted his spendings there, but it was how she came apart in his arms, shrieking his name, which embedded itself in his heart.

~*~

The sun had long set by the time they emerged from her chamber having helped one another dress. There was no obligation to seek anyone’s permission, but Louisa insisted they go directly to Joshua. He and Lucerne were in the billiard’s room, engaged in a game over drinks.

“Will you give me away?” she asked.

Joshua responded with a beaming smile and cocked his head in Wakefield’s direction. “If you’re sure about taking this rogue.”

“I am. I truly am.”

“Then it will be an honour.”

Lucerne offered congratulations too. “I ought not to have interfered before. I feel responsible.”

Wakefield clapped him on the back. “You only offered sensible counsel my friend. I was the one who bungled the answers.”

“Is there some cause for celebration I am hereto unaware of?” Pennerley stole into the room like a winter frost, bringing it to silence. He raised his brows at the response. It was Louisa who darted forward, and presented herself to him, head held high, her petite form dwarfed by his height.

“Frederick and I are to be married. Will you wish us well, my lord?”

To Wakefield’s considerable surprise, Vaughan’s lips turned upwards into a smile. He’d anticipated scorn, perhaps a rebuke. Instead, a gleam of what appeared to be genuine joy lit his saturnine features.

“I’ve always wished you well, Miss Stanley. I am most happy to hear you have achieved your heart’s desire.” He leaned in and pressed a swift kiss to the edge of her lips.

Louisa blushed.

Wakefield growled.

“Wakefield.” Vaughan turned to him, hand extended.

Instinctively he accepted. He would not be labelled a churl.

“My congratulations, sir. I trust you to make her exceedingly happy.” Vaughan tugged him into a fast embrace and kissed him in the way he’d kissed Louisa. “You had better, or I might feel obliged to step in.”

It was only Louisa’s titter of amusement which dissuaded him from planting his fist in Pennerley’s smug grin.

-72-