Page 26 of A Lady’s Guide to Murder
CHAPTER 25
A Different Sort of Tussle
Theo was glorious nude. All taut muscle and hardness, the shaft of his manhood erect, and Henrietta wasn’t the least bit cold.
A fire raged inside her.
This time, she wasn’t frightened. This time, she had no doubts. She knew exactly what she wanted.
‘Will you do everything with me tonight?’ she asked as he slid under the covers beside her, bringing a rush of cool air and then the radiating warmth of his skin.
He lay on his side, propping himself on one elbow, and ran the backs of his fingers down her arm. She shivered deliciously in response. ‘Are you certain you want that?’
‘Absolutely certain. My conflicting feelings about what I thought Edmund wanted gave rise to my fear yesterday. Please, show me how to please you?’
He smiled tenderly. ‘You’re pleasing me now, just by lying next to me.’
She lifted a quizzical brow. ‘But lying next to each other isn’t everything I want to do and I’m not certain how to proceed.’
‘Do whatever feels good or exciting, and I will follow your lead.’
She nibbled her bottom lip. ‘And if you don’t like it?’
‘That’s a slim chance, but if I don’t, I’ll tell you.’ He threaded his fingers through a thick strand of her hair and brought it to his lips. ‘You do the same with me, and then trust and honesty will be at the centre of our union.’
She pressed her hand to the curls on his chest, over his heart. ‘Trust and honesty?’
He grinned. ‘The two most powerful aphrodisiacs.’
Her heart swelled. ‘I like that.’
She slid the flat of her palms over his forearms, which were veined and muscled, and lightly covered in dark hair, while he grazed the curve of her hip. Sensation rippled where he touched. Her inner muscles involuntarily contracted and a first surge of pleasure made her arch her back to press herself against his chest. Her nipples ached when they touched his skin. Another throb of pleasure shot between her legs and she brought her lips to his. He tightened his hold on her waist, pressing their hips together so his erection lay between them, iron hard against her unyielding pubic bone. He cupped her neck and their lips brushed together, soft, sensuous.
She held back her kiss. The anticipation was a bliss of its own. Her heart skipped beats every time his breath swelled his chest against her. She could make out each golden fleck in his heavy-lidded eyes, hazed with desire.
‘Sweet Jesus, Henrietta.’ His lips moved against hers. ‘Kiss me, love.’
She captured his mouth and their bodies melded together. Her hips above his, her breasts against his chest, the area between her legs soft, wet and wanting to yield, and his shaft rigid and hot on her abdomen.
She slid her thumb over its slick tip. He gasped sharply, breaking their kiss, and she hesitated. ‘You don’t like it? Or you do?’
‘I do.’ He kissed her forehead, her nose, her cheeks. ‘There is nowhere you could touch me that I wouldn’t like, but there ? That’s like this for me.’ He stroked the throbbing nub between her legs.
A wave of pleasure hit and she squirmed in his arms. ‘I want to kiss you. Down there. Like you did to me, last night? May I?’
His eyes grew dark, his breath fast and pained. ‘Fucking hell, yes.’
She pushed the covers to his calves, bathing his body in the evening light. Clear liquid beaded on the tip of his erection, and she slid her tongue over the velvet-smooth curve. Salty. The fluid was salty. She liked it. She liked Theo’s taste, as he’d seemed to like hers. She slid her mouth down his shaft.
A moan ripped from his throat.
She sucked, as he had done to her the night before. His body stilled, but his sounds of pleasure thrilled her. She loved having him in her mouth. Loved running her tongue around his tip while she sucked. Loved how he panted for her. He was so solid, so rigid. So thick her mouth stretched to encase him.
He suddenly pulled back his hips. ‘Stop, love.’
She disengaged. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘No,’ he said after a moment. ‘You did the opposite. I’ve never felt anything that good in all my life, but I was about to spend and we have other business first.’
He brought her towards him, laying her back upon the crumpled mass of pillows, blankets and sheets. Then he leant over her, his hardness at the apex of her legs. She spread herself eagerly, thinking that the moment had arrived when he would take her, make her no longer a virgin.
But he didn’t. He let his shaft rest between her thighs and lowered himself onto his elbows. ‘Another kiss, love. I want to taste me in your mouth.’
That was so deliciously dirty, she wriggled beneath him, which evidently drove him feral. His mouth clamped over hers, his tongue thrusting her lips open. His passion was fiery, lusty, virile, and yet it was a caress as well. Even as he feasted on her mouth, he was making love to her, making her feel safe and cherished. She moaned, curved her legs around his thighs, lifted her hips to meet him, and her heart opened like a blossom, with feelings so powerful they brought tears to her eyes. She released a single sob then, and that broke their kiss, but he captured her bottom lip as he disengaged, his tongue brushing against its plump curve. After a gentle tug, he released her, only to growl against the corner of her mouth. ‘I’ve wanted you for so long.’
She covered his jaw with kisses, wanting to imprint herself all over him. ‘How long?’
‘Since the first time I saw you,’ he replied, which was so startling she stopped kissing him. ‘Dressed in ivory lace with the bells of St George’s pealing. You were a goddess walking amongst mortals. I fell in love with you, in a way.’
‘You felt so much?’ she asked, amazed, and he nodded sheepishly. ‘And so you reacted all the more strongly when you saw me in the arms of a man you despise?’
‘Yes, though I’m ashamed to admit it.’ He traced her collarbone. ‘That night, your behaviour seemed at odds with the woman I’d sensed you were. Instead of giving you the benefit of the doubt, I convinced myself I’d been foolish to idealise you, silly to tuck you into my heart. I started observing you, seeking evidence of flaws to excise you from my thoughts. But it didn’t quite work that way. The more I saw, the more you perplexed me. Were you loving and generous? Were you cold and calculating? Were you shy? Misunderstood? Were you aloof? Or were you instead truly as lonely as you sometimes seemed, even at parties with five hundred guests? Lord, it sounds perverse now, but it is how I earn a living … and the fact of the matter is, the more I watched, the more I wanted to believe in your goodness and recapture the admiration I’d felt in Hanover Square.’
‘Why? Why did it matter?’
‘It was the way you looked at me on your wedding day.’ He brushed an errant curl from her forehead. ‘I caught your attention – I knew I did – and perhaps I imagined it, but you looked at me with genuine interest. As if you saw me. Truly saw me , as something more than another face in the crowd. Later, I doubted myself, but, then, when you saw me again in the garden niche, you recognised me, and I realised … or I think I realised … I hadn’t imagined it after all.’
‘You didn’t imagine it.’
His brow furrowed. ‘What then were you thinking when you gazed at me on your wedding day?’
Her cheeks warmed. ‘I’m rather embarrassed to say.’
‘You thought me attractive?’
‘It wasn’t that.’ And lest she offend him, she quickly added, ‘Of course I noticed you were handsome, but that wasn’t why you caught my attention. That day was the happiest of my life. I was wholly and completely in love with Edmund. I still believed he would desire me. Being attracted to another man was the furthest thing from my mind. Even one as handsome as you.’ She bit her lip. ‘Theo, you may not like this, but you caught my attention because your expression reminded me of Edmund. The resemblance between you still strikes me occasionally. That’s why I wasn’t particularly surprised to learn you were cousins.’
‘ Second cousins. A rather distant connection.’ He lifted a sceptical brow. ‘I’m uncertain how I feel about your liking my looks because they remind you of your husband.’
‘Please don’t make something sweet into something perverse,’ she said earnestly. ‘I loved Edmund dearly. The reason I failed him is because I’m not able to love someone with my heart and be disloyal to him with my mind or my body. And while it’s true that if he were alive, I wouldn’t be here with you, now that I give myself to you in this way, there is only you, Theo. You that I’m attracted to, for you , not because you look like Edmund. But because I admire you.’
‘That means more than you could know.’ He gazed down at her tenderly. ‘When you offered me a kiss that night in the garden, I was hurt. I was angry, even. Unhappy with myself, because I wanted to accept, when your husband had once given me the means to create a new life …’
‘He gave you a half-crown.’ She threaded her fingers through his hair and brushed the waves from his forehead. ‘Edmund was a wonderful man, but I can attest that was by no means his greatest act of charity.’
‘He gave me what I asked for, which was all I needed. I wouldn’t have accepted more. But it wasn’t just that that made me dislike your offer of a kiss … I hated that you offered me a meaningless kiss. A kiss of bribery. Of payment. If you were offering a kiss, then I wanted you to want to kiss me. To like me, to approve of my honour and goals, and be moved to kiss me. If you had, I would’ve instantly forgotten my respect for your husband – which I’m not proud of admitting, but it’s the truth.’
Henrietta’s heart melted. ‘You wanted a kiss that meant something, or no kiss at all?’
He furrowed his brow. ‘Pathetic, but yes, I did.’
‘And in the pond when you claimed that kiss at last? Why did you accept it when you thought me only interested in using you?’
‘Well, you weren’t married any more.’ He moved his hips, his erection rubbing between her thighs. ‘And because in the end, I am only a man and you are a goddess.’
‘Oh, then I am glad you stopped matters yesterday,’ she said, with a new rush of warm sentiments. ‘I am glad we waited. Because now we come together in honesty and with nothing and no one between us. Only us. Wanting to join our bodies.’
His eyes glistened; he closed them quickly, so quickly, and dipped his face to her neck. He trailed kisses over shoulder, murmuring words like ‘perfect woman’ and ‘my goddess’. His attentions were hot ambrosia, driving her to madness, making her swollen folds throb.
‘My Theo,’ she gasped when he began lavishing kisses upon her bosom. She nudged his head towards one tight, sore nipple, and when he circled his tongue around its aching peak, a groan wrenched from her throat.
Then he suckled her, and electric jolts of pleasure shot through her body.
She manipulated her other breast, trying to ease its torture. When he slipped his fingers between her legs to rub her to pleasure, Henrietta had to turn her head to smother her sobs into the pillow. Peaks built, ebbed, then peaked higher, and she begged for all of him.
His expression grew serious. ‘Are you certain you still want this?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you for asking, but yes, yes and yes.’
‘Then I’ll make love to you with my cock now,’ he told her. ‘And after you have your release, I’ll withdraw to have mine, so as not to get you with child. Is that what you want?’
Her hands gripped her pillow. ‘Please.’
‘I will be gentle, but, when I stretch you, it may hurt.’ His consideration was endearing, especially as Henrietta knew he burned with lust as great as hers. ‘Your body is made for it, but if it is ever more than you can bear, or if you change your mind, tell me and I will stop – and we can both have a different kind of release, like we did last night. Yes?’
Henrietta nodded, but she knew she wouldn’t stop him. She needed that stretching now – only he could ease the tightness coiled inside her. Soon Theo would brand her as his in this rite of passage she’d longed for. He’d be her first, the man to whom she’d made herself the most vulnerable, and who had been gentle and beautiful through it all. ‘I want this, Theo. I want you . So very much.’
He smoothed her hair from her face. ‘Let’s put you in a position where you can easily move away, should you need a moment.’
He aligned her body in front of his, both on their sides, so she slipped into the shape of him like one spoon beside another. ‘Look into my eyes,’ he said, propping himself on his elbow so she could turn her head and meet his gaze. ‘Keep watching me.’ His voice was throaty and thick. Heavy with desire. ‘I want to see your pleasure.’
He placed one leg over hers and positioned his shaft at her opening, and she gasped at the feel of him there, hard and jutting. Already a sharp pain shot from where he nudged, but it was tempered, for the pressure soothed the throbbing. His jaw softened. His eyes grew hazy. ‘I am so hot for you, woman.’ Henrietta felt the strength of his passion. He was holding back so as not to hurt her, when she wanted a thorough mounting.
‘I’m hot for you .’ She tilted her bottom into his pelvis, driving him deeper, uncomfortable, and yet heavenly. She rocked her hips until pleasure originated inside her and her muscles clenched around him.
He half yelled, muffled into her hair. ‘You feel so good around my cock I want to bury myself in you.’
‘Please do, Theo. I expect it’ll be like swimming in cold water: one swift plunge and the shock will be over for me, and there’ll be nothing but the pleasure.’
‘I have to slow down for a moment or I’ll finish in you accidentally.’ His breath grew heavier and he reached around her hip. ‘So first let’s bring you back to the edge.’ He rubbed through her folds in his expert way, with his finger and the calloused pad of his thumb, and the pleasure began to peak at once, and when it reached heights that made her cry out, he thrust – not all the way, she knew, but enough to make her no longer a virgin. He crossed the point of ache, his shaft stroked her inside while his fingers rubbed her faster, and Henrietta drove her bottom deeper towards his pelvis until she reached a peak hitherto never found.
Then she clasped his forearms and let herself fall over the edge.
Into an intensely shattering release.
She cried out – she cried out his name – she wanted to cry it out for ever, be with him like this for ever, letting these waves wash over her forever, suspended in pleasure with him.
With her Theo.
‘My Theo,’ she cried again, digging her nails into his skin, and he moaned his answer against her shoulder. As the pulses of her inner muscles ebbed, she melted and he cradled her.
‘What a release, woman.’ His voice was rough, and his London accent strong. ‘Your cunt wants to milk me dry.’
She didn’t feel like a duchess now and she loved it. She was a woman, a hot, sweaty, lusty woman in bed with a gorgeous man, exuberant in their shared passion.
Henrietta squeezed herself on Theo’s delicious erection until her toes curled. He withdrew, crying out, straining against her as hot liquid coated her lower back. ‘Oh, my sweet, beautiful darling.’ He panted into her ear, his seed dripping between them. ‘Whatever shall I do now?’
‘What do you mean?’ she murmured, relaxed and satiated. So pleased with the experience, and so pleased with herself for the pleasure she’d given, that her eyelids were already heavy with sleep. ‘You will sleep beside me and when we awaken, we shall do that again.’
As Henrietta fell asleep in his arms, Theo grew uneasy. A hair-raising, skin-crawling hunch told him trouble was brewing. Not here, not between them , where honesty and trust and respect reigned, but somewhere else. A malevolent force, rearing up against the woman he loved.
He should rise. Venture out to investigate. Ensure Henrietta’s safety before returning to bed and sleeping beside her.
But he couldn’t. Not when she slept so deeply, her head resting on his arm, her legs entwined with his, her hand tucked under her chin. She’d endured so much in the past fortnight. She needed this peaceful, healing rest.
His chest swelled with a profound warmth of sentiment. ‘Whatever shall I do when I must part with you, my love?’ he whispered into her hair. ‘You’ve spoilt me for other women, for my heart is wholly yours.’
Even more so now than at Hyde Park when she’d confessed everything to him. With all the beauty of what they’d just shared, both in conversation and in physical love, she had embedded herself into his very soul.
There was no recovery from a love like this.
He tucked her closer, so that she might sense how he would protect her with his life, and achieve an even better rest for it. His desire for her flared again, but she needed rest now, not more lovemaking. At least, rest first and more lovemaking later, as she’d said.
That’s what he would do, Theo decided. Let her sleep in his arms for now. He’d awaken her in a few hours. They’d take pleasure in each other’s bodies again and then they’d leave the city, seeking Marlow.
Or seeking obscurity, with Theo’s protection, if his sense was correct and trouble brewed.
His eyes closed and he let himself fall asleep.
He’d soon regret that choice.