Page 13 of A Whisper Of Desire (The Disgraced Lords #4)

Chapter Six

H e crawled up the bed and lay beside her, his hand trailing over her damp skin. “I’m more than happy to oblige, my duchess.”

Marisa turned toward him and the enormity of the night hit him deep within his chest. Tonight was not simply about sex with a beautiful woman. Soon he would make her his and their lives would be entwined forever.

He’d thought he could keep her at arm’s distance.

They would lead independent lives yet share only the occasional intimacies.

Something painful akin to a hand gripping his bollocks caught him off guard.

He wasn’t sure how to keep his life as it had been—calm, contained, controlled—with a woman like Marisa.

She was so much more than he’d expected, and this marriage of convenience was in danger of becoming more.

There was something about her that called to him. Had it been there all along, and that was why he’d suggested their marriage to Sebastian a few months ago? Had he been fooling himself even then?

No. He was in control of his destiny and he knew what he required in a wife.

Companionship, ability to run his many households; she should maintain his dignity in society and bear him sons.

He would have a marriage so far removed from his father’s marriages that society would soon forget about the disgrace his father was.

It was imperative that the woman, the enemy who forced his hand to marry, who was after vengeance against the Libertine Scholars, did not reveal any of his father’s secrets, or society may look too closely and uncover the secret he had to carry to his grave.

Marisa rolled to cuddle next to him, and he inwardly sighed. The sooner he got her with child, the better. Then he’d have an excuse not to lie with her.

The image of Marisa large and round with his child focused his thoughts. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly.

Her hands ran down his back, feeling his muscles before cupping his buttocks and pulling him closer to her. His body roared to life, his erection stiff and seeking.

He rolled her under him, his to command, and his to take. The idea of teaching her about coitus excited him.

She buried her face against his chest, her breath hot, her tongue seeking, lapping his nipple as he had lapped her secret folds. He let out a growl when her teeth nipped and sucked. Her hands explored and he felt his control slipping. He should be the one directing.

His erection stirred, crying out for attention, and when her hand slipped between them and wrapped about him, it was his turn to rise up from the bed.

Her previous voyeurism had given her knowledge, and her fingers began to move. Up and down, timid at first, but soon her grip tightened and he was forced to reach down and grab her hand to slow her down.

“You like being in control, don’t you?”

Her words startled him. “Most men do.”

“Surely it is a nice change to be the one who is being led, so you don’t have to think, you can simply relax and indulge.”

Absolutely not. Relaxing and indulging was what had led his father down a path of destruction.

After watching his father destroy himself, his honor, and almost the family, Maitland spent his adult life fighting the impulse to give up the tight control he strove for.

There were buried secrets in his family, and if he relaxed he never knew what might come out.

That’s why he was so focused on capturing their villainess.

She was simply another wicked deed his father had perpetuated, and Maitland had fought too hard to let the Lyttleton name fall from grace.

Especially now that he was married and would soon become a father.

The control he cultivated was what would save the Lyttleton name from disgrace. Only his ability to think dispassionately kept his father’s wicked deeds secret. In addition, he had used the gift God had bestowed upon him, his brain, to rebuild the family coffers.

A shiver slid down his spine to where her hand still caressed his buttock.

He suddenly realized that Marisa might not be so easy to control.

A stab of anger engulfed him. This marriage had not started out as he’d planned.

He’d never thought she’d approach him tonight and she was far more adventurous and enthusiastic in bed than he’d imagined a virginal young miss to be.

He thought he’d control the bedroom as well as the home.

He leaned down and kissed her roughly, determined to wrest back control of this night. The kiss was not soft, was not kind, it was all about domination.

His tongue pressed through her lips, not asking permission. It swept her mouth, deep and hard. He would teach her that she might think she knows about desire and passion, but she was in fact only a novice.

But she wasn’t going to let him regain control.

She met his tongue with a parrying thrust of her own.

Taste for taste, they were equal. She was still running her hands over his back and she gripped his buttocks and pulled him down on top of her.

He could feel her hard nipples pressed into his chest; she was not backing down, nor was she afraid of his ardor.

They kissed, hands and mouths racing over heated skin, and rolled on the bed like animals, and it was the closest he’d been to letting loose of his control.

She sent heat and need racing through him, and he imagined what it would be like to make love to her once her virginity had been taken care of.

Night after night he could introduce her to new positions, new ways of giving and receiving pleasure. His mind filled with images of her on her hands and knees, his cock buried deep in her. Or of her riding above him so he could watch his cock disappear into her hot, tight sheath.

So much for his masturbation; he was almost to the point of exploding again.

He rose up, his arms taut, his hands braced on either side of her head. He looked down at her and, holding her gaze, deliberately used his legs to widen her so he settled in the V of her thighs. They quivered in excitement or apprehension. Suddenly, she did not look so brave.

His stance softened. “I’ll try to make it as painless as possible. Once your barrier is breached, I promise you it will be better than with my mouth.”

“I believe you,” she said, and wiggled beneath him, widening her legs so as to give him better access, her impatience with his lack of progress driving his desire higher. He stifled a groan. Never in his life had he wanted to simply plunge in. Where was his finesse?

He cursed himself. He was behaving like a starving man at a feast or, worse, a man who thought he could simply take.

She lay looking at his stern face. What had she done wrong this time? Rising above her like a Greek God, he made her heart race just by looking at her. When he touched her she fairly flew to the skies.

A moment ago she’d thought she’d rattled his significant control as they rolled on the bed, eager to give of themselves, but then he’d reverted to form and now it was all seriousness and gentleness. She liked it a bit rougher.

When his fingers had pinched her nipples and his hand gripped her hair as if he never wanted to let go, her body responded with need.

Now he was just looking at her with that worried look on his face.

She wanted the wild man back. She deliberately rubbed herself against the long, hard length of him sitting at her entrance, and she loved it when his head dropped and he groaned.

She did it again, eager to lift her hips and make him ease the ache that was swirling deep inside her.

“You’re playing with fire, little one,” he growled, and she felt his rising fever when his palm cupped her breast.

“At least I’m playing. Why have you stopped?”

“I’m trying to gather a semblance of control so I don’t hurt you.”

His member entered her slowly and her world began to focus on that one small inch of flesh spearing her. Her eyes closed and she almost begged him to join them now.

He held still, his body not moving except for his chest as he breathed deeply.

She could smell him, a hint of sandalwood mixed with the musky smell of sex.

The weight of his hips pushed him in a little farther and she would have raised her hips to join them, but his strength pinned her down on the bed.

A cry of frustration escaped and she flopped her head on the pillow.

At last he moved and slid deeper. She sighed her approval as his hips continued to pin her down.

His head lowered and he took one of her aching nipples into his mouth.

Her body grew tighter as he suckled her.

She watched him through an aroused haze.

She could see his broad shoulders and muscled chest above her.

But her mind focused on the feel of his hard muscled thighs and lean hips, and most of all his cock, large and stiff, moving slowly within her.

Her body clenched with need, her inner muscles eager to draw him deeper.

He stopped moving once again and she groaned.

“I’ve reached your barrier. This might pinch a bit,” he said, and on the word “might,” he thrust home, just when she was not expecting it.

Thankfully, there was only a moment of sharp, biting pain. As it dulled, all she could focus on was how he seemed to fill her, stretch her; she was scared to move an inch, as the fit felt so tight.

“Breathe in—then out. The pain will lessen.” She could see his taut arms beside her shake with the effort not to move.

He hung suspended above her, a sheen of sweat on his brow. “How are you?” he asked, as if he were asking her to pass his cup of tea.

Her hips shifted slightly to test whether he would split her in two. There was no sharp pain, but she certainly felt—“invaded” seemed a good word.

“Fine. Perhaps you could make it better?”