Page 51 of His Illegitimate Duchess

T he problem wasn’t the scorching heat during the day – they would simply retreat into the cool, shaded rooms on the other side of the manor and order some ice to be brought from the garden ice-house.

But in the evenings, all that hot, oppressive, suffocating air would somehow make its way into all the rooms upstairs, and Colin had trouble falling asleep every single night, no matter how late they’d retired from the library terrace the night before.

The windows would be left open all night (with the shades drawn to keep insects away), and the first thing Colin would feel before fully waking was the fresh breeze on his skin.

He’d then open his eyes and feast them on the scantily clad body of his wife lying next to him.

Then, being a mere mortal, he would usually reach for Lizzie, wake her up, and slake his thirst for her.

It was a wonderful way to live.

On this particular morning, Elizabeth was sleeping with her back to him. Talbot’s gaze travelled from her luscious hair down the indent of her waist before stopping on her full buttocks that were visible through her thin muslin gown, which had ridden up during the night.

Mesmerised by the sight, he held out his hand and gently stroked one of the globes of her behind, intending to wake her up.

Lizzie moved, but only to lean into his touch more.

He squeezed harder, and she whimpered. A fire ignited inside him at the sound, and he pressed his entire body against her back and started kissing her neck.

“Wake up, wife. I must have you.”

“Colin,” she said in a sleepy voice and started stretching like the kitten she was.

When he grabbed her hips and ground into her from behind, her moans told him she enjoyed it and emboldened him to give in to the impulse to bite into her shoulder gently.

Since the stretching had caused her nightgown to ride up even more and now her arse was completely bare, the only thing standing between it and his erection was his own nightshirt, which he impatiently lifted as far up as he could.

“Do you know what you are doing to me?” He groaned.

Elizabeth shook her head slowly, still facing away from him.

He cupped her behind, massaging it more and more firmly.

“So smooth,” he said as if to himself while he observed what his hands were doing.

The sight of his wife’s soft, pale arse and thighs rocking into him eagerly and impatiently filled him with more desire than he believed possible.

He felt for her entrance, but struggled with reaching it from that side, so Lizzie, clever girl that she was, kindly helped him by getting on her stomach and lifting her hips like she had when he'd been massaging her that time.

“Lift your behind a bit more, kitten,” he said, and she got on her knees, after pulling her nightgown over her head and throwing it aside.

His cock twitched with excitement at her eagerness.

Colin rubbed the tip of his cock around her entrance, and they both groaned at how welcoming and wet it felt. He slowly slid the tip inside her and just left it there for a bit to allow her to get used to it in this new position.

She rocked her hips impatiently, the gesture begging for more, but he tsked affectionately.

“Don’t rush me, wife,” he stroked her naked back soothingly and leaned over her to gently kiss her skin, “I want to savour this.”

Elizabeth had no way of knowing that it took all of his strength and control not to erupt at the startlingly lascivious sight in front of him: the rivers of hair cascading down her naked back as her front rested on her elbows, and her plump behind that was lifted to him like an offering.

Colin didn’t know whether it was the new position he had her in or something else, but Elizabeth felt exceptionally hot on the inside.

The gently sucking, pulsating motion of her wet, slick sex was a siren song inviting him to just drown himself in it, but he resisted because he wanted to make her feel as good as she was making him feel.

She pushed her behind out desperately as he eased himself further into her and felt her almost swollen flesh part around him.

“More,” she gasped, and every time he slid in or out, she moaned helplessly, like she couldn’t help but do it.

Colin looked down at where he was now completely inside of her and had to shut his eyes to prevent himself from immediately losing it.

He felt like he was being squeezed tightly by a warm and slippery hand.

He gripped Elizabeth’s waist like a drowning man and dug his thumbs into the alluring dimples on her lower back.

Even her waist has dimples, he realised and smiled to himself.

“Lizzie,” he breathed. “You’re so… I… beautiful. Unlike anything in the world. I just… You…” he kept saying between thrusts, starting sentences and never finishing them, feeling like he was floating outside of his body, but also keenly feeling every part of his body like never before.

Lizzie’s moans had never been this loud before; shameless, arousing, and encouraging.

He rolled his hips and started to make deeper, stronger thrusts, which she met with her own movements.

Soon, they established a common rhythm, and the wet slapping sounds combined with other sounds of encouragement filled the room.

The pleasure was intensifying both in his mind and his body.

Colin felt his grip on her falter due to their sweatiness, so he gripped her harder and widened and bent his knees more, which changed the angle under which he penetrated her, which spurred his wife on to start thrusting back onto him in an even more erratic manner until she finally cried out in ecstasy and he helplessly exploded when her insides seized and clenched strongly around his shaft.

Colin roared as he released his seed into her. It was a guttural groan like he’d never emitted before. He felt like the king of the world as he pulled out and saw his release dripping out of her. It was a fascinating sight, and he was tempted to spend hours watching it slowly go down her thighs.

Instead, he grabbed Lizzie by the elbows and pulled her up so her back was pressed to his front.

He then snaked his arm across her chest, and when she turned her face towards him, he kissed her slowly and gently as their sweat-drenched bodies were cooling off.

His knees were under her thighs, and they were both trembling slightly.

Colin manoeuvred them both down and, pulling her close, rolled her onto her side while he remained behind her. His mouth trailed the back of Lizzie’s neck. He stroked her hair as they lay motionless, their chests heaving, exhausted and drained, until they both fell asleep.

Some hours later, Lizzie was the first to get up. He felt like she was avoiding his gaze as she collected various items around the room before heading next door to dress.

Perhaps now, in the cold light of day, she felt ashamed of their animalistic coupling.

Truth be told, so did he. Colin Talbot was a duke.

A well-bred, educated, distinguished man of great wealth.

This woman, his wife, who had been a virgin before he married her, was the future mother of his children, the Duchess of Norwich, not some courtesan used to rough men handling her as they pleased.

Talbot couldn’t believe he’d lost control like that, that he’d mounted his wife like that tup they saw during their walk in the fields. Not only that, he had been biting her and pulling her hair throughout. He closed his eyes as a fresh wave of excitement and self-loathing rolled over him.

Have I hurt her? He wondered apprehensively.

While it was happening, he’d interpreted her moans and exclamations and guttural grunts as signs of her pleasure, and had been insanely excited by the thought of being the one who could unravel her like that, but what if she had been protesting the whole time?

Talbot was painfully mortified and ashamed as Stevenson helped him get dressed. When he finally worked up the pluck to go downstairs, he found his wife talking to Lady Burnham in the morning room.

During breakfast, they were both painfully polite and distant to each other. It seemed to Talbot that his wife’s face would burst into flames if it got any redder. Her eyes looked feverish and wet with tears, and it hurt him to think that his actions had caused it.

He focused on the softly boiled egg on his plate like it was the most interesting sight in the world.

He pressed on it with his fork to distract himself, but the indentations the fork left on the soft and pliant egg white reminded him of the marks his firm grip must have left on his wife’s waist and arse.

To his utter horror, he felt himself hardening at the thought while one of the maids still hovered around his chair, refilling his cup.

“Thank you,” he told her loudly and harshly. “You may go now.”

The poor thing bowed with fear in her eyes and scurried out of the room. Talbot set the fork down on the table harder than was necessary.

“Duchess Elizabeth,” he said, and immediately inwardly cursed himself for putting that distance between them, “would you please join me in my study after breakfast?”

Lady Burnham frowned almost imperceptibly, so he hastened to add, “There is a letter I need to show you.”

“Of course,” Lizzie replied without looking up from her plate, where she’d nervously torn up a piece of bread into a mountain of tiny crumbs without having eaten any of it.

As she went up the stairs ahead of him, he tried keeping his eyes off any part of her alluring figure.

Stop acting like an animal, he told himself sternly. He vowed he would no longer behave like a man seeing a nude woman for the first time.

I’ve never felt like this, not even the first time, he protested his own thoughts as they entered the study.

“I need to apologise to you,” he said after agitatedly pacing for several minutes as his wife silently watched him from her chair.