Page 22 of My Best Friend’s Earl (Bluestocking Booksellers #2)
Show him how expensive a wife can be
Can we replace all the waistcoats? NO?
Don’t forget about Betsy and Georgia’s visit
T his is unacceptable. It’s not even Tuesday.” Oliver lifted the blanket to stare down at his determinedly rigid cock, then huffed in disgust when the bloody thing refused to listen to reason.
Friday morning dawned with dim light sneaking around the edges of his bedroom curtains, to slip silently between the drapes enclosing his bed.
Not. Tuesday.
At the age of twenty-one, Oliver had realized the only way he’d successfully remain celibate until his wedding night would be to apply the same rules to his personal ministrations that he lived with in other areas of life.
There was a time and a place for everything.
And when one was a perfectly healthy red-blooded adult with sexual desires and urges, that meant choosing the time and place for indulging said urges.
Namely, the privacy of his bedchamber, every Tuesday.
The choice of a bedchamber should be obvious, given his virgin state. There was no one else with whom he’d lustfully tumble in a drawing room, or some such place.
Tuesdays were typically rather open on his schedule, and it was a neglected day in the grand scheme of things. No one greeted a Tuesday with enthusiasm, except his cock.
Tuesday had been typical, as Tuesdays went. Prince recently started sleeping with him at night, and the only thing noteworthy about last Tuesday was the hard-learned lesson to put the kitten out of the room before causing any kind of rhythmic movement under the covers.
The dreams began on Wednesday.
Dreams where a man who looked like him fisted his hands through tight blond curls, kissed at a deep dimple in a woman’s cheek, then swallowed her cries of passion with his open, groaning mouth as he lost himself in her wet center.
He’d awoken painfully aroused, more than a little confused, and blamed the whole thing on the meal he’d enjoyed at Dorian’s house the prior evening, moments before Caro decided to give birth instead of serving a dessert course.
Thursday brought more visions of his fingers tangling in blond curls, this time as a plump pink mouth wrapped around his cock. Dream Oliver begged the woman to let him spend in the slick heat between her thighs. She’d complied, then muffled his shout of completion with one lush breast at his mouth.
On Thursday he considered taking matters in hand.
However, after years of providing a perfectly adequate schedule for sexual release, he refused to bow to his unruly body now.
Instead, he called for a hip bath filled with cold water, and didn’t leave the thing until his testicles threatened to become internal organs and his persistent erection calmed down.
Now, morning light turned the empty pillow beside him a shade similar to the dream woman’s nipples. Oliver frowned. This last one felt more vivid than the others. His body ached for release. Unlike the previous mornings, this had one notable addition—he’d seen her face.
“What the fuck is Constance Martin doing invading my dreams?” Invading. Seducing. Alternating between dominating and begging.
His sensual dreams often featured blond women. Dorcas was blond. Althea was blond. Without realizing it before now, Oliver acknowledged how he’d been oddly proud of the way his body remained faithful to his intended wife, even while asleep.
The virginity had been a choice, not an accident.
A state he eagerly anticipated waving farewell to, and soon.
After all, society dictated that his wife would be a virgin on their wedding night, so it seemed fair to join their marriage bed in the same condition.
Especially since he’d been in the unique position of knowing who he’d marry, from a young age.
It made indulging himself with someone who wasn’t Dorcas—or Althea—a nearly adulterous act. Thankfully, he was a patient man, and he’d remained true to his intended. Out of fairness, if nothing else.
Until Constance bloody Martin showed up in his dreams, making him question if he’d ever actually seen the face of his fantasy lovers before.
As his unrepentant arousal made a distinctive mountain beneath the covers, Oliver rubbed a hand over his face.
No, he couldn’t recall specifically dreaming of Althea or Dorcas.
Just as he couldn’t remember awaking with their voice so clearly in his mind. Certainly not the way Miss Martin’s throaty moans clung to the last cobwebs of sleep, bringing with them memories of how she’d gasped his name then encouraged him with sensual, explicit words until they climaxed together.
Then, the truly damning part.
They’d laughed. Him, still hard, and Miss Martin with her thighs wrapped around his hips, holding him deep within her, they’d laughed with the kind of familiarity he imagined lovers developed over time.
A sort of mutual exclamation of “goodness, we just did that and it felt amazing” translated into wordless sound.
Dream Oliver had kept one hand tangled in her hair, the better to keep her close, as he rested his forehead in the crook of her neck.
Miss Martin—Constance—smelled faintly of sleep and musky woman, with a faint trace of honeysuckle soap clinging to the slightly damp skin under his face.
In the dream, he’d been content to remain there, with her legs keeping him in place while his cock slowly softened. Breathing her in, enjoying her light laugh and murmured comments against his ear.
Morning arrived with an achingly hard erection, and an even more uncomfortable sensation of exclusion.
Like when he’d returned to Dorian’s townhouse after seeing Althea to her door the night of the dinner party, and his friend instructed him to go home.
Caro was determined to have Dorian by her side for the delivery, so Oliver didn’t need to keep him company.
Oliver hadn’t commented that a husband didn’t typically stay in the room during labor.
After all, basic self-preservation instincts advised against arguing with a woman on the cusp of giving birth.
But as he’d walked away from their bedchamber, the sound of Miss Martin and Miss McCrae speaking with their cousin made him acutely aware of his place outside a significant moment in his friend’s life.
Then, as if that feeling summoned her, he’d sensed rather than heard Miss Martin join him in the hall.
Facing one another and saying barely a handful of words should have been awkward, but he didn’t remember it that way.
For a brief time, she’d included Oliver by seeking him out.
While the duke’s family tree grew without Oliver there as witness, someone had missed his presence.
As devoted as he knew her to be to her cousins, Miss Martin still stepped away from their side to see him.
The finger plaster might be a tiny thing, but her thanks made Oliver feel seen.
Of course, that moment when her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips, turning the cupid’s bow glossy and slick, his cock had nearly made a fool of him.
In an instant, he’d gone thick and heavy, and vaguely lightheaded.
Somewhere inside him, a primal urge—something he thought he lacked altogether—flexed its claws, and the feeling had been both exhilarating and fucking terrifying.
No wonder Constance Martin haunted his dreams.
“Bloody fucking hell. This is unacceptable.” He threw the covers aside. A disgruntled “mew” made him flip the edge back. “Apologies, Prince. Go back to sleep.”
And unlike his still-turgid cock, the recently feral kitten did as it was told.
The day loomed before him, a schedule packed to the brim with meetings, objectives, and goals.
“Because it’s not Tuesday,” Oliver muttered, splashing water on his face, then shaking tooth powder onto a bone handle toothbrush.
At the end of the afternoon, he’d set aside two hours to visit Dorian, Caro, and their new son, Nathaniel. It was the one thing he actually wanted to do today, and part of him wished to cancel everything else, so he could indulge in the novel experience of seeing Dorian and Caroline as parents.
That would be entirely selfish, though, since the duchess would still be spending most of the day resting after the monumental task of bringing a human into the world. Out of respect for the new family, he’d held off this long before visiting.
Miss Martin might be there, helping her cousin. At the fleeting thought, his cock twitched, and he scowled.
Devil only knew what he could do about this new problem.
It wasn’t as if digging erotic dreams from his brain was possible.
Trying to replace Miss Martin’s face with Althea’s, Oliver attempted to simply rewrite the memory.
Recast the dream, like a play. No, wrong blond woman, his inner theater director declared.
Make the memory hold Althea’s voice, her laugh, and her scent.
Oliver froze, toothbrush in his mouth. What did Althea smell like, exactly? And how did he know with such certainty that Miss Martin used honeysuckle-scented soap?
He made a mental note to sniff his fiancée when he saw her the following evening. They’d promised to attend a ball, and no doubt there’d be plenty of chances to determine what perfume she preferred when he held her in his arms and twirled them around the dance floor.
Rinsing his mouth, he glared at the part of his body that had decided it would allow the front of his breeches to lay flat. Finally.
Padding barefoot into his dressing room, Oliver rang for his valet.
Ten minutes later, his mood darkened further.