Page 14 of The Duke of Cups (The Highwaymen #3)

It didn’t hurt. At least, not yet.

“You’re doing just fine, are you not?”

She nodded, swallowing.

“You can take more of me.” It was not a question.

She nodded again, anyway.

And then there was more of him, and it tingled—no, it burned, except the burn was nice.

She let out a noise, and he made an answering one, and then he snapped his hips and speared her, all the way in, and she felt almost split open, the burning intensifying, and there was a rush of spasms inside her, her body convulsing against him, not another climax, but like an echo of one, like her body wished to draw him all the way inside and keep him in there.

“Oh,” she breathed.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s right. Good. Very, very good.”

It was like he was trapped in her, stuck in her, jammed all the way into the depths of her, like she’d taken possession of him. Mine, mine, mine, she thought, and wrapped her legs around him to keep them there. I never wish to let him go.

He moaned, head tilting back, his face in agony or in ecstasy, she couldn’t say, and she didn’t care. She wanted to keep him there even if it was agony for him.

He grunted, snapping his hips again, driving himself into her, a sharp thrust .

It burned.

It felt like heaven.

She didn’t know.

He panted, looking down on her, the expression on his face like a man destroyed, and then he just went at her, thrusting himself in and out of her in a sort of frenzy.

It was maddeningly good. The sensation was overwhelming, but she wasn’t sure if it felt good, or if it just felt intense, or if she simply liked that he was in her, that she had snared him by the prick and now he could not get free from her.

Suddenly, he stopped. “Fuck,” he growled.

She could sense something had gone wrong. Had she done something wrong?

“Don’t stop,” she said in a small voice. She didn’t care if she had done something wrong, she didn’t want to let go of him. “I need you here. I need you to stay here.”

“Yes,” he said, bending down to capture her lips, now suddenly tender.

“I need to, as well. Have to, really. So sorry. I’m such a blackguard, really.

Fuck .” He resumed his movement, but it was slower now, almost languid, and she gasped, because the burning was fading into tingling and the tingling was turning fluid, like liquid fire that was rushing all through her, and she liked it very much, and she began to think, that maybe, just maybe, if there had been a way to get him in a slightly different spot or if…

if she put her finger between them, found that spot on her body that she liked to touch, that maybe she could find another release, a second one, so quickly after the first?

She didn’t know, but she was finding the thread of it, traveling down it, almost sure that she would, and trying, even now, to wedge her hand in between their bodies—

He pulled out of her and jammed his hardness into the softness of her belly once and then twice and then there was a gush of warmth and wetness between them.

“ Fuck, ” he said again and rolled off her.

She felt bereft, quite alone, the loss of the thick, hard warmth of him inside her somehow like the loss of some just-discovered missing part of her.

It was as if, when he had been inside her, she’d been complete for the first time in her entire life, and then he’d just wrenched that away, and now she was cold and alone and there was something wet and sticky all over her body and she felt like she might start crying.

“I forgot the French letter,” he said, his voice muffled because he was lying face down next to her, his face in the pillow. “I never forget, but you… fuck .”

The French… oh, the thing in the tin.

Oh. She looked down at the sticky mess on her skin. “That’s spend.”

“Aye,” he said. He pushed up and looked at her with a rueful, boyish grimace. “I made a mess of you, didn’t I? And I lost control of myself. I wanted to be gentle and careful, and I just… I’m so sorry.”

She didn’t know what to say.

“At least I haven’t made you bleed, though,” he said.

She let out a breath of relief. “Good,” she managed.

“Even so, that was awful,” he pronounced. “You should let me do it again. Properly. Oh, what am I saying, as if you’d agree to that.” He sat up and picked up the pillow he’d had his face buried in. He stripped off the pillow case and began mopping up whatever it was on her belly. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” she said in a very small voice.

“Well, thank heaven for small favors, I suppose. What in the name of all that’s holy is wrong with me? What was I thinking? ”

“You thought it was awful?” She was going to start crying, and that was going to be mortifying.

He stopped his movement of wiping at her skin and looked up at her.

“Oh, no, love, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, his voice gentle.

“I meant it was awful for you. For me, it was…” He smiled, eyes fluttering shut.

Then he opened them, clearing his throat, squaring his shoulders, resuming his movement. “Well, I liked it, obviously.”

“I liked it,” she said .

“Well, you have nothing to compare it to,” he said, businesslike.

“I’d let you do it again,” she said. She wanted him back inside her, rather badly.

“Truly?” He finished wiping her clean and hurled the soiled pillowcase off the bed. He lay down next to her and traced her nose and chin with one finger. “Well, we likely shouldn’t, should we? You’ll marry someone, and he’ll be more careful with you, which is what you deserve.”

She tried to say something to that, but she couldn’t, because the enormity of it was suddenly too much for her to quite make sense of.

All men, every single one of them, had one of those in their trousers, and they all stuck them into women like that, and it had felt like he was the lost piece of her, but that wasn’t true, it was just that she had been made to accept them, men’s members, had been created with a little empty space for them to fit themselves into her, and… and…

He dragged his hand over her neck and splayed his fingers over her shoulder. “I should not have done this to you. It was wrong.” He hung his head, and he wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“I’m all right,” she said. She was, wasn’t she?

“You’ll likely need my help to dress, won’t you?”

Oh, they were getting dressed again. She nodded. “Probably, yes.”

He vaulted up off the bed and started pulling on his own clothes.

Slowly, she got up, too. She found her shift and put that on, and he helped her into her stays, though he didn’t quite tighten them enough, and she couldn’t find the words to tell him what to do.

Then, he buttoned her into her dress, and he said she’d been away for some time, and she should get back.

She nodded. She found herself conversing with him about the upcoming ball and the carriage he was sending for her, and her voice seemed normal, and she seemed normal, but she didn’t feel normal .

She rode home slowly, reining in the horse when it tried to trot too quickly.

Well, she was no longer a virgin.

So, this was what it was like.