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Page 14 of When the Marquess Needed Me (The Rake Chronicles #4)

Chapter Twelve

U sually, with his mistresses, Leith took them in the manner that he had adopted at Madame Stirling’s all those years ago.

Of course, in the time since, he had tupped women in different ways than that.

But he had never discovered another way he enjoyed more. And while he had explored, he had not, admittedly, explored very far or with much pleasure.

After he completed the act with his mistress of the moment, he would retreat to his own bedchamber, on the other side of the door, and sleep alone.

He knew from all the tales his friends had told over the years about their own exploits that other men preferred much more acrobatic modes of lovemaking. And those that were more exposing.

But they were surely outliers. After all, his friends had been, before their marriages, three of the most notorious rakes in London (although, of course, in Monty’s case, it had turned out to be more complicated than that…) and so he hardly took their habits as representative.

No, he was sure, most men in England preferred to bed women the way he did. Without too much fuss or bother.

He had never shared these proclivities with his friends because he knew they would not understand. But he was also equally sure that it was a generally normal course of things for most men who were not voracious seducers.

In the past, when he had bedded women in any other way, he had found it far too…messy.

His cock needed quim like men needed air, but he didn’t need the rest of it: the bared skin, the slapping of flesh against flesh, the foul speeches.

Usually, his mistresses were happy to follow his lead, especially once he made his preferences clear.

Unfortunately, Beatrice appeared bent on talking.

She was saying something about spending—that she spent easily. Why she felt the need to relay this information to him was unclear. He didn’t typically concern himself with whether his mistresses orgasmed or not. If they did (and that was, as far as he could tell, rare), he had no problem with it, but he wasn’t a passionate man. He did not need to see a woman whipped into a frenzy for him in order to take his own pleasure. It was a wholly unnecessary consideration.

He was very sure that most of his peers were exactly the same.

Truthfully, Leith already felt his peace threatened by Beatrice Salisbury. His desire to bed her, to plunge himself inside of her, was nearly unbearable.

Blessedly, when he told her it was no matter to him, she said nothing in response.

His cock was at full mast. The insistent rhythm of the blood that pounded there also beat against his skull. On his fingers, Beatrice had been plenty wet, telling him that she was ready for his entry.

Leith unsheathed himself, his hand tangling in the tapes for a moment, before he managed to get himself out. From his pocket, he procured a shield.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “I cannot see you in this darkness.”

“Putting on a French letter,” he ground out.

“Oh, yes, I always use them myself.”

At least on that they agreed. Since that first time, Leith always used the letters with his mistresses. The very thought of the pox gave him a piercing headache. And he certainly wanted no by-blows. Furthermore, he appreciated that they contained the mess of his spend.

“Shall we light a candle?” she asked, as he struggled with the letter.

Dear God, no. He hated taking in a woman’s face as he tupped her. There was something about it that was ghastly to him. He craved the feel of a quim on his cock and the release that it brought him, but he knew he was not a good lover. He did not need evidence of that reality staring back at him as he took his pleasure.

Furthermore, he had long ago learned that he didn’t savor a woman’s face when she discovered his underwhelming cock.

While he supposed, in the abstract, he would have enjoyed seeing his mistresses naked, it didn’t make up for what else he would see (their feigned or absent pleasure) and what they must see of him: a small-cocked man reduced to a bloody simpleton, perspiring above her.

A candle threw light on the other things that he was unprepared to provide. He could not offer a woman extravagant expressions of passion or odes to her beauty or whatever else surely delighted women in the bedchamber. He was not equipped, physically or emotionally, to provide more.

“No,” he said, securing the letter, and trying to keep the irritation from his voice. “No need. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice brighter than he would have liked, reminding him of sunlight and sobriety, in a place that he preferred shaded and half-sober. “Please.”

“Mm,” he said, resisting the urge to tell her to be quiet more explicitly. His cock liked her voice, had jumped at the “please,” but he didn’t like it. He didn’t like the expectation it established.

He guided himself towards the heat he could feel between her legs. When his cock met slickness and warmth, he stifled a groan.

He preferred to keep silent when bedding a woman. But it was hard to do so when she was so exquisitely lush.

He didn’t know if he could bear taking her slowly. Not when the mere feel of her threatened this sanity.

Instead, Leith pushed forward, thrusting into her in one motion.

And nearly came instantly.

“Fuck,” he swore, beating back his spend with all the willpower that he had.

“Are you well?” she asked beneath him.

“Of course,” he managed.

Christ, her quim was perfect. He had never felt one that fit him so perfectly, that tortured him with such succulent tightness.

He was afraid to move and yet his body urged him, begged him, to do so.

He waited a moment, fortifying himself.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, he withdrew slightly.

“Ahhhhh,” he heard himself moan, before biting back the sound.

“Yes,” she panted underneath him. “Oh, that’s good.”

“Shhh,” he said to her, not wanting her speech, finding it too much when he was already on the verge.

She listened, thank Christ.

He pushed back into her again and, this time, he was able to stifle the sound of his pleasure. Just barely.

She was heaven. Never had he experienced such a pussy—with each of his strokes, her muscles clenched around him, tightening and squeezing around his cock.

“Leith,” Beatrice panted beneath him. “I am going to spend.”

He gritted his teeth. Was her insistence on spending some kind of performance? Like her hypothetical narrative in the carriage?

But as he continued to thrust, his cock swelling at the exquisite sensation of her pussy, he noticed that she was tightening around him more and more. She began moaning and he bit back the desire to urge her to silence. She was distracting him, making it difficult for him to prolong his own pleasure.

Then, she was crying out under him, and he felt her innermost muscles spasming around him and stroking his cock, as if trying to urge his seed from him.

He could take no more.

He spent, filling the letter to the brink.

He stifled his own reaction the best that he could, not wanting her to hear how she reduced him.

But, in the end, he failed and let out a shuddering, racked sound.

And when he came, he knew with a terrible clarity, that he would need to bed Miss Beatrice Salisbury many more times to be satiated.

It was a horrid realization.

Bedding her just once would be far worse than if he had never bedded her at all.