She wanted only to be as close to him as possible. To offer him comfort for his pain. She wanted to please him. Needed to please him.
“In my chamber, you wanted to do something, but you said it would muss me too much.”
He laughed softly and twirled the ringlet around his finger. “Indeed it would have.”
“But what was it you wanted to do?”
He chuckled again and shook his head. “It would shock you.”
“Maybe I want you to shock me.”
His expression turned thoughtful, as if he was debating with himself. Then his eyes darkened. “I want to come all over your pretty tits.”
Chapter Ten
His words did shock her. But they also excited her, as did the sound of that crude word in his rich, elegant tones. She squirmed against the sudden tingling in her—what had he called it before?—her cunt.
“My breasts are too small to be pretty,” she said, more to divert the subject than anything else.
“They are small but they are soft, yet firm.” He flicked his thumb over a tight peak. “Your little nipples get so astonishingly hard, just the sight of them makes my cock ache and I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of them on my tongue.”
As if to prove his point, he leant forward and captured her left nipple with his mouth and worked his tongue around it in slow circles. Without stopping, he took her hand and led it to his groin.
Beneath her hand, his cock throbbed.
“Does it ache now?” she asked.
He lifted his head. “God, yes.”
“And if I let you…do what you want—”
“Say it, love. Don’t be so shy with me.” He pressed her hand harder. “Say the words.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Oh, no—I can’t say that aloud.”
“Yes, you can. Just try.”
“Why must I say it?”
He chuckled. “Because it will drive me insane to hear the words in your sweet little voice. But, more importantly, then I’ll know it’s what you really want to do.”
“If I let you…if I let you come…on my tits.” She clapped a hand to her lips as her face flamed violently and she swallowed hard against a fit of giggles. “It will ache less?”
“It might—it certainly isn’t yet.”
She dropped her hand and wrinkled her face in concern. “It hurts badly?”
Laughter twinkled in his eyes. “Aye, it does.”
“Then you must let me kiss it better.” She tried to keep a serious face but crumpled into another fit of giggling as she hid her face in her hands. When she’d recovered enough to look at him again, he was unfastening the last of the buttons on his fall.
He pulled himself from his pantaloons and held his erection by the base. With his other hand he touched the back of her head and pulled her closer. She swallowed again, against another burst of giggles, and took hold of his cock. He throbbed and she felt as if she held the whole world in her hands. At least all that mattered to her in the world at that moment. His pleasure and hers. She bent her head and laid her lips to the tip. Immediately, a bead of fluid seeped out. She licked it away and he groaned deep and low.
This time she was more confident and was able to enjoy the velvet-over-steel feeling of his cock against her lips and tongue.
“God, that’s good.” He caressed her hair. “You’ve done this part before me, haven’t you?”
She stopped kissing him and looked up into his passion-darkened eyes and shook her head. “No, never.”
“But you do it so well.”
She laughed. “I was terrified I’d do it wrong.”
“Goodness, my girl. Don’t you realise that, with something like this, even if you did it badly it would still be good?” He grinned. “And just to be clear—you do it exceedingly well.”
“I am glad—I want to please you.” Her voice went small, for she felt shy to admit it. It made her feel like a silly girl.
But his eyes darkened even more and he tightened his hand on the back of her head. “Take me into your mouth.”
The terse, edgy tone to his voice sent shivers of delight tingling down her spine and through her body to her cunt. But she was suddenly unsure.
“Get your mouth all wet, then open as wide as you can and let your lips slide over me.”
His instruction helped. She worked at getting her mouth wetter. Then she closed her eyes. He was watching her so intently, and she couldn’t bear to see him watching her while she did this. She opened very wide and guided his cock to her mouth. Tentatively, she placed it to her lips and did as he suggested, sliding over his velvet flesh. Then she grasped how it worked, curling her lips over her teeth and taking him in.
Heavens, he felt wonderful in her mouth. And the trust he must have in her, to let her do this to his most private and precious part. Avidly, she tried to take as much of him as she could, until she suddenly choked and gagged convulsively.
His cock withdrew rapidly from her mouth as he pulled his hips back. He was touching her face. “Easy, now—don’t try to take too much. I should have told you to swallow.” He chuckled softly. “I am not used to playing the schoolmaster.”
She was mortified. “I am sorry, I did it all wrong.”
He gently touched the back of her head. “Come, now—practice makes perfect. Let’s try it again.”
She complied with pleasure, swallowing this time when she felt she might gag. She still couldn’t get that much of him into her mouth. She wasn’t sure how much she should be taking in and wished she’d thought to ask before they’d started again. He’d probably had so many women. Scores of women with beautiful faces and lush, flawless bodies. All skilled to perfection. Her attempts were probably awkward and tedious.
However, from the way his hips arched and from his groans, he seemed to be enjoying it. He took her hand and placed it on the shaft of his erection. “Stroke this part while you do it. Let it get all wet from your mouth.”
Why hadn’t she thought of doing that? He must be getting impatient with her inexperience. Were there books she could read about this sort of a thing?
“Here,” he said, pushing gently on her shoulder. “Just with your hand.”
She let him withdraw from her mouth and took over sliding her hand up and down his shaft.
“Faster, harder. I am close.”
Her heart leapt at that and her cunt fairly wept as wetness oozed down the insides of her thighs.
“Harder, love,” he gasped.
She looked up at him quizzically, not daring to believe he wanted what he asked for.
“I won’t break.”
She grasped him and stroked as hard and fast as she could.
“Oh, God,” he groaned.
She laughed nervously, trying to increase her efforts. His cock twitched in her hands and she started, dropping him. He immediately caught himself, holding his cock up so that the white fluid jetting from the tip shot all over her breasts. Heat and joy blossomed in her chest and spread all over her. She laughed with the intensity of it.
“Oh, God,” he repeated, leaning forward while pulling her up. His seed was getting on his evening clothes, but he didn’t seem to notice. He crushed his lips to hers for several moments.
Then he backed away from her, his gaze riveting on her breasts.
“Oh, God.” His voice resonated with reverence.
“Say something else,” she said through renewed giggles.
“I can’t, my love. You’ve rendered me dumb.”
Sudden knocking at the door startled both of them.
“Alex, are you in there?” It was Mr Van Moerdijk’s voice.
“Oh, God,” Alex said.
She stuffed her fist into her mouth to keep from laughing.
Alex stood and shoved himself back into his pantaloons. “Oh, Christ,” he swore softly and pulled out his handkerchief, wiping his seed from his clothes. Then he came to her and wiped her off.
“Of all the insane, randy ideas I’ve had in my time, doing this here tonight tops them all,” he whispered. He moved away and tossed her chemise to her.
She pulled it over her head.
“For God’s sake, Alex, are you all right?” Van Moerdijk called from the other side.
“Yes, Peter.”
The knob turned and Emily’s heart leapt into her throat and she dropped her gown just as she’d been ready to step into it.
“Don’t come in,” Alex called loudly, a definite edge of command to his voice.
“Oh, I see.” Sarcasm dripped from Van Moerdijk’s voice.
Alex came to Emily and helped her into the gown as best he could. “Oh, Christ, there’s no help for it. I’ll never be able to lace you with one hand.”
Alex went to the door, opened it and stepped aside. Van Moerdijk walked in, his silver-blond hair glowing orange in the firelight. His features were so angelically handsome that he looked almost feminine, but at the moment a scowl marred them.
“Damn you, Alex— you’ve been in here girling, this whole time while James and I have been struggling trying to hold things together in the dining room.”
“Spare me your bitter grapes.”
Emily tightened her grip on her gown. What the devil was Alex thinking, letting him in here? She turned wide, alarmed eyes to Alex as he approached her.
“Don’t worry sweetheart, he’ll never betray me.” He cut his eyes back to Peter. “I know too much about him.” He held up his wrapped hand. “Peter, if you’re going to force yourself in here, at least make yourself useful.”
Alex put his hands on her shoulders and span her about so that her back faced Peter. Emily glanced behind herself in dismay. To her amazement, Peter took up her laces without a word and began threading them with as much disinterested diligence as if he were Sally.
“Aye—tonight isn’t exactly shaping up to be a smashing success. What the devil happened to you earlier?” Peter said.
The corner of Alex’s lip lifted. “Those men don’t give a damn and no amount of wine and kissing their arses is going to change that.”
“Well, something has to give.” Peter gave a hard pull on her laces and she took a deep breath. “There, sweeting, you’re all laced up now.”
Alex held his good hand out to her. She took it and he led her to him, then over to the settee. He sat on the end that had no bloodstains and, when she would have sat beside him, he pulled her into his lap. She ought to have taken exception to this public display of intimacy. But there was a protective possessiveness to sitting on his powerful thighs and having his large hands clasping her waist that gave her a warm feeling inside. As if she belonged in his lap. As if she belonged to Alex. She had never seen any couples sit like this, except for John with Anna. Likely Alex did it only because she’d been his harlot. Peter didn’t seem in the least fazed by it.
Alex had turned his attention back to Peter. “Why, Peter, I never knew you were so passionate on this issue. I thought James had coerced or blackmailed you into all of this.”
“I make my living representing merchants. Between the depredations of the French and the British, not to even mention those Barbary bastards, if I lose too many more clients to bankruptcy I’ll be declaring bankruptcy myself.”
“Miss Eliot’s book will change some hearts.”
“Please. Why don’t you simply call her Emily, Alex? It’s not exactly a secret to me now what she is to you.”
“Because she’s still Miss Eliot to you.”
The possessive edge to Alex’s voice increased the warmth blooming in her heart. She lost all desire to debate with herself over whether or not she should want to belong to him. Regardless of the wisdom of the feeling, she
did
want to belong to him and, right now, she wished that Peter would leave so they could be alone again.
Peter’s mouth went slack, falling open for a moment, and his startlingly blue eyes widened. Then he smiled. “Oh, I see. Well, anyway, your faith in Miss Eliot’s book is misplaced. Nothing is going to soften the hardened hearts of our politicians unless it affects their ledgers.”
Alex’s muscles tightened under her body. “I don’t mean it will change their hearts, but the hearts of the voters, the public.” His voice was terse and impatient. “They’ll know it when they see the book.”
“But Alex—”
“You’ve seen her book. I don’t know how you can’t believe it won’t make a difference.”
Alex’s words warmed her even further. No one had ever before believed in her work like she did. Her grandfather had viewed it as a waste of time that could have been spent studying. Grandmother had seen it as unladylike to paint things like human pathos and suffering when one could paint pastel watercolours of sunsets. But Alex sounded as if he had utter conviction in what he said.
She was beginning to hate Peter for lingering here. She didn’t just want to be sitting in Alex’s lap, feeling the idle, distracted stroke of his hand on her hair. She wanted to be naked in his arms and as close to him as possible. She wanted him to be inside her again and claiming her in the most primitive way. Just for now, she wanted to be his completely and not think about the future.
And it was her own choice. She could make the conscious decision to enjoy him for now without committing to any long-term abnegation of her power to control her own life’s course.