She felt the mattress dip as he sat beside her. His fingertip dipped into the hollow of her throat and then slid downward between her breasts. “Talk to me,” he urged.
“I’d rather—”
His hand cupped the weight of her breast, then moist heat surrounded her nipple through her chemise. Her back bowed upward in startled pleasure and her eyes flew open.
Christopher sat up again and shrugged out of his heavy silk coat. “Tell me. Before I move on to more persuasive forms of coercion.”
“I am a woman grown, but you make me feel like an adolescent,” she confessed, experiencing a riot of emotions such as a girl of Amelia’s age would—frightened but curious, anxious but eager. Her stomach fluttered in anticipation, although she knew well what was about to happen.
This time would be different, she knew. Beyond her experience.
A dark golden brow arched as his fingers moved to the ivory buttons of his waistcoat. “My first sexual encounter was against a wall in a filthy alley. She was a decade older than I, and an accomplished whore. I pretended to the others that I was highly knowledgeable in such matters, but she knew and took it upon herself to instruct me. She caught my hand, led me outside, and lifted her skirts. I was determined to hold to the lie, of course, so I rode her hard and well, and didn’t stop until every one of the men I wished to impress had heard her coming.”
Although his voice was light, she heard something beneath it that touched her deeply. Who was this man? How did he become the lover undressing in her bedroom? A man who would come to her, as she had gone to him, attempting to save a relationship that had nowhere to go?
Christopher stood and divested himself of the waistcoat, then quickly followed it with his shirtsleeves, breeches, stockings, and heels. Gloriously naked, he crawled onto the bed next to her. He rolled her into his side, arranging her into a similar position as the last time. Once she was properly situated, he sighed with deep pleasure.
Her hand over his heart, Maria looked out the window through her sheers and appreciated how, for the moment, she felt cocooned from the world at large.
“So tell me,” he murmured, his lips in her hair, “what do you mean when you say you feel as an adolescent would?”
If we cannot discuss the present, that leaves us with only our pasts.
“Dayton was many years older than I,” she said, her breath gusting through the light matting of golden brown hairs on his chest.
“I had heard that.”
“He was very much in love with the first Lady Dayton. But even had he not been, I think he would have found my age off-putting regardless.”
“Oh?”
Maria felt the expectation and curiosity within the tension of Christopher’s frame. “But I was young and curious, and—”
“Hot blooded,” he supplied with an affectionate kiss to the crown of her head, which she returned with one pressed to a hard brown nipple. “Do not attempt to distract me,” he admonished. “You will finish your tale first.”
“Dayton noted my growing preoccupation with ogling young men and took me aside. He asked if there was one of the servants in particular I found most appealing.”
“You told him?” Christopher tilted her chin up to reveal his raised brows.
“Not immediately. I was too embarrassed.” And she still was, if the heat she felt spreading across her cheeks was any indication.
“How lovely you are when you blush,” he murmured.
“Don’t tease, or I will not be able to finish.”
“I’m not teasing.”
“Christopher!”
He smiled, his eyes sparkling, making him look younger. Not adolescent, by any means. A man who had seen and done the things Christopher St. John had would never be able to recapture any hint of innocence, but the transformation of his features amazed her and affected her deeply. She had wrought this change in him.
She touched his cheek with reverent fingers and his smile faded, his gaze heated. “Hurry with your tale,” he urged.
“One day, Dayton sent for me, telling me to meet him in the bachelor house. It was not an unusual request.” It was where they had studied maps and cryptology, away from the prying eyes and ears of servants. “But when I arrived, it was not Dayton who awaited me, but the handsome young man who had caught my fancy.”
“Fortunate bastard,” Christopher said.
Maria returned her cheek to his chest, her hand cupping his lean hip. “He was kind and patient. Despite being young, randy, and obviously eager, he tended to my pleasure and comfort before he saw to his. It was an exceptional way to manage the task of losing one’s virginity.”
Christopher rolled and pinned her beneath him, gazing down at her with liquid, heated eyes. “I feel rather dull-witted. I still cannot collect what it is about today’s encounter that goads feelings of adolescence.”
She pursed her lips, afraid to reveal any more.
“Must I resort to coercion, then?” Reaching between them, he tugged down her bodice and freed her breasts, his warm furred skin an intimate delight when pressed to her nakedness.
“Christ,” he said, leaning his weight on one arm while rolling a nipple between the fingers of his opposite hand. “You are so beautiful.”
“Silver-tongued devil,” she teased, pressing a kiss to his chin before spreading her legs, allowing his hips to sink intimately between them.
“You like my tongue,” he purred. “And I am prepared to use it on you to gain your confession. Now tell me how and why you feel like a schoolroom girl so we can move on.”
“With a threat like that, why would I say anything?”
Christopher nipped her lower lip with his teeth. “Very well, I will guess, then, based on what you have told me so far. You feel apprehension, but also desire. Surprise, but also eagerness. Uncertain, but also decided. You don’t want to have me, and yet you do.” He smiled. “Am I close?”
Maria lifted her head and rubbed her nose against his. “I suppose the first time feels the same for everyone.”
“I felt nothing of the sort the first time,” he scoffed. “All I felt was a physical desire to spend my seed. Emotional feelings had nothing to do with it.”
Her brows rose. “Then how do you know how I feel?”
“Because,” he whispered, his lips lowering to hers, “I feel that way about you.”
Chapter 17
M
aria moaned softly as Christopher took her mouth in a luxurious kiss, showing no haste or urgency, enjoying her as if she were a delicious treat. His tongue slipped between her lips and then retreated, licking deep. All the while his large hand cupped her breast, kneaded it, his wickedly knowledgeable fingertips tugging at the taut point, making it harder and more tender.
She shivered beneath him, so aroused she could not bear to be still, her body writhing and aching.
“Maria.”
God, how she loved the way he said her name, so fervently and filled with awe.
Her hands cupped either side of his spine and stroked the powerful length of his back. His muscles were so hard, his flesh gave not at all as she tried to pull him closer.
This was what she had wanted when she returned from Brighton, this deep passionate intimacy and wild conflagration of desire. Unlike Simon, Christopher did not retreat when she asked. The pirate forced her to acknowledge him, to take him . . . to take him
with pleasure
.
Suddenly, he pulled away, his breathing hard and erratic, his entire body shaking. He pressed his cheek to hers and groaned. “Do you have any notion of what you do to me?” he asked.
The yearning note in his voice brought tears to her eyes. “Is it anything similar to what you do to me?”
Christopher’s hot, open mouth sucked erotically on her neck. “Bloody hell, I hope so. I do not think I could bear it were I in this alone.”
Maria’s hands moved to his shoulders and pushed. He grunted and continued his oral appreciation of her throat, his tongue rubbing back and forth across her fluttering vein.
“Allow me to perform a like service to your cock,” she whispered.
Lifting his golden head, he looked down at her with dark, fathomless eyes. “Yes.” He rolled to his back, taking her with him. His hand at her nape, he kissed her. A hard quick kiss that conveyed his gratitude.
It made her smile, that simple gesture. She slid down his big body with deliberately provoking movements, her mouth moving down his chest, her fingers teasing his nipple similarly to how he had teased hers. He tensed, his breaths shallow, waiting. Her tongue flicked rapidly across the tightened peak, wringing a cry from him.
“Do not dally,” he urged hoarsely. “I need you.”
She took further pity on him and wiggled down until she lay between his spread thighs. The muscles there were spasming, so great was his tension. She studied his balls, so heavy and full, drawn up tight in aching anticipation. His cock, so thick and hard, strained upward. She blew across it gently and it jerked, a spurt of semen escaping from the large, wide head.
“Delicious,” she breathed, taking his phallus in hand and angling it to her mouth. As she drew it closer, more cum beaded the tip and slipped down along a fat, pulsing vein. Her tongue extended, pressing flat against the shaft and then licking slowly upward, cleaning him.
“Ah!” His fists clenched in her bed linens, his neck taut with strain. More of his seed leaked out, dribbling down the long length, pooling in the valley between her fingers and his rock-hard flesh. He watched her with dark, heated eyes. “Maria.” His raspy voice was rough with urgency.
She lay on her side at eye-level with his cock. “Roll into me,” she directed.
Side by side they faced each other, with her body much farther down the bed than his. She angled his erection into position for her waiting mouth and sucked him in, holding his hips as he cursed and jerked violently. Her tongue rubbed back and forth over the tender spot beneath the head of his cock. His groan was low and tormented, and for a moment, she felt like weeping. They were too close emotionally, each able to hurt the other. It made her want to give him all the pleasure she could, to give him some modicum of happiness in the midst of the mire that sucked them in.
Her eyes closed and she hollowed her cheeks, tugging on the swollen tip, her tongue swirling around the silky top, collecting the semen that now spilled profusely.
“Christ,” he hissed, his large hands cupping the back of her head, holding her still as his hips pumped forward. She cupped his balls and rolled them with great care. Christopher’s grip on her tightened painfully, making her nipples ache further and her sex slick with desire.
Maria sucked hard, her mouth tight as she could make it, and he shuddered hard.
“Yes . . . Maria . . .”
She opened herself to him as he had to her by coming here today. Aside from the hungry workings of her mouth, she remained completely motionless, allowing him to set the pace. He continued to groan, cry out, and shake, his words and pitch becoming more guttural as he fucked her mouth with increasing fervency.
Soon her lips were rimmed with his cum and her saliva, her mouth filled too full as his cock continued to swell. He cursed and writhed, the tension of his body betraying how frantically he drove toward release. He pumped deep, hitting the back of her throat, and then froze with a shout of mingled pleasure and mindless relief.
The hot salty wash of his semen flooded her mouth in a pulsating rush, and she serviced him, stroking his cock and gently squeezing his balls and sucking hard, so hard. He tried to push her away, to flee, but she held him captive, taking him, making him surrender, making him mutter incoherently.
“No . . .
Maria . . .
dear God . . . yes . . . no more . . . no more . . .” And finally a whispered plea,
“Don’t stop . . .”
She drained him, her hands and mouth still on him even as he lost that desperate hardness and softened against her tongue.
“Please,” he begged, his hands falling away, his body slackening with tangible exhaustion. “I am undone.”
Maria released him, licking her lips, her own body aching with unfulfilled desire, but she was pleasured nevertheless.
He watched her with dazed eyes, his face still flushed and glistening with perspiration. “Come here,” he said hoarsely, his arms open and reaching for her.
She crawled to him, snuggled against him, rested her cheek over his violently beating heart. Her eyes closed as she breathed him in. His breathing slowed, became shallow and even, the sounds of deep sleep. She was close to following him when she felt the hem of her chemise rising, the skin of her legs exposed to the air.
Her head tilted back to find him looking at her, once again the controlled and intent man she knew.
“Christopher?” she queried softly, shivering as the heat of his palm covered the chilled skin of her thigh.
He pushed her to her back, rising to prop his head on his hand while the other slipped between her legs.
“Open,” he rasped.
“You don’t have—”
“Open.” The upward press of his hand grew more insistent.
Aroused by the single-minded intent revealed in his actions, Maria spread her legs, a gasp slipping from her as his fingers tangled in her curls.
“How perfect you are,” he murmured, parting the lips of her sex. “To become so creamy and hot from sucking my cock.”
His long fingers rubbed lightly across her clitoris, making her sex clench tight with wanting.
“And your nipples.” His head lowered, the heat of his mouth circling the aching tip, tugging on it with deep rhythmic suction. He released her and blew across the wet, erect point, making her whimper. “So delicious and sensitive that it makes this hungry little cunt”—two fingers slipped inside her—“suck me deep inside.”
She started to pant as he worked in and out of her, his gaze rapt on her face, watching all the nuances of her pleasure.
“Yet despite how much I adore the outer shell of my beautiful, Spanish-blooded vixen”—his lips hovered above hers, taking in her gasping breaths while he fucked her with those wicked fingers—“it is my deeper affinity with her that binds me.”
“Christopher.” Her heart in her throat, she found it difficult to breathe. She felt herself falling and wanted to stop, but found she couldn’t.
“Yes.” His lips moved against hers, he was so close. “Shocking, is it not?”
Maria clenched the bedclothes and thrust her hips in time to the slow, drugging thrusts into her melting sex. She was so wet, so aroused, she heard her body suck him in and then release him with great reluctance.
“So tight and greedy,” he murmured. “If I hadn’t just come my last drop, I’d indulge.”
“Later,” she moaned, her eyes squeezing shut.
“Later,” he agreed in that raspy bedroom voice. “Now look at me when you come. I want to see how much you like it when I make you climax this way.”
Forcing her eyes to open, Maria was startled by the tenderness on his features. His hair was disheveled, softening his look further. She cupped her swollen, aching breasts, kneading them to relieve her torment.
He plunged deep, rubbed inside her, retreated. Thrust and withdrawal, in and out.
“Please,” she whispered, writhing. Falling.
“Beggars we are when it comes to each other.” He kissed her, a soft sweet kiss so at odds with the base pumping of his fingers. He lifted his head, pressed his thumb into her clitoris in a circular rubbing motion, and watched her orgasm with a cry of his name. Watched her shudder violently as her cunt convulsed around his fingers. Watched her fall all the way down.
Then he caught her. Held her. Tucked her against him.
And slept.
Amelia hurried over the fence and ran to the stream. Ware faced the river, his hands clasped at his back, waiting for her.
“I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly, coming to a stop beside him.
He turned to her slowly, his gaze raking her from head to toe. “You failed to meet me yesterday,” he said.
She blushed, memories of Colin’s desperate kisses making her heart race. “I was detained. I feel terrible.”
“You do not appear as though you feel terrible. Your eyes are bright and happy.”
Unsure of what to say, she shrugged lamely.
Ware waited a moment and then offered her his arm. “Will you tell me about whatever it is that has made you glow?”
“Probably not.”
He laughed, then winked at her, the friendly gesture relieving her immeasurably. She had worried about possible awkwardness between them. She was grateful to find that there wasn’t any.
They strolled leisurely along the bank until they arrived at their previous picnic spot. Once again, a blanket waited in the midst of the lovely view. The shallow stream rushed over the smooth river rock in a delightful melody. The air was filled with the scent of meadow grass and wildflowers, and her skin warmed in the dappled sunlight.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked as she settled onto the blanket with a shy smile, her hands nervously smoothing the skirts of her white gown.
“Disappointed slightly,” he drawled, shrugging out of his mustard-colored coat. “But not angry, no. I do believe it would be impossible to be cross with you.”
“Others seem to find no trouble with it.”
“More fool they. It’s much preferable to be in charity with you.” He sprawled across the blanket on his side, his head resting in his hand.
“If I begged a favor from you,” she asked softly, “would you try to grant it?”
“Of course,” he murmured, studying her.
He was always studying her. Sometimes she felt as if he was examining her even when he wasn’t looking directly at her. She seemed to be a source of great interest to him, though she had yet to discern why.
Reaching into her reticule, she withdrew the letter she had drafted to Maria. “I would like you to post this for me. I’m afraid I lack her direction. But she is quite infamous, and it should not be too difficult to find her. Also, would you mind terribly if she were to reply to you?”
Ware reached out for the missive and gazed down at her handwriting. “The notorious Lady Winter.” Glancing back up at her with an arched brow, he said, “I pray you will indulge me with the answers to some questions.”
Amelia nodded. “Of course. Anyone would be curious.”
“First, why ask me to post this instead of managing the task yourself?”
“I am not allowed to correspond with anyone,” she explained. “Even discourse with Lord Welton must be done through my governess.”
“I find that quite alarming,” he said, his tone low and more serious than she had ever heard it. In truth, she had almost thought that Ware was never anything but mildly amused by circumstances around him. “I also dislike the look of the men who patrol the borders of the property. Tell me, Amelia. Are you a prisoner there?”
Taking a deep breath, she decided to tell her friend all that she knew. He listened attentively, as he always did, as if every word that left her mouth was of the utmost importance. She adored him for that.
By the time she finished her short tale, Ware was seated cross-legged before her, his blue eyes intense and the line of his mouth somber. “Have you never considered fleeing?”