Chapter 28

Andrew knew he shouldn't tease her too much—she might change her mind, after all—but watching her blush was simply too precious to resist.

"We can use my cravat," he offered before she could come to her senses. Andrew pulled it off with a tug and offered her the wrinkled strip of linen. "Will you do the honors or shall I?"

"You do it."

He cocked his head, his amusement fading when he saw how tightly clenched her jaws were. "Are you sure you—"

"Just because I am nervous does not mean I am not sure," she shot back.

He nodded and reached up, quickly tying the strip over his eyes. When he was finished, he lowered his hands to his sides. "What next, Stacia?"

***

Stacia chewed her lower lip furiously as she stared at him, unable to believe this was happening. Because this sort of thing did not—had never —even come close to happening to staid, plain, practical Stacia Martin.

"T-take off your coats," she ordered.

His hands immediately went to the buttons of his clawhammer, his long, elegant fingers moving deftly.

Stacia wanted to tell him to go slower—that things were moving too fast—but he'd already moved on to the buttons on his waistcoat, which was a sober gray and white striped silk. Now that she thought about it, he did not dress like a dandy. All his clothing fit well, but he was not given to peacocking about in wasp-waisted evening coats or the ridiculously tight trousers many of the younger tulips of the ton had taken to wearing these past years. And she had never seen him in evening clothes that were anything but black and white, a stark combination which suited his blond good looks to perfection.

He tried to shrug out of the fitted coat but struggled. "Some help, please?"

"Oh, of course," she leapt up and stepped close enough to help him remove the sleeves of his coat.

"Thank you," he said as she peeled the fine wool off his arms.

The garments were still warm from the heat of his body. Yet again, she was exposed to the intoxicating scent of him and greedily filled her lungs.

Lord Shelton stood unmoving before her, the deep V of his badly wrinkled linen shirt exposing the mysterious terrain of his chest to her gaze.

She turned away and carefully laid his clothing over the back of the settee, her hands shaking so badly she dropped his waistcoat twice.

She smoothed a bit of dust from the expensive silk and something about the sight of her hand on the masculine garment brought the unreality of the situation thundering back to her.

Stacia had just helped Lord Shelton remove his coats.

She swallowed convulsively. Am I really doing this ?

You can still stop.

She turned and looked at him.

He waited patiently, arms loose at his sides, one hip cocked, booted feet spread in a casual stance.

I will look like a coward if I stop.

The voice in her head had no response for that. What was worse? Looking like a coward or a strumpet?

The answer was easier than she would have expected.

"Sit down and remove your boots."

***

Andrew wondered if the lengthy pause after she'd helped to remove his coats was a sign that she was losing her courage.

Regardless of what it meant, he should put a stop to this. He was an experienced man who'd goaded a virgin into demanding that he strip. But if he called a halt to things right now, she would probably think it had something to do with her, rather than a gentlemanly impulse—albeit weak—to spare her tender sensibilities.

Liar. You just want to get naked in front of her.

Well, there was that too, he thought as he obeyed her command, sank into his chair, and speedily, if not exactly gracefully, wrenched off first one boot and then the other.

"St-stockings, too."

He bit back a grin as he pulled them off, tossed them aside, and then flexed his liberated toes.

He heard the sound of movement from across the room, the faint creak of the settee—was she sitting down? Or getting up? And then came the subtle squeak of one of the ancient floor planks, her footsteps so quiet that she must have shed her ankle boots. His lips twitched at the thought of those diminutive boots. Had he ever seen such a small pair before?

"Why are you smirking?" she asked, her voice coming from far nearer than he'd expected.

"Because I am happy."

"It does not embarrass you to remove your clothing in front of somebody you hardly know?"

He chuckled, not just at her question, but at just how un- embarrassed she would discover he was if she ever got around to demanding that he shed his leathers. "No."

"Stand up," she said, her tone sharp, as if his answer had annoyed her.

Andrew stood.

"Remove your breeches."

His eyebrows almost launched off his forehead at her unexpectedly bold command, but his hands were already in motion, nimbly flicking open the catches on his fall and giving a tug that pulled all the buttons out of their holes in one fell swoop.

And then he let the soft doeskin fall to the floor and kicked the garment to the side.

The air shifted around him, and he heard more floorboards creaking, farther away this time.

You should put a stop to this. It is up to—

"Your shirt."

He hesitated.

"Was that confusing, my lord?"

Andrew laughed. "No, Miss Martin." He grasped the hem of the garment, which was long enough to reach almost the bottom of his small clothes and pulled it over his head.

She gasped.

Andrew was arrogant, but he suspected it wasn't the sight of his tented smallclothes that had drawn her gasp.

No, it would be the hideous scars scattered about his person. Women seemed mesmerized by the mute evidence of violence. Perhaps because so much about war was a mystery to them. Or maybe just because the wounds were ugly.

Andrew dropped his shirt to the floor when she did not take it from him.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice coming from right in front of him.

"Sabers happened."

He could feel soft warm puffs of air against his chest; she was close.

"Touch me, Stacia," he said, his cock throbbing at the memory of her cool, smooth hands on his chest the night before and the pleasure they'd given him.

Andrew heard an amusing gulp and could see her expression of indecision in his mind's eye.

It was even odds whether she—

He hissed when she touched him, the muscles in his abdomen clenching. "Good God! Your hands are like ice."

She jerked her hands away.

"Here," Andrew said, holding up his own hands, which were on fire. "Put them between mine and I'll warm them. Do it," he added when she hesitated, pleased when she complied.

He chafed her hands between his. "Are you always this cold?"

"Are you always this warm?" she countered.

"I burn hot."

He rubbed in silence for a moment longer, until she felt, if not warm, then at least not chilled. "There," he said, releasing her. "You may proceed."

"You really don't mind?"

"I adore your hands on me."

"Even here ?" She lightly grazed the largest of his scars, the place where the saber had gone all the way through him.

"Yes, even there, Stacia."

Her hand shook slightly at his admission, but she didn't pull away. Indeed, she became bolder, tracing the other wounds —one on his shoulder and the other close to his heart—but returning to the large, puckered strip of skin on his side.

"This must have hurt."

"It did." He did not tell her that he had almost died. That he had prayed for death at the time. Not because of the saber damage itself, but the putrefaction that set in afterward.

"I was very sick afterward," he said, sensing she was waiting for more. "The care I received at the time was…less than adequate. I might have become even sicker if my cousin had not come for me."

The conditions had been squalid, fetid, and nearly mortal. He had been in a tent with dozens of others, no beds, damned few blankets, and only one overworked nurse and doctor for all of them.

Andrew knew enough about wounds to know that he had been dying. And then Chatham had found him. His cousin rarely lost his temper, but that had been one of the few times.

Months afterward, when he had felt well enough—and grateful enough not to curse Sylvester for not allowing him to die—he'd had a ring made for his cousin, a thick Viking band that proclaimed his life now belonged to Sylvester.

Two years later, when he'd taken care of Sylvester after his cousin had been hit in the face by a piece of shrapnel that should have killed him, Sylvester had bought him an identical ring.

Sylvester had never removed his ring, not even during the years they'd been estranged.

Andrew absently rubbed his finger over the bare spot on his thumb. The indent from the ring was long gone. So was the ring, which he'd flung in Chatham's face eleven years ago when his cousin had refused to release Mariah.

"This looks like the worst one," she murmured, carefully caressing the wound, as if it might hurt.

"It is the worst scar, but…"

"But?" she prodded.

"I had my bell rung rather dreadfully once. I was passing too close to one of the big guns when it went off. It quite rattled my brain, and I was stone deaf for almost six weeks. I was terrified that I would never regain my hearing. That fear was worse than any saber cut."

"But it came back?"

"For the most part," not telling her about the headaches that had come back along with it. "But why am I talking about such a thing now?"

"Because I asked you."

"Surely we can make better use of our— ah !" He sucked in a breath as Stacia's palm left the scar and skimmed over one of his nipples.

She jerked her hand away at his gasp, but as he'd done last night, he caught her arm and held it in place. "That feels good." It felt bloody intoxicating and made him burn to throw her onto the bed and bury himself in her so deeply that it would be impossible to know where she began, and he ended.

Andrew was smart enough to keep those thoughts to himself. After all, she was already skittish, he didn't want to terrify her.

Her touch was tentative at first. Even so, he bit his tongue until he tasted blood, vibrating with need by the time she raised her other hand and caressed the neglected nipple.

A growl tore out of his chest when the soft, cool pads of her fingers lightly pinched the pebbled buds.

"Bloody hell," he ground out, reaching unerringly for her waist, holding her easily with one arm as he tore off the blindfold and stared down into eyes that were pools of black. He began to pluck the pins from her hair. "I want to feel it loose."

She did not stop him.

"It is as I thought," he murmured once it fell free.

"Wh-what?"

"It is so long it covers your bottom." He wrapped the thick rope around and around one hand and then tugged her head back. "Unless you tell me no , I'm going to carry you over to that bed and strip off all our clothing."

Her mouth opened and her eyes widened in shock.

But then she nodded. "No light," she added hastily.

Andrew growled. He would have liked to argue, but…

"Fine," he said. "But first I'm going to carry you to the bed, so I don't trip and fall in the darkness and embarrass myself."

***

Lord Shelton lowered Stacia onto the bed and met her gaze in the dim light while he stroked her hair. "If you let me leave the light on, I can do some wonderful things with this hair of yours."

Stacia blinked, momentarily distracted by his words. "Er, what?"

He grinned, his fingers quickly dividing the heavy mass in half. "Oh, so many uses. I could use it as a rope to tie your wrists to the bed and—"

"The lights, my lord," she yelped.

He laughed and then across the room so quickly that Stacia didn't even have time to consider his words before he snuffed the candles and plunged the room into near darkness, the only light the red glow of the fire.

A moment later the mattress dipped beside her and his voice rumbled close to her temple. "Change your mind?" He kissed the rim of her ear.

"No," she said, not needing so much as a second to reconsider.

"Good. May I undress you?"

She hissed in a breath and exhaled noisily. "Yes."

The mattress moved again as he left it.

Before she could ask where he was going, he took her ankle and set her foot on his thigh. Both his hands caressed up her calf slowly, his fingers warm as they untied her garter. He didn't immediately roll down her stocking. Instead, one hand massaged the indentation left by her garter while the other caressed the thin inner skin of her thigh.

"You need to breathe, sweetheart."

His amused voice broke her from her trance, making her aware of the burning in her lungs.

Shelton removed her other garter and stocking, gently lowered her leg, and then sat beside her. "We can stop any time you want—I won't think any less of you." His hand cupped her jaw and turned her face toward him. The faint light from the fireplace cast a warm glow over his profile but was not enough to see more than an outline.

He kissed her gently, a series of light, tender brushes of his lips until her body began to relax. "Tell me what you want, Stacia."

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back when he nudged her chin up and began kissing her bared throat.

"This," she whispered as his mouth moved lower, until his lips and nose brushed against the swells of her breasts. "I want this."

He dropped one last kiss before his hands closed around her waist. "Stand up for me, darling." He did most of the lifting, positioning her like a doll in front of him, his knees bracketing her legs as his hands moved on the buttons of her gown with an assurance that she didn't want to examine too closely.

"Arms up."

Stacia's body complied although her mind was frozen.

He raised the dress over her head and leaned to the side to lay it somewhere near the foot of the bed. Next, he reached for her laces and speedily loosened her stays before pushing them down to the floor. He found the tape securing her petticoat and tugged it loose. The garment joined her stays leaving her in nothing but her thin shift.

"On, or off?" he asked, his hands lightly caressing her hips.

Stacia took a deep breath, and before she could lose her courage, she reached for the hem and pulled the well-worn garment over her head.

His warm hands slid over her again, this time without anything between them. He groaned. "Silky," he muttered, and then pulled her closer, kissing the hard spot between her breasts as his hands moved up to cup a breast in each palm.

And then his mouth was on her nipple and Stacia thought her head would spin off her shoulders. Just when she could not bear a moment more, he moved to the other breast and commenced a second sensual assault.

"Yes," he hissed, which is when she noticed that she'd buried her hands in his hair and pulled him tighter. "Don't stop," he ordered when she began to release him.

He alternated teasing her nipples, suckling and licking.

And then he gave her a stinging nip.

She gasped, the sudden pain causing the muscles in her sex to clench almost as intensely as they'd done earlier, when she had lost control. Twice.

"Sorry, darling, did that hurt? Let me make it better." He kissed the offended nipple and then suckled it.

And then nipped her again, harder.

She cried out and he responded by lifting her by the waist and then setting her astride his thighs. "My lord, what are you—"

"Andrew," he chided, nipping and massaging and kissing until she was writhing and thrusting herself at him, all but begging for the mystifying pain that brought such pleasure in its wake.

He licked one of her breasts before lightly suckling the swollen, sensitive nipple. "Such pretty little tits you have been hiding beneath your gowns, Stacia."

She sucked in a breath at his crude words, shocked at the burst of arousal that slicked her thighs.

Thighs that were spread indecently wide.

She tried to pull her legs together, but he gave a low chuckle and, maintaining his torment of her breasts, lowered his hands to her legs and gently but firmly spread her wider. Her tendons stretched and the ache reminded her that this was a position no decent woman would ever find herself in.

Stacia could not even imagine the sight she must make.

That thought overcame the wicked pleasure she felt in her pose. When she increased her efforts to pull her legs together, he released her breast with a wet pop and his hands disappeared from her thighs, his powerful arms wrapping around her body as his night beard grazed the sensitive flesh of her breasts.

"Shall I stop?" he asked, his low voice sending vibrations through her chest that arrowed directly toward her widespread sex, compounding the distracting pulsing.

Stacia thought she might actually die if he stopped.

Thankfully, she didn't say that. Instead, she gave a slight shake of her head.

"You need to use your words, sweetheart."

She swallowed several times, shocked at how her mouth could be so flooded with moisture and yet her throat so dry. "I feel wicked." Those weren't the words she'd intended to say, but they were certainly the truth.

" Mmm ," he murmured, shifting his embrace until the bulging muscles of his upper arms pushed her breasts together, trapping his face between them. "You certainly do," he said, and then sucked the side of her breast that rested against his mouth.

Stacia's head fell back, and she bit her lower lip to keep from moaning.

This time, when he resumed his attention to her nipples and his hands wended their way toward the apex of her thighs like twin serpents, she did nothing to stop him.

***

Andrew had known her sweet little body was lush—he'd felt her plump arse pressed against his cock that day he'd taken her up on Drake with him—but he'd had no clue as to the perfect pair of breasts she was hiding beneath her prim, high-necked gowns.

Andrew adored breasts—big ones, small ones, matching ones, ones that pointed in different directions—it didn't matter, he loved them all.

But he could not recall enjoying a pair of breasts quite as much as he was doing right now. They were soft and perfectly filled his palms, tipped by small sensitive nipples that he'd joyously sucked to nubbly points. He wanted to bite them even harder and had to restrain himself. Thus far he'd caused her only pleasurable pain and wanted to keep it that way.

He nuzzled and sucked and kissed while moving toward the treasure between her thighs with agonizing slowness, imagining how she looked in his mind's eye, the soft frills of her pussy spread, swollen, and slick, her body readying itself for his—

Andrew shook himself. Christ! Why had he ever agreed to this foolish darkness?

His fingers shook when he encountered the dampness at the crease where her thigh met her sex.

He squeezed his eyes shut as his body thrummed with need, until the evidence of his overheated desire slid down his aching shaft.

He only had to push down his drawers and move her an inch or two closer and he could sink into what would assuredly be a tight, virginal cunt.

He'd had only one virgin before—Mariah—the experience so long ago that he recalled very little other than her expressing discomfort but not wishing to stop.

And you didn't stop. You put a baby into her.

That thought was almost enough to kill his erection.

Tonight, he would give Stacia pleasure, not a child.

Andrew released the nipple he'd been tormenting and was amused by the small whimper of disappointment she made.

He proceeded slowly in case she wanted him to stop, stroking up and down her inner thighs, higher each time, until the sides of his fingers caressed the soft lips of her outer sex with each stroke.

Rather than stiffen or jerk away, she pulled his head down toward her chest.

Andrew smiled and went willingly, attaching himself to a nipple as eagerly as any nursing babe, sucking little gasps and moans out of her while he covered her mound with one hand, gently cupping her and letting her become accustomed to his touch on such a private part of her body.

When she pulled his head off one breast and guided his mouth to the other, he decided she was accustomed enough and slid his middle finger between her folds, groaning at the slick heat he encountered.

"So wet for me," he muttered against her taut nipple, and then suckled her even harder as he stroked the swollen petals of her sex, easily finding her engorged, eager nub and teasing her to the brink of climax, stopping just before she toppled over the edge.

She made an irritated little growling sound that was…adorable.

There was that word again.

Andrew chuckled against the erect nubbin in his mouth, unable to resist giving her a nip.

She hissed and jolted, her hips rolling in a way that gave her the friction she wanted.

Andrew kept just far enough away from her clitoris that she was forced to take what she needed from him. "Yes," he encouraged as she bucked her hips and ground herself against him.

When she began to shake and jerk with need, he took over and fingered an orgasm from her responsive body so quickly he was left starving for more.

It was all he could do to wait until the tremors had faded before lightly rubbing his slick thumb at the base of her throbbing sex organ—careful to avoid the too-sensitive peak— drawing out her climax and sending her crashing into a second orgasm.

She was still shaking when he lifted her off his knees and laid her out on the bed.

He stood beside the bed and stared down at her through a darkness so murky it was impossible to see anything but an outline of the lush little body laid out like an irresistible buffet.

Andrew pulled the tape on his drawers and pushed them down to the floor, his hard, leaking cock eagerly springing free.

And then, before she was fully back in possession of her faculties, he spread her legs and lowered himself between them.

***

Stacia jolted at the feeling of something unspeakably soft on her thigh.

She had barely been aware when Lord Shelton— Andrew, why avoid such an intimacy after what he had just done to her — had lifted her from her wanton pose over his hips and laid her out.

Now, feeling the heat of his broad shoulders pressing against her inner thighs, she pushed up onto her elbows.

"What are you doing?" she asked breathily.

"I am licking you," he said, his tone so normal he might have said, I am going for a walk.

"But…why?"

"Because you taste good."

"I do ?"

" Mmm-hmm ," he murmured, the firm, wet swipe of his tongue running up the top of her thigh, through the crease and then continuing without pausing into her private curls.

She squawked. "My lord! What—"

"Andrew," he muttered, and then his tongue—slick, hot, and insistent—pushed between her nether lips.

Stacia was so shocked that she could only stare into the gloom—wide eyed and wide-mouthed—as he moaned and burrowed into her, shoulders shifting and nudging while he parted her with skilled, gentle fingers.

It was unbelievably, deliciously, wickedly filthy .

It was also the second-best thing she had ever felt—the first having occurred only moments before—and she was powerless to stop him.

His voice rumbled in the darkness. "If you had allowed me any light, I would make you watch what I do, Stacia."

Her jaw sagged lower.

"But it is like a coal mine in here. So, lie back, relax, and allow me to enjoy myself." He nudged her legs even wider and lowered his mouth until his tongue prodded at the opening to her body.

"Andrew!" she gasped.

"Hmm?" he murmured in between long, languorous licks, the tip of his tongue flicking into her with each stroke.

"This is—it's—"

His mouth lifted off her. "What is it?" he asked, his voice thick with desire, amusement, and curiosity.

Stacia didn't have the strength to tell him that what he was doing was wrong. How could she, when it felt so very right?

***

For one tense moment Andrew thought she might stop him. But when she flopped onto her back with a groan, he knew he'd won.

He grinned in triumph and threw himself into his pleasurable task, his plan for the next hour laid out in his mind as clearly as any military commander had ever conceived a battle strategy.

Her tiny little erection was too sensitive so soon after her orgasm, but there was plenty to keep him happily occupied until he could make her come again. He used his tongue to do what his cock was not allowed to and fucked her with leisurely precision, feasting on her sweet pussy until she forgot about how shocking all this was and her hips began to lift—her body's way of demanding more—only then did he move back to her clitoris, licking and gently sucking until she was grinding against him.

He opened his jaws wider and took as much of her cunt as he could fit into his mouth.

A moment later she cried out and lifted off the bed, body convulsing as she flooded his mouth with her bliss.

Andrew buried his tongue inside her to enjoy the echoes of her orgasm and then employed his thumb yet again to force one more climax from her body.

Only when her hands plucked at his hair to pull him off did he stop.

He prowled up her body and kissed her then, giving her a taste of herself. He could tell by her initial stiffening that she was scandalized, but then her tongue—shy and tentative—pushed into his mouth and he let her explore.

When she pulled away, he rolled them both onto their sides. "Do you like the taste of yourself?" he asked, amused when she gave another of her adorable gasps.

"Is that—" she broke off and Andrew could easily imagine her expression of mortification.

"Is it what, my adorable lover?" To his amusement, she pushed her face into the hollow of his throat—as if to hide even more than the darkness already afforded.

"Is that something everyone does?" she asked, her voice muffled against his skin.

He rolled onto his back and laughed. "If Kathryn ever lets us out of this attic you can ask the other guests that when we retire to the drawing room, it would be more entertaining than cards or spillikins."

She shoved him with a small hand. "You know what I mean—is it…normal marital activity?"

Andrew lazily stroked his cock—which was so wet with need that it felt as though he'd already ejaculated—and considered how to answer her question. "I am going to hazard a guess that it is not something Addiscombe—who strikes me as a selfish three pumps and done man if I ever saw one— ever did to his wife. If he had, perhaps she might not be such a miserable crone. What?" he asked when she made a mortified squeaking sound.

"That was an extremely vulgar assessment."

Andrew merely smiled.

"But I do like hearing the truth, for once," she added quietly.

He spread his legs just enough that he could reach his balls and tug on the tight skin of his sac.

"What are you doing down there?" she asked a moment later.

"Stroking myself."

She turned over so quickly the bed shook, he could see the vague outline of a dark shape looming over him, as if she had risen up on her knees. "You—that is, er…"

Andrew grinned lazily and waited to hear what she said next.

"Will you put the blindfold back on?"