Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

“ W hat happens now?” Penelope asked Maxwell as he closed and locked the door to his bedroom and regarded her with purposeful eyes and a hungry smile.

Discarding jacket and waistcoat onto a chair in seconds, he threw his stock after them with an air of impatience.

Downstairs, the Duke of Walden had politely but curtly dismissed the servants to their beds before leading his wife up the grand staircase with the same irresistible determination. By the time they reached the corridor of the ducal suite, Penelope’s heart was hammering with anticipation and her own confused longings.

“Now?” he said, his smile deepening as he approached her and began to take the pins from her hair with deft fingers. “Now, I strip you naked and hold you against me as nature intended. As long as you want me the way that I want you, I shall then ravish you until you scream my name.”

“Oh God, Maxwell!” Penelope choked as these shocking words swirled through her ears and into her imagination, tossing her body and soul into unpredictable waters. “I…”

The duke dropped the pins onto a table and ran his hands through her thick golden tresses, raising a handful of lustrous hair to his lips and kissing it before he put his arms around her slightly tremulous form.

“Remember last night when my tongue stroked you so slowly and gently at first and then harder and faster as you responded? Do you remember how I teased you by pausing before starting again?”

Maxwell’s lips found hers once more as he asked these deeply intimate questions, and Penelope could only nod. He had done as he described several times last night, and his touch had eventually led to the most intense peak of pleasure she had yet experienced.

“It was my fingers that entered you last night while my mouth was occupied, but it will be another part of me that fills you tonight. It will be larger, but I promise you it will feel even better.”

As the duke talked, his hands were working on the buttons and tapes of Penelope’s ball gown, loosening them as competently as any lady’s maid. She wondered vaguely at how he had developed such skill — and with whom he had practiced it, perhaps in the mysterious demimonde — but such musings were soon lost in the sensation of silk flowing down over her body and pooling at her ankles.

They both looked at the circle of pale silk around Penelope’s feet. Then, turning back to one another, Maxwell leaned forward to take several more kisses from Penelope’s willing lips before he pulled his shirt up over his head and tossed it into a corner.

While she had seen her husband stripped to the waist several times now, including that first night when she had sneaked into his bedroom at Huntingdon Manor, the sight still struck Penelope with a peculiar awe and thrill, her hands inexorably drawn to the warm, faintly haired and muscular lines of his chest and shoulders.

“These too,” Maxwell said, loosening the simple stays at Penelope’s waist and ribs and then pushing the straps of her petticoats from her shoulders so that a cascade of white linen and lace joined the silk on the ground.

Penelope was now naked except for the fine silk stockings tightly gartered at her thighs and the diamond solitaire at her throat. His hands lost no time in roaming across the pale, delicate curves of her exposed body, soothing, arousing, and heralding his intentions.

As Maxwell kissed her with an explorative tongue, she felt one of her breasts cupped lightly in his broad palm. Another hand caressed her buttock and then brought up her silken thigh to his waist, where the firm swelling at his groin now pushed lightly against her belly through the fabric of his trousers. Daring herself, she slid her hand down from his chest and tentatively touched this hardness.

Unlike previous nights when he had stepped back from such contact, this time Maxwell didn’t move and only stroked Penelope’s face, his breath coming a little faster than before.

“That part of me is for you alone,” Maxwell said in a voice that was deep and strained. “Do you want it tonight?”

Want it? Should a proper young lady really want her husband to spread her legs and thrust his manhood inside her as she welcomed him joyfully? Penelope guessed that many old matrons of the ton would certainly condemn such feelings as indecent, but at this moment, she didn’t care. Her answer was very simple.

“Yes! Oh yes, I want you, Maxwell,” she told him honestly, her groin aching and throbbing as she felt his shaft in her hand. “I want all of you. Ahhh!”

Maxwell’s hand swept around now to the front of Penelope’s thighs before his fingers lightly ran the length of her slit, causing her to cry out at the jolt of sensation triggered by his touch. Raising his hand between them, they could both see the slippery texture of her moisture on his fingertips, and Penelope felt both vulnerable and excited.

“Yes, I believe you do want me,” Maxwell said, and a moment later, he was unfastening the buttons at his waist, his efforts aided by Penelope’s hands pushing down the fabric of trousers and underwear, making a dark heap at his feet in contrast to the pale fabric around Penelope.

It was not the discarded clothing that now drew Penelope’s eye but the fine manhood of her husband rearing between his thighs. She had already known that Maxwell was handsome in feature and well-made in form, but the display of this substantial organ somehow accentuated and focused his other attractions.

“I want you,” she said again, raising pleading eyes to his as her hand reached out tentatively once more towards him.

“You want this?” he whispered in Penelope’s ear, taking her hand and putting it directly on the smooth, warm, and throbbing shaft. “Tell me how you want it.”

“I want you to do what husbands do with their wives,” Penelope panted. “I need you to make me your wife tonight… Ohhh…”

Her words died away into soft whimpering as Maxwell’s hand cupped her mount of Venus and then allowed his fingers to dabble lightly within.

“What husbands do with their wives?” he repeated with soft laughter. “I cannot tell you what other men do with their wives, but I certainly know what I wish to do with mine…”

The duke’s substantial rod throbbed powerfully in Penelope’s fingers as he slipped two of his fingers into her tight opening, expertly caressing the swollen button of pleasure above with his thumb at the same time.

“…I wish her to melt in my hands,” he added, causing Penelope to squirm against him now with the powerful sensations he was provoking and the knowledge that tonight, their games would go further than she had yet known.

The pleasure in her core built relentlessly with Maxwell’s fingering and accompanying kisses, the sense of his pulse through the shaft in her hand providing an erotic counterpoint to her own heartbeat.

Stimulated beyond bearing, Penelope heard herself cry out loudly and clutch at her husband’s shoulders for support as waves of physical enjoyment peaked and swept through her.

“Maxwell! Yes! I want you… so much… Ohhhh…”

Swept off her feet very literally in the aftermath of her pleasure, Penelope was borne to the bed in the duke’s strong arms and laid down on the smooth bed cover, writhing towards him with every physical impulse.

With a deep and prolonged kiss, Maxwell took up his station above Penelope’s body, his tongue presaging a more thrilling physical intrusion still to be accomplished. Her husband’s body was warm and strong between her parted thighs, and the touch of his manhood at her entrance was a shock of excitement more than one of fear.

“Now, Maxwell, please,” Penelope urged, raising her hips and then moaning sharply as she found her slight shifting had already embedded the head of his organ inside her throbbing passage.

“So eager for me, Duchess Penelope?” he breathed roughly now, pressing further into his wife’s untried depths. “Good. But tell me if you need me to stop or go more slowly.”

“Do not stop!” Penelope blurted in dismay at the very idea, desperately now needing the sensation of fullness that his body offered her.

She kissed him with every ounce of her passion as Maxwell finally buried himself inside her up to the hilt. Any initial discomfort from the accommodation of so large and unfamiliar a guest was quickly dissipated by the sense of slick, ecstatic union. It was an incredible feeling but also one that Penelope had somehow been waiting for all her adult life.

Maxwell moved slowly and gently at first, allowing Penelope time to become accustomed to the interplay of their bodies and new sensations. Gradually, he began to increase the pace and force of his rhythm. Penelope soon realized that another wave of ecstasy was building deep inside her with each stroke of her husband’s manhood.

She wrapped her legs around him and sobbed with the frantic pleasure of it all as Maxwell slid his hands under her buttocks and continued to grind and thrust purposefully. His own deeper groans of enjoyment close to her ears only added to the sense of sexual delirium.

Penelope did scream Maxwell’s name as a second culmination of ecstasy overwhelmed her. Her loss of control seemed to send Maxwell into his own frenzy of cries and powerful thrusts. The situation and her state of mind and body both seemed incredible and disorienting for a few moments, but still, she was safe in his arms.

Completion of the sexual act itself was soothing in some way, too, as pulse beats slowed and the waves began to recede. Penelope knew that she belonged to her husband now in every way. The Duke of Walden’s arms were around her, his ring on her finger, and his claim to her body entirely fulfilled at last.

“My beautiful wife,” Maxwell murmured as if confirming her thoughts. “My perfect duchess."

The softness and luster of Penelope’s hair made Maxwell think of spun gold as he stroked and kissed her face after their first complete congress. More than ever, she looked to him like an impossibly beautiful princess from some fairy tale, her long hair unbound, her cheeks flushed, and the rapt expression on her elfin face entirely focused on him.

“Maxwell,” she breathed, a smile of wonder growing on her features and reaching up to her clear green eyes.

Maxwell returned that smile while allowing his eyes to take in his wife’s full form. Storybook princesses were never shown so delightfully disheveled with bare breasts and damp thighs after their king, prince, or knight had claimed them. God! He could gaze at Penelope all night long, or rather, he could gaze at her until his instincts prompted him to mount her again.

“Is it always like that?” she asked him. “If it is, then I do not understand why so many do not seem to care for it, especially respectable women.”

“Perhaps they only pretend, or perhaps their men are too hasty. Well, we shall have to do it again,” he announced playfully, kissing her jaw and neck. “Many times in order to be sure of your enjoyment. I have no doubt at all of my own.”

“It felt like we both lost control, but our bodies still knew what to do,” Penelope said dreamily, seeming to luxuriate in the light touches of Maxwell’s lips and the hands that had already found their way back to her breasts.

Yes, indeed, they had lost control, Maxwell admitted to himself with a twinge of chagrin. He had not intended to deflower Penelope that night, having already deferred the pleasure for so long and assuming he could wait days or weeks more as required.

He had even considered the wisdom of withholding his seed in their congress until he felt sure the time was right for Penelope to bear him an heir. There were, after all, many ways in which men and women might enjoy one another without the risk of getting a child.

But tonight, Penelope’s distress and underlying need for him had both been so strong and so visceral. It had seemed absolutely necessary in the moment that he brought her away from the ball that he should physically possess his wife and assure her of his care and protection.

Then, all his previous pondering and careful consideration of the future had gone up in smoke in their great bonfire of passion. That evening, Maxwell had even cast aside the opportunity to make several new and influential connections in favor of caring for Penelope. He had never done something so cavalier before, always feeling able to properly balance and service both his desires and his personal interests.

“It is not good to lose control entirely,” he reflected with a slight sigh, speaking more to himself than to his wife. “There are still duties, responsibilities, and opportunities that cannot be sacrificed to physical urges.”

Penelope frowned a little and turned on her side to face him in the bed.

“Do you regret what we just did?” she asked with a flushed confusion that touched and aroused him all over again. “Are you wishing we had not come away from the ball?”

“No, not at all,” Maxwell said swiftly, kissing the puzzlement away from Penelope’s expression.

After all, the deed was done now, his wife was claimed, and his seed had already been spilled. There was no going back, only forward, and he took pride in facing whatever consequences might arrive without flinching.

“Tonight, we have had our passion, but tomorrow, we should return to our plans,” he added. “There are connections to be made and views to be won over. You are essential in all my schemes, Duchess Penelope.”

Unbidden, Maxwell found his hand caressing the full curving length of her body, lightly skimming over shoulder, breast, hip, and flank.

“Essential?” she laughed, still slightly confused by what he was saying but also warming again to his touch.

Denied release for so long until tonight, the duke’s sex was already twitching at the thought of a second sensual bout with his gorgeous golden duchess. Why not? He was a mature and accomplished man who should be able to handle both his desire for his wife and his social and business ambitions. The best way to remove distraction was to indulge it in its proper place.

“This feels essential, doesn’t it?” Maxwell asked, rolling above Penelope once again and twining his fingers in hers above her head.

With flushed abandon and instinctive cries, Penelope gave herself over to her husband’s incitement and fulfillment, again and again until dawn.