Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

L ottie still tasted Brandon on her lips as he rolled her to her back and nudged her legs wide, his palms branding her inner thighs as he urged her to open to him. His heated emerald gaze was on her cunny, and it occurred to her that no lover had ever studied her thus, with the lamps blazing. Likely, she should feel at least a hint of embarrassment. Their previous couplings had been frantic, and they had remained clothed. This was the first time they were naked—save her stockings, of course—and in a bed together, but it all felt intimate and wonderful.

There was no embarrassment now. There was only desire, raw and wild and unfettered. Sucking his cock, knowing she had the power to make him lose himself completely, had proven a potent aphrodisiac. She was aching for him.

“You’re so wet,” he praised. “You liked taking my cock down your throat, didn’t you?”

“Mmm.” She spread her legs wider, shameless, taking her breasts in her hands and toying with her nipples. “I loved it.”

The truth. Perhaps she was a wanton, but she didn’t care. She had spent her marriage wallowing in self-loathing, thinking herself insufficient. But she had come a long way from the na?ve young bride who had married Grenfell. She was a woman now, and she was in control of her body, her desires. She had learned that she was enough, damn it. And she would seize what she wanted with both hands.

All further thought abandoned her when he spoke again.

“You’ve had your dessert, and now I must have mine.” He lowered his dark head, and he lapped lightly at her swollen clitoris.

The breath fled her in a rush, her head falling back against the pillow. No more words now. They were beyond her. She could only feel. And oh, what she felt. He wasted no time in thoroughly devouring her, using his lips and tongue and teeth, laving and sucking and licking. Now, it was her turn to be helpless, awash in the pleasure he bestowed upon her.

He slipped a long finger inside her as he worked her pearl with his mouth, and she planted her feet on the mattress, arching to bring him deeper. Her breaths were ragged, her eyes closed as she surrendered to him. This night, she was his. She would forget all else. Tomorrow and whatever it brought was far away, and she had until the early morning hours to savor him.

A second finger joined the first, pumping in and out as he licked and sucked. Lottie’s hips swiveled, seeking more. Her orgasm, when it hit her, was swift and powerful. She clenched on him, feeling as if a part of her splintered into a thousand jagged shards. He stayed with her as she rode out the waves of pleasure on his tongue and fingers, and when the last ripple of bliss ebbed, he rolled her onto her stomach.

He brushed her curls to one side and kissed her nape, his breath fanning hotly over her bare skin. And then his mouth moved lower, following the line of her spine all the way down until he reached the base. She knew the sharp pressure of his teeth as he bit her right cheek, then kissed the sting away.

“On your hands and knees,” he commanded, his voice a hoarse rasp, roughened with the force of his own need.

Her limbs felt leaden, her entire body sated. It took her a moment to do as he asked, lifting herself onto her forearms and knees. He was positioned behind her, and she turned her head, watching him over her shoulder as he caressed her bottom with one hand and stroked his rapidly thickening cock with the other.

“You’re ready again?” she asked, equal parts amazed and amused.

But then he slicked his rigid shaft up and down her wet folds, and her levity instantly died a swift death.

“You tell me, Venus. What does it feel like?”

His grin was potently male as he continued rubbing the blunt head through her, until the tip prodded her entrance.

She inhaled sharply and exhaled on a moan of helpless need. “It feels like you are.”

“For you, I’m ready all day. Every day. All night, too.” One thrust, and he was planted deep, the angle so exquisite that a strangled sound emerged from her that she scarcely recognized as hers. “I want you to come on my cock the way you did on my tongue.”

And she wanted it too. Wanted him so much it frightened her, for the knowledge that this arrangement of theirs would necessarily end soon was never far.

He withdrew almost completely, only to glide into her again.

“Oh,” she gasped, her cunny shuddering convulsively around his length in the precursor to another climax.

It was building already, a fire he was cleverly, expertly stoking as he thrust in and out of her, his hips slamming into her bottom, his ballocks swinging against her in a rhythm that grew increasingly frantic. Faster, deeper, harder.

Her entire world consisted of nothing more than pleasure. Pure and holy, raw and rude, animalistic and unabashed. The mindless bliss of it all was almost too much. She grasped the bedclothes, panting now, needing every thrust he gave her, pushing back to get him closer. As if the weight of his own need became too much, he collapsed against her, his chest to her back, his mouth on her nape, her ear, as he thrust and thrust and thrust, his motions growing jerky, his hands holding tightly to her hips.

She was his in this moment, so completely and thoroughly taken by him, their skin slick from perspiration, their breaths ragged in the stillness of the room, the sounds of their bodies colliding beautifully obscene.

“Come for me, Venus.”

She didn’t know if she’d been waiting for his permission or if the low, velvet sound of his baritone was what pushed her over the edge. It didn’t matter, because in the next second, she reached her pinnacle again, quaking and quivering from the force of her release, screaming his name into the pillow.

“That’s it. Come all over me.” His movements grew jerky, and she knew he was close.

Another few pumps, and the hot spurt of his seed filled her along with his cock, and she whimpered at the indescribable joy of it. The rightness and the ecstasy. The full force of his weight was on her now, pinning her to the mattress, his heart thumping wildly against her back in a pattern that resembled her own.

He kissed her nape again, her temple, her shoulder, murmuring things she could scarcely hear over the rushing in her ears. And as she lay there beneath him, reluctant for him to move and sever their connection, Lottie thought once more that it was a very good thing that her heart was safe and she hadn’t fallen in love with the Duke of Brandon.

Brandon sifted glorious strands of cinnamon-gold through his fingers, an immense feeling of immeasurable contentment pervading. If not for Pandy at home, he would never leave this room. He’d stay here, basking in Lottie, happily losing himself in her sinful curves, for the rest of his days. The world went on beyond the four walls sheltering them, but for this charmed space in time, how easy it was to pretend that this idyll need never end.

If he had his way, it wouldn’t. He wanted to wake up every morning with her in his arms, in his bed, where she belonged. To kiss her awake. To make love to her whenever he desired, rather than in furtive coupling sessions.

“There is something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Lottie said into the comfortable hush that had lulled between them, looking mussed and lovely and as if she had been thoroughly bedded.

Because she had.

Brandon couldn’t contain his self-satisfied grin as he gazed down at her. “You can ask me anything.”

They had dozed for a time after making love, Lottie curled against his side, his arm wrapped around her waist. He had awoken before her, content to lie there with her, listening to the soft, even sound of each breath she took, pleased beyond measure. Plotting any conceivable means he could conspire to persuade her to marry him.

Because he loved her. He had to acknowledge it, if only to himself. The feeling was still there, not at all faded now that they had made love and slept. If anything, it had taken root and was growing already, quite akin to a shoot in a garden.

“The chair,” she said, jolting him from his maudlin thoughts.

He blinked at her, bemused, wondering what the devil she was talking about. “What chair?”

“Surely you’re aware of the rumor circling concerning a certain chair you had fashioned specifically to facilitate…sexual congress.”

Ah.

Heat licked up the back of his neck, making his ears prickle. “That chair.”

Her eyebrows rose. “So there is a chair, then?”

“There is indeed a chair, but it isn’t mine.”

“I knew there was a chair,” she pronounced, as if she had just solved some grand mystery of the ages. “But whose is it, then, if not yours?”

“Kingham’s, I suppose. It was a crude joke he orchestrated. King is quite a genius when it comes to inventing things, whether it be elixirs or chairs or God knows what. It was meant to be used for…er, pleasuring two women at once.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

He swallowed hard. “Now, it’s at Wingfield Hall. I’ve never personally made use of it, though I suppose some Society revelers may have.”

“I didn’t realize that Kingham was so talented,” she said idly. “I don’t know him very well, of course.”

“He’s a genius. More often than not, an evil one.” He kissed the tip of her nose, an odd sensation welling up inside his chest. “But enough about that devil. I’d prefer for him to stay out of our bed, if you don’t mind.”

A teasing grin curved her lush mouth, her blue eyes dancing with laughter. “Never say the great Duke of Brandon is jealous of the Duke of Kingham.”

“Of course not,” he scoffed.

Her lips twitched. “Methinks you doth protest too much.”

Maybe he had been hasty in his reply. And he couldn’t deny that the mere thought of King touching Lottie or kissing her or—God forbid—more made him want to throw her over his shoulder and carry her away like some marauding Viking of old.

“Guilty,” he allowed with a rueful smile, kissing her cheek, her jaw. “I must admit, I want you all to myself.”

He lifted his head, and the levity fled both of them as their gazes held.

She cupped his jaw. “You do have me all to yourself for tonight.”

“For tonight,” he repeated, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

He wanted more from her than stolen moments. Wanted more than secret meetings and shagging in the shadows against a door. He wanted to be her husband. Wanted to be at her side.

“When I said I didn’t know Kingham well, I meant it,” she said softly, perhaps sensing his tumultuous mood. “He and I have never been intimately acquainted.”

He had no right to feel the primitive rush of relief coursing over him. It was certainly no business of his to know whom she had taken as a lover in the past. Christ knew he had more than his fair share of lovers in his own murky history.

“You needn’t tell me that,” he said gruffly. “It wouldn’t matter to me if you had. Our pasts bear no hold over our present or our future.”

Future —a dangerous word. He knew it the moment that she stiffened at its utterance. She was so determined there could be none for them. Lovemaking was all she would countenance.

And so he distracted her in the best way he knew how.

He took her mouth with his, kissing her slowly. Tenderly. Patiently. Showing her with deeds rather than words that he would woo her, take care of her. That he would allow her to take control and choose what she wanted from him, whether it be pleasure or something infinitely more.

She softened, the tension easing from her as she wrapped her arms around his neck and rolled against him, her pebbled nipples and rounded breasts crushed against his chest. He gave her his tongue, and she made a low sound of surrender. His cock rose to attention, prodding her belly. He wanted her again. Couldn’t get his fill of her.

Fortunately, Lottie was similarly voracious. She hooked a bare leg over his hip beneath the bedclothes, bringing her slick, hot cunny into contact with his groin. Beneath the coverlet and sheet, his fingers unerringly found her center, tracing over her seam to swirl over her clitoris. She moaned into his kiss, feeding him her tongue now, twining her fingers in his hair as she pumped her hips into his hand, seeking.

He grasped his cock, dragging it up and down her folds before sliding into her with one deep thrust. She was wet and welcoming, tightening on him instantly, and it was pure bliss as he began a rhythm, gliding in and out of her. Not just bliss. Perfection. Her body had been made for his.

Their tongues tangled, their kiss growing more frantic. He intended to shag her senseless this night. As many times as he could. To fill her with his spend. The thought made him harder, his cock even more determined as he drove into Lottie’s sweetly pulsing cunny. He teased her bud, and she cried out, clamping down on him as she came.

He tore his lips from hers, raining kisses down her throat, over her breast. Taking a nipple in his mouth, he sucked hard as he thrust into her again and again. He was close. So close.

He rolled to his back, pulling her astride him, his cock still gloved inside her velvet heat. “Ride me, Venus.”

She was atop him, all curves and copper-flecked cream and wild-rose pink, from her pussy to her nipples to her lips. Her hair was a riotous halo of cinnamon curls, her breasts full and high. A goddess, a conqueror. She undulated against him, her palms planted on his shoulders as she fucked him.

He watched, mesmerized by the sight of his harsh, ruddy cock impaling her pretty feminine flesh again and again, trying to stave off his own release for as long as possible. But she felt so good, so slick, a mixture of her desire and his own seed coating them both, and he thought he might happily die from the sheer pleasure of it—being inside her, watching her ride him and take what she needed, a marauding Venus intent upon finding her own climax. He leaned up and caught her other nipple in his mouth as she rocked down on him, taking him deep.

She moaned his name, head tilted back, eyes closed, and continued her rhythm. He was moving too now, helping her, his hips leaving the mattress to thrust upward as she received him. A symphony of sounds swirled around them—skin colliding, ragged breaths, soft moans, the creaking of the bed as their lovemaking became more frenzied and desperate.

Suddenly, she seized on him, crying out as her back bowed and a new rush of wetness bathed his cock, spasms of her cunny bringing him swiftly to the edge. He couldn’t last. Clasping her waist, he guided her up and down his length once, twice, thrice more, and then he surged upward a final time, filling her with the hot burst of his seed.

His heart galloping, he released her nipple and sank back against the bed, more certain than ever of one thing.

Whether she liked it or not, Lottie was his.