Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

S ophia shivered on the edge of the mahogany desk, lying half in repose with her husband on his knees, between her thighs. She would ride a hundred races and win if it meant feeling his tongue and his caresses like this, as if she had transcended to another realm of existence where only pleasure and good things were allowed, and all bad things were forbidden.

I have missed this, she wanted to tell him, but only soft moans and rasping gasps could escape her lips. Besides, how could she say that she missed what she had barely had? Unless it was the scarcity that made her miss it, like sampling the most delicious tart at a ball once and never being able to find that same taste again.

“Oh, Thomas! Yes… yes!” she cried out as his tongue hit her swollen bud just right, paired with the exquisite pulse of his fingers deep inside her.

She had been building towards this moment, braced for the ecstasy, and as it struck her like a crashing wave against the cliff of her resolve, she was not disappointed. What she had asked for, thus far, had not been a waste of the favor.

“Yes!” she panted, gripping fistfuls of papers, not caring if they were important, as pleasure in its rawest form powered through her veins.

Her muscles seized, and her neck arched, her skin flushed from head to toe, her lungs straining for each glorious breath. Her legs trembled on Thomas’s shoulders, her arms shaking with the effort to prop herself up, leaving her more wonderfully exhausted than when she used to take long rides in the countryside.

As her bliss ebbed, Thomas withdrew his fingers with teasing slowness and tasted her one last time before kissing his way back up her half-clad form. Her lovely dress lay on the floor, though he had been careful not to tear anything this time, leaving her in her petticoat, chemisette, and stays.

“I’ll never tire of hearing you cry out my name like that,” he murmured as he kissed her lips. “It surprises me every time.”

She kissed him back, running her hands through his dark hair. “Why does it surprise you?”

“To hear such pleasure where there used to be such loathing—how could it not?” he said with a wry chuckle.

“It is hard to loathe a man who makes me feel… such things,” she protested.

She was about to reprimand him further, but he hoisted her off the desk with one powerful arm. Her legs wrapped around his waist for balance, and as he carried her to the thick sheepskin rug that stretched before the crackling fireplace, their locked gazes crackled with far more ferocity.

Like this, she could have gazed into his lupine eyes forever, feeling the thrum of his hunger feeding her own until they were both starving—ravenous for one another.

But as he sank to the floor, taking her with him, a slight tremor of anxiety rippled through the still-pulsing haze of her bliss. This was what she had actually asked for—not anything she had already experienced, but what she had not.

There is nothing to be afraid of, she told herself. He won’t hurt you.

The realization was a strange one, as was the certainty of her thought. Not too long ago, she had feared that he would exact a Pratt’s revenge on her. But instead, he had kissed her. Maybe he didn’t realize what he had actually done with that kiss—ridding her of the last bit of her fear of him. Maybe she hadn’t realized it until that moment.

Thomas held her in his lap, his fingers worked deftly at the fastenings of her stays, loosening them with ease. He tossed the undergarment and her chemisette to the side, before capturing her lips in a slow, sensual kiss that ignited fresh desire between her thighs. A need to feel him once more.

Her petticoat followed the undergarments, until she sat naked in his lap, feeling it was rather unfair.

“I think we ought to make this more equal,” she said quietly, reaching for the fastening of his trousers.

He caught her wrists with one hand and raised her arms above her head, his strength as thrilling as it was intimidating.

“There was no part of the favor that said you could touch me,” he teased, kissing her again. “I asked for clarity, so if you can’t feel the satisfaction of running your hands over my skin, over my manhood, then your wording is to blame.”

She blinked at him, gasping as he suddenly laid her down with her hands still above her head. “But how… are we to… you know… if I can’t touch you? I must touch you.”

“Then you’ll have to beg,” he replied, fire glinting in his eyes.

She didn’t know whether to knee him or plead immediately. “I told you, I don’t beg.”

“We shall see about that.” With his free hand, he tugged off his cravat and, with a smile, tied it around her wrists. “Move those hands without my say-so, and I’ll have to tie you more… decisively.”

She opened her mouth to complain, but the sight of him stopped her. He sank back on his haunches and, with tortuous, delicious slowness, began to peel away his clothing. He shrugged his tailcoat off his shoulders, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and then—the moment she had been longing for—he pulled his shirt up over hard, defined muscle.

Who sculpted you?

She savored the divine image of him, her eyes running over his ridged abdomen, his broad chest, those tempting dips that slanted diagonally from his hips to beneath his waistband.

Her hands curled into fists, determined not to beg for the singular pleasure of being able to touch him, being able to explore that warm skin at her leisure, trailing kisses across it as he had done to her.

“What do you say?” he asked, his hands falling to the fastening of his trousers.

“I am… quite content,” she replied, stifling the grin that wanted to curve her lips.

He shrugged and got to his feet, kicking off his boots. Standing there in the bronzed glow of the firelight, looking like a Greek statue, he held her gaze as he undid the fastening.

She gasped—she couldn’t help it—as he pushed his trousers down his muscular thighs and sculpted calves, and stepped out of them. There were so many things she wished to touch, not least the swollen length of hard flesh that left her breathless. She knew the mechanics of copulation, more or less, and could not even begin to fathom how such a thing would fit inside her.

But I am eager to discover…

“If you can’t obey, perhaps this is all I will give,” he said.

She swallowed thickly. “You would be breaking your promise.”

“You said you wanted me,” he replied with a sly smile. “Here I am.”

“I won’t beg,” she reiterated, her resolve crumbling with every subtle flex of muscle and the promise of what he could give her.

He kneeled down and braced his hands on either side of her head, leaning over her but not touching her, not giving her the slightest bit of what she craved. He dipped his head and brought his lips to within a whisper of her skin, but he did not kiss it, then proceeded to make his way down her body in the same fashion until she thought she might explode with frustration.

Leaning over, he retrieved something from the pocket of his tailcoat. Something very familiar, indeed—the headscarf she had worn to hold her hair down when she won the race.

Sitting back on his haunches, he lightly whipped the scarf towards her, the edge catching her stomach in a light tingle. He trailed the end of it downward, over her mound and down between her thighs. The gossamer friction pushed Sophia towards true madness—she really would burst if he would not touch her.

If I give him what he wants, I get what I want.

It seemed a fair exchange as she bucked and writhed in exasperation, the end of the scarf brushing over her thighs, her stomach, her bare breasts. Not nearly enough to satisfy her curiosity or her desire.

“How does it feel to yearn for the touch of a man you should hate?” he whispered, the scarf trailing over her neck.

“It feels… like there is no… sense in a feud at all, or in… hatred,” she gasped. “It feels like you ought to give me… the favor that I asked for.”

He bent his head to her ear. “Then beg, my wife.”

“Please,” she moaned. “Please, give me what I want.”

“So polite.” He loosened the ties around her wrists with one tug. “I reward politeness.”

“Then do so,” she urged.

His lips finally touched her yearning skin, kissing down the curve of her neck and her heaving bosom. Cupping one breast, he took the pert, pink nipple of the other in his mouth, surrounding it with that warmth before he sucked.

The dormant fireworks of what he had done on the desk suddenly reignited, flurries of sparks spreading across her chest. Her hips bucked slightly, her back arching off the sheepskin.

She did not have to wait long, as he kissed his way to her other nipple, his hand gliding down the curve of her waist to the swell of her hip, where he grabbed the soft flesh as if he wanted to pin her hips to the floor, to stop her from trying to rush him with her bucking.

It had the opposite effect, her legs wrapping around his waist and pulling him closer.

“So impatient,” he murmured, lightly biting her lip.

“It’s what you have done to me,” she told him, half-gasping as she felt that hard length brush against her for the first time. “I can only learn… what I am taught.”

A moan rumbled in the back of his throat as he eased his length between her slick folds, gliding it back and forth, rubbing her bundle of nerves into a frenzy of immediate need. She couldn’t wait anymore. Her daydreams were about to become reality, and she was more than ready to complicate things.

“Do you want me?” he purred.

“Yes,” she gasped. “Oh, y?—”

He eased inside her before she could finish her breathless sentence, just a little at first. She grabbed his powerful arms and dug her fingernails into his flesh, wide-eyed with astonishment as an entirely new sensation bristled up from the depths of her. There was a slight sting, but none of the pain that her friends had warned her about. Then again, they had not told her about the pleasurable part either.

“Does that hurt?” he asked, real concern in his voice for a moment.

She shook her head. “None, though I might… have drawn… blood with my fingernails.”

“I can bear that well enough, as long as you are satisfied,” he said with a soft laugh, slowly rocking his hips forward, pushing deeper, inch by glorious inch.

Buried to the hilt inside her, he stilled for a moment, as if to let her grow accustomed to the size of him and the new, glorious sensation that threatened to send her hurtling into paradise, never to return.

Who would want the mundanity of the outside world when they could have this?

“Is that… it?” she asked, puzzled when he had not moved again.

He chuckled. “I’d take offense if I didn’t know what you meant. I was trying to be gentlemanly.”

“Don’t. For once, don’t.”

His eyes darkened with hunger. “If you insist.”

He pulled back to the point where she feared he was going to withdraw altogether, then plunged back into her, sending her soaring into a fresh realm of pleasure, the glide of him awakening an entirely new set of nerves she had not known existed. All linked to that crackling bundle, all branching off from the core of her, where a furnace of euphoria thrummed and glowed, building to an inferno.

Within a few minutes of earth-shattering, powerful strokes, she began to meet his thrusts instinctively, feeling him plunge deeper each time. It was intoxicating, and she could not get enough, her head spinning as their lips met in burning kisses and her hands explored what had been forbidden, running over his muscular back and the swell of his firm buttocks.

“Yes, husband!” she gasped, utterly dizzy with the magic of their lovemaking. “Yes! Like that… oh, my husband… yes!”

Thomas thrust into her with abandon, but not without attention to detail, his hips curving up with each measured stroke to create potent friction against her hidden pearl. And like his fingertips and his tongue before, each brush stoked the fires of her ecstasy, until the flames were licking at the edges of her climax.

“Yes… oh, keep going… keep?—”

Her words were strangled by an almighty surge of untold pleasure, ripping through her with such blissful violence that all she could do was claw at his back and grip his arms to ride out the fearsome, glorious wave of it.

He kissed the cries of bliss from her lips, thrusting harder, adding fresh sparks to the blaze that had already taken hold of her. She could barely breathe, her neck arched, her back bowed, her eyes closed, her hips still urgently meeting his while her thighs shook and her head swam.

“Oh, Sophia,” he growled, nipping her shoulder as he suddenly stilled inside her. “My wife… my Sophia.”

The pulse of him drew out the pleasure he had coaxed from her, the wave rising and falling, rising and falling, until she hoped it would last forever. And as he thrust twice more, slowly and deliberately, she smiled against his temple as she kissed it, realizing that they had reached their conclusion together.

He collapsed on top of her, wrapping his arms around her. Still buried deep inside her, he nuzzled her neck and trailed lazy kisses up to her jaw.

“I think we should race again sometime,” he murmured, and she felt him smile against her skin.

“I doubt that would be sustainable,” she replied, holding him tighter, reveling in the sensation of his hot, bare skin against hers. “The horses would tire long before I do. It wouldn’t be fair to them to have to race every time I want this.”

“Perhaps not,” he mumbled, sighing contentedly.

They stayed like that until he became too heavy, and he rolled them onto their sides, keeping her close to him as they lay together before the fire. She rested her head against his chest and curled into his side, wondering if this was what people meant by feeling ‘safe’ with someone. She doubted she had ever felt so safe, wrapped up in his arms, in the privacy of his study, bound to him by vows and… a feeling she didn’t dare to voice.

It’s too early to know what it is, she told herself, though she felt it anyway as she draped her arm over his stomach and closed her eyes, the rise and fall of his chest lulling her into sleep.

He might have made me beg, but he won’t make me confess first.

She smiled, wondering if this was the first day of the rest of her life. A life happier than she had ever imagined.

Thomas was gone when Sophia awoke, her hand reaching for the spot where he had fallen asleep beside her. Still half asleep herself, she frowned as her fingertips touched a piece of paper.

By the firelight, she read the note.

Sophia,

I did not want to wake you. You looked too peaceful. I am glad that I could give you what you wanted, but you were right—it was a borrowed night. A favor of which there can be only one. It cannot be repeated.

I shall see you in the morning.

Thomas.

She read it over at least five times, trying to find some of the warmth, affection, and passion in that short note. She found nothing but a stinging in her chest that made her flinch as if she had been struck. Had this been the ploy all along, to get her to feel something for him so he could brutally reject her? Was it the feud in a different form?

She didn’t want to believe such of him, but she did believe such of the Pratts, and he was one, above all else.

What have I done?

She shambled to her feet and threw on her dress, tossing the note into the fireplace before she ran out of the study, ran from any memory of what had happened and any foolish hope of what might have been. She had made a mistake—a gigantic one.

Once more, once again—even though she hated to admit it—he was right. He had asked her if she knew what she was asking of him, and, in truth, she did not.

Damn him. Damn him more than I have ever damned a Pratt.

This did end up making things complicated. Too complicated for her to bear right now, and she would not stick around to find out what that meant. She knew herself; she would not be able to go down for breakfast in the morning and pretend that all was well. After this, she would not be able to pretend at all that she didn’t hate him—and want him—with every fiber of her being.