Page 36 of A Virgin for the Cruel Duke

“We will make it alright,” Stephen promised between kisses, the surety in his voice melting the shard of ice that had lodged in her stomach. “We will make it right together.”

The two of them made their way across the room, Stephen walking her backward onto the bed and kissing all the while as if they couldn’t bear to be parted even for a moment. As the mattress hit the back of her knees Elizabeth let herself fall backward and edged herself further up the bed, looking up at him, inviting.

“I want you,” she said. “As my husband. As your wife.” and the noise he let out in that moment was gratifying.

“Are you…” he said, throat working. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “Please.” and it seemed that was enough for him because he immediately divested himself of jacket, cravat, and waistcoat before lowering himself over her on the bed. Elizabeth whimpered softly as his mouth joined hersagain, the weight of his body pressing down on her somehow comforting and thrilling all at once.

Stephen’s kisses moved across her jaw, nipping at her earlobe and producing a sharp little cry that seemed to particularly please him, before starting down her throat. Elizabeth was pleased that this time he didn’t feel the need to ask permission for every single touch and caress, and was instead putting his earlier discoveries to good use.

Thrilled by her own boldness Elizabeth canted her hips up against that place where he was already swelling beneath his breeches, and the groan he let out ignited something deep and primal within her. When Stephen pulled back she wanted to grasp and clutch him to her but then he was yanking off his shirt, looking down at her with eyes that burned, and all of a sudden her dress felt too tight, hot against her skin.

“What was it you said to me the other night?” Stephen said, chest heaving. “That it was unfair for you to be the only one of us undressed?” and, though Elizabeth would deny it if ever asked, she scrambled to join him in disrobing.

Clumsy with desire, he fumbled a little at the laces on the back of her dress, and they both laughed. “Wicked,” he said, sucking a kiss against her throat. “To laugh at your lord husband.” Elizabeth laughed again at that only for it to turn into another moan as his hand found her nipple and he rolled it expertly between his fingers.

“Oh Stephen,” she breathed, voice taught with desire. “I want you. In the manner of man and wife I want you.”

“Turn around then,” he said, those strong hands of his on her shoulders, spinning and guiding her back onto the bed. Elizabeth’s eyes raked up his body, all tightly coiled muscles and fine dustings of hair, and thought she might expire with need if he didn’t make good on his promise very soon.

“Lay back,” Stephen said, the gentleness in his voice belying the naked want in his eyes. “And let me ready you properly.”

Readying her meant more of what they had done the other night, and Elizabeth writhed and moaned and cried out beneath the ministrations of his tongue. But then he paused and pressed a finger against that opening between her legs and said, “May I?” as if that wasn’t the thing she wanted most in the world at that very moment.

It was entirely different to the work of his tongue, work he resumed upon her assent as he slid first one and then two fingers inside her. It felt like closing a loop, completing a circle of pleasure, as the two complimentary sensations came together, making her scream her pleasure without even a thought of who might overhear it.

That same, glorious warmth began to build and build within her but then Stephen stopped,again, and she would have cried out in protest but he was kissing her instead and she could taste her own pleasure on his tongue.

“Wife,” he murmured, and the absolute fondness in his voice made her heart sing. “I am ready to begin if you are.”

It was in a haze ofwantthat she cried “yes, yes,” and watched him position himself between her legs, only for him to wince a little and put a hand to his side and a cascade of ice water to flow through her. He was sick. He had beenpoisonedand nearly died and was this even safe for them to be doing?

Elizabeth sat up “Stephen, should we? Is this safe? Have you asked a doctor?” Her husband froze and stared at her, and she could tell from his face that he was torn between laughing at her and that deep fondness she apparently inspired in him.

“Ask a doctor?” There was a hint of laughter in his voice but more than that there was warmth and the desire to reassure her. “Wife, no one has ever died from love making. I assure you, we would not do this if it was not safe. I have no intent of abandoning my position so soon. Not when it has become so newly pleasurable.”

As much as she was still concerned for him Elizabeth couldn’t help smile at that little bit of flattery. “Will you assure me you will stop should you feel any discomfort, any pain at all?”

“If you promise me to do the same,” Stephen said very seriously. “The first time can be painful for some women but it need not be, not if the husband approaches it slowly and carefully, and takes pains to prepare his lady first. You must tell me if it hurts, or if I am not going slowly enough.”

The thought of it, of his manhood finally inside her, filled her body with heat and her reluctance to allow him ebbed away. “I promise,” she said, laying back and letting her legs fall open before him. Stephen smiled gently, and carefully positioned the two of them before, finally, finally, pushing inside her.

Elizabeth gasped at the feeling. It didn’t hurt exactly, but it stretched and pulled, and felt so strange to have something so large intruding inside a place that, prior to today, had never had anything inside it before. Stephen stilled above her, carefully scanning her face for any signs of discomfort, and the knowledge that the whole of him was buried inside her was enough to set her clenching around him.

“God Elizabeth,” he moaned. “What are you doing to me?”

“What am I doing to you?” she demanded, pushing her hips up against him. “Don’t just lay there, dosomething.”

“As my duchess wishes,” he said, a little smile quirking the corner of his mouth before, very slowly, beginning to thrust in and out of her.

Elizabeth whined and arched her back beneath him “Stephen! Damnit, more!”

“More what,” he teased, though the strain from maintaining this agonizingly slow rhythm was obvious in his voice.

“I don’t know what! Please! I’m not fragile Stephen. You won’t hurt me. Please!”

It seemed that please was, as ever, the magic word for him, because he began moving properly then, and oh, that was almost it. Almost enough, but not quite, and she thrust her hips back at him, meeting him stroke for stroke, as she chased that pleasure that was seemingly just out of reach.

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