Page 59 of The Traitor
Sebastian teased his index finger up the crease of her sex. “You understand that we’ll copulate, my cock inside you, my seed spent in your body?”
“Mmm.” She moved against his hand, which was answer enough. Sebastian repeated the caress but pressed close enough to find dampness. His cock was rioting behind his falls, pushing snugly against her backside, and clamoring for him to discard boots, breeches, and common sense.
Which would not do. His immediate objective was not to anticipate their vows, but to ensure those vows were taken. He petted her curls, smoothed his fingers against her skin, then went exploring again.
“Close your eyes, Milly. Focus on where I’m touching you.”
When she’d complied, Sebastian closed his eyes too, the better to picture the terrain his hand was learning. Soft, pink folds, damp flesh, and a delicate bud…there.
He worked her gently, slicked his fingers over that bud repeatedly, until the dampness grew, and Milly’s breathing deepened. She was waiting, but the tenor of her stillness, the way she eased each breath carefully in and out, suggested she didn’t know what she waited for.
Fortunately for his nerves, she didn’t have to wait long. Milly’s bodyknew, even if the rest of her did not. Her hips started a slow rocking in rhythm with his caresses, she nuzzled at his shirtsleeve where her cheek rested against his biceps, and then she was pressing against his fingers, a soft, sighing moan keening past her lips.
“Sebastian… Oh,Sebastian.”
He withdrew his hand as she went boneless against him, his cheek pressed to her hair. No woman had called him by his real, true name in an intimate moment.
He’d been Robert, Girard, Colonel, St. Clair, and most often no name in particular, but never Sebastian. While Milly drowsed in the sunshine against him, Sebastian unfastened his falls and extricated his cock from his clothes. The scent of herbs, brisk, complex, and pleasant, was stronger, perhaps because the sun hit the old cutting table, perhaps because he’d brought pleasure to the woman he was going to marry.
He tucked his cock between her legs, not coupling, but enfolded by her heat. She scooted back against him, as if she understood what he was about, and brought his hand up to fill his palm with her breast.
“I am remiss,” he whispered, planting a kiss on her nape. “I did not pleasure your breasts.” She closed her fingers around his, and though her corset posed a damnable impediment, the table was hard beneath them, and dust motes danced thick on the sunshine, Sebastian found both pleasure and relief.
As a soft, sweet release rose up and shuddered through him, tension lurking in all manner of places in his mind and body ebbed, contentment beckoned, and gratitude welled up.
He would live long enough to give Milly a wedding night she’d never forget, and hopefully, never regret—provided, of course, she did not leave him first.
***
A scent wound among the fragrance of herbs of Provence, an earthy, not exactly sweet scent. Milly lay in the sunshine—this was what it meant tobask, she suspected—and conjectured that she smelled the scent of coupling.
“Knee up, my dear.” Sebastian stroked a warm hand over her bare bottom, finishing the caress with a brisk pat. Someday, Milly would pat his bottom with exactly the same blend of affection and possessiveness.
“Knee up?”
He showed her, and Milly had to be grateful she was facing away from the dratted man as he pressed a handkerchief against her privy parts, then positioned her hand over the handkerchief.
“I apologize for the mess, but anything might happen before an engaged couple can get to the altar.”
Milly pushed her skirts down, the handkerchief pressed between her legs. “Are you apologizing for more than the mess, Sebastian?”
She posed the question carefully, because in the wake of such—such!—unimaginable pleasure, came emotions neither tidy nor convenient. Milly fought her skirts into submission and rolled to her back, the better to wade into battle with her intended.
He was on his side, propped on his elbow, his hair disheveled, his marvelous green eyes guarded. “Do I need to apologize for more?”
“Yes, I rather think you do.” She tidied his hair as best she could, mostly for the pleasure of touching him.
The light in his eyes went from guarded to shuttered. “Apologize, why?”
“I am not particularly literate, but I’m of age, you know. A biology lecture wasn’t necessary, though you might have warned me about that other. Not well done of you to ambush your own fiancée that way.” Somebody might have warned her, anybody, though she would not have believed them.
He cradled Milly’s cheek against his palm. “That other? That pleasure, that closeness, that sharing of intimacies?”
She treasured his touch, which bore a whiff of herbs, musk, and…donkey?
“That bodily surprise. It discommodes one.”
He leaned closer. “Does it make one inclined to take marriage vows instead of hare off to Yorkshire?”
