Page 58 of To Woo and to Wed
“I thought I was giving the orders this evening,” she said lightly, coming to a halt before him and reaching out a single finger to trace down his shaft. He jerked at her touch, biting off a curse before it could cross his lips.
“In that case,” he said, looking directly into those beautiful brown eyes, “I’d very much like it if you told me to taste you.”
“I—I think I’d like that, too,” she said, a slightly breathless note to her voice that stoked some innate masculine pride that he did his best to ignore most of the time.
“Then come here,” he said, pushing himself back a bit on the bed as she approached. When she was standing directly before him, he reached out and seized her by the waist; it took a bit of awkward maneuvering, but a few moments later she was on the bed, straddling him.
He leaned back and, with a firm grip on her thighs, urged her forward, until she was straddling his face.
“You might want to hold on to the bedpost,” he said, and then, without a moment’s further hesitation, buried his head between her thighs, and licked.
“Jesus Christ,” she said, and then, “God.”
A few moments later, he came up for air. “Did you wish to pause these activities and attend a church service instead?”
“No,” she said, quite fervently, and then her hand was in his hair, tight enough to send a fresh rush of blood to his cock, and she was urging him back to his purpose. “Don’t stop.”
He had no intention of stopping, not when she was ordering him about in that commanding tone, and for some time he was conscious of nothing more than the taste and smell of her, and the small, urgent noises she was making in the back of her throat, mingled with an occasional burst of profanity that delighted him more than it probably should. His hands were tight on her thighs, keeping her firmly anchored in place, and he felt them beginning to tremble, her grip on his hair growing nearly painful, and a moment later she was cresting, and he saw her through it, keeping her pressed to his mouth, until she at last pushed herself away and collapsed limply on the bed next to him. He raised himself up on an elbow just as she reached an armout to twine around his neck, pulling his mouth down to hers, the kiss messy and heated.
She rolled onto her side, flinging her leg over his hip, and—
“Are you sure?” he asked breathlessly, nearly out of his mind with wanting.
“Yes,” she said, kissing him again, and then he was sliding into her, wet and slick, and then there was nothing but tightness and heat and mindless pleasure, the sound of her gasps in his ear. They were slow at first, finding their rhythm, but then after a minute they worked it out, her hips rising to meet his, his hand against the flat of her back, holding her tight to him. He closed his eyes and focused on nothing but the warmth of her, the softness of her skin pressed against and around him, the pleasure arcing down his spine as he moved within her. And then, all too soon, his thrusts grew erratic as he chased his release, and he slid his hand between them, pressing his thumb to a certain spot, and she shattered around him with a wordless cry, just in time for him to withdraw and spill on her stomach.
For a moment—a minute, five minutes, ten?—there was nothing except the sound of their heaving breaths.
“Good God,” Sophie managed at last. “I’m not going to be able to walk tomorrow.”
“That was the goal,” he mumbled, the words not as cocksure as they might have been, given that he could not yet muster the strength to open his eyes. After another lengthy pause, he willed himself to a seated position, and then—though the thought was not appealing, given the jumbled state of his own mind and limbs—he rose, crossing to the basin against one wall where there was a cloth he could dampen and then hand to Sophie. She wiped at her stomach, a wry smile crossing her face as she did so.
“Gentlemanly of you, considering it likely wasn’t necessary.”
“We don’t know that,” he said mildly, settling beside her on the bed. “And I didn’t want you to be forced into anything you’re not willing to do.” Like motherhood—or marriage to him, for that matter. He could not bear it if she married him solely because she was expecting a baby she wasn’t even certain she wanted; he thought the pain of this knowledge would be even worse than the pain of losing her had been.
She flung the cloth aside, and scooted backward on the bed until she was reclining against the pillows, looking like a queen, for all that she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.
And West—who would later think that perhaps his brain had not been functioning quite normally, given the circumstances—said, without thinking twice, “That was worth the wait.”
She went still, then slowly sat up, lovely and unashamed of her nudity—she scarcely even seemed to notice it, as all of her attention remained fixed upon him.
“West,” she said carefully. “I wonder if we ought to have discussed this ahead of time—what this would mean to me. Versus what it would mean toyou.”
He felt the strangest desire to laugh, of all things. How many firstborn sons of dukes had to worry about going to bed with women who were appalled by the notion of marrying them?
Instead, he merely said, “I’ve not asked anything of you, Sophie.”
“But—for you to have given up other women forfour years—”
“I didn’t preciselydecideto do so, you know,” he said. “There were a number of women, over the years, who made their interest known.”
Sophie huffed, leaning back against the pillows once more. “I don’t doubt it.”
His mouth curved up slightly at the corners. “Jealous?”
She crossed her arms and looked at the ceiling again. “Certainly not. You can bed every woman of theton, for all I care.”
“Of course,” he agreed, stretching out beside her and tracing a single finger down her arm, leaving gooseflesh in his wake. “I kissed a couple of them—no one marriageable, but a couple of discreet widows. But whenever I closed my eyes, I saw your face.”
