Page 50 of In Compromise with the Earl
His fingertips were as fleeting as spider legs over the soft skin of her thigh and he felt himself harden at the sight of her biting her lip, lashes fluttering and the quickening of her breath. The moment he touched her, a shudder gripped her body.
“Ah!” she gasped as he slipped a finger between her silky curls and touched her.
“So ready for me,” he intoned, while watching her keenly. With how she reacted, so naturally and passionately, miles away from the practiced arts of the trained doxies he had wasted so much time with, he knew that when they did couple, Aphrodite would be sensational.
More than anything, he looked forward to awakening her passion and seeing how she could keep up with him. Gently at first, his thumb stroked circles around her nub while his long fingers found the folds of her silky flesh. With just whispers of a touch, so light and fleeting, she was starting to unravel around him.
She swallowed the moan that rose in her throat but could not keep her body from responding when he pressed the heel of his hand to her mound as it rose to meet him.
“Shh, Sweetling,” he whispered into her ear. “You wouldn’t want Robins in on our fun, would you? I want your pleasure tomyself.”
Continuing to stroke near her nub, he slid his finger over her entrance. Leaning in, he kissed her, lingeringly, his tongue swiping across her bottom lip. Her soft folds were wet and slick, making Oswald’s breath come harshly as her honey dripped over his fingers.
When her hips arched into his touch, her head moving where it was tucked under his chin, he took one finger and slipped it inside of her passage and instantly, her hips jerked upward, and she began throbbing around him.
“Devil and damnation, you’re small, so tight around me,” he said hoarsely. “Am I hurting you?
“No,” she moaned. “M…more.” Kissing her ear, he obliged. His finger thrust deeper but not too deep and Aphrodite panted as the tension inside her belly coiled tighter and tighter.
In an instant, she was riding his hand and crying out her pleasure. Soon she was moaning, her dew coating his fingers. Aphrodite’s hips rocked demandingly into his touch, and he rubbed her slick nub harder.
“Oh, God.” He did it again, loving how hard she was trembling under his touch.
“Oh…h—” Aphrodite groaned in his chest, the heat from her mouth making gooseflesh dot his skin.
He loved this. Her hands were in his hair, urging him deeper. She came suddenly, beautifully. Her moisture gushed into his palm, and his turgid manhood stiffened in response.
When a guttural sound of appreciation rumbled from him, something inside her broke. “What are you doing to me?”
“I think I should be asking that of you,” he replied, while gently shifted her to sit comfortably on his lap. “It will be at least four hours before we arrive at the first posting inn,” he told her.
Her lashes fluttered up, those bewitching blue eyes of hers meeting his from beneath her long lashes. “Does anyone know this side of you?”
Quirking a brow, Oswald asked, “Do I sense some jealousy in your tone?”
She smacked his chest a little. “You know what I mean, you’re a smart man.”
Stroking her back he replied, “No, no one does. I couldn’t show any passion with Claire. She was so prim and proper that an impulsive touch would sent her running. You must guess the irony when I heard from her lovers how much of a wildcat she was in bed.”
Aphrodite’s eyes closed tightly. “You deserved so much more.”
Suddenly exasperated with the topic of his late wife, Oswald ended the topic. “Being young, in love and naïve at the same time makes you trust what you shouldn’t. I wasted too many days blaming myself for her faults. I am not interested in wallowing in misplaced grief anymore.”
“And I don’t want you to.” Aphrodite touched his cheek. “It’s not fair.”
Kissing her palm, Oswald asked, “When you were told to marry, what sort of man did you imagine would fit? I hardly think you imagined a surly, love-scarred curmudgeon.”
“Oddly, someone the very opposite of you,” Aphrodite replied. “Jovial but brilliant, warm, easy to talk with, straightforward…somehow I prefer you to that naïve expectation.”
He stared at her amused, “You would prefer my complications to an easier life?”
“With what my father has done, my whole life is a complication,” Aphrodite snorted. “I’ve grown so familiar with complications in my life that it is almost a familiar friend to me.”
“But being paired with a man who is a much as outcast as you are, as a point of interest, might be more of a difficulty than you ever imagined,” Oswald pointed out. “Not to mention the opposition you are getting from my family.”
“You are getting the same from mine,” Aphrodite replied. “Not to mention I am sure Strathmore is out there slandering your name as well.”
“That cad?” Oswald snorted. “I don’t care if he took out a newspaper column and wrote every defaming word he could, it does not matter to me. My worst secret is public knowledge, and I’ve been dipped in the River Styx, Sprite. I could probably walk through the fires of Hell unscathed.”
