Page 71 of In Compromise with the Earl
“God’s bones, Sweetling—” he groaned. “You’re an apt pupil.”
Her head bobbed up and down, the silken strands of hair sliding through his fingers like water as she pleasured him from swollen tip to throbbing sac, before sucking him deep inside again.
Her lips released the clamp while she softened the suction of her mouth, and he slid deeper inside again, nudging against the back of her throat. Panting harshly, he pulled her head away and Aphrodite released him reluctantly and the lick of her lips showed it.
“I won’t spend in your mouth, Sweetling,” Oswald’s voice was corrupted by dark lust.
Quickly he hoisted her to his lap and instinctively looped her arms around his neck. With sure hands, he threw up her skirts and petticoats, palming her naked behind. Why she had left off the undergarments that eve, he was not sure, but did not need to ask.
The thought of her sitting through the play, being so proper and poised while underneath her demure exterior she was bare and wanton made fire lance through his blood.
He reverently caressed the swell of her bottom before sliding his hands over her silken skin.
“Christ,” he uttered, and Aphrodite kissed him with a flirtatious smile.
He slid his fingers over her slick, heated opening and Aphrodite shuddered. The more he played with her, taunted and teased her, her cries grew. Eventually, she hid her face in his neck and muffled her cries as she grew hot under her skin and her core was drenched with longing for him.
Gently, he lifted her and placed her over him, the slick breach so slow and sensitive that every inch of her quaked. Oswald drove his hips forward, his jaw stiffening and nostrils flaring at their joining.
With her hands on his shoulder, he easily moved them, lifting her while thrusting gently at first, but lust took over and his hands dug into her hips. Fueled with want, he began to pump her more vigorously, taking her fiercely, as he drove into her.
Aphrodite had to bite a section of his shoulder to muffle the cries that threatened to leave her as he took possession of her. Reaching between them he found her pearl and rubbed it vigorously, forcing her to gasp over burning lungs.
He drove into her hard until Aphrodite began to tighten around him, but he kept on, steadily pumping inside her, driving her higher and higher to the point of no return. He flexed his hips powerfully, plunging so deep that he brushed her womb and Aphrodite shattered at the seams, biting hard to muffle her scream as an overpowering climax racked her body.
Oswald soon followed and held her close as his tremors faded. “You are mine,” he murmured through his pants. “All mine.”
Kissing his collarbone, she replied, “That’s all I need.”
* * *
The Dowager was curiously absent in the days that followed, and while Oswald was swamped with work, hardly leaving his study from dawn to dusk, Aphrodite was left to entertain herself.
She had begun to wander the halls when it became clear that she could not be out with her horse all day. Playing cards by herself and perusing the books in the extensive library the Hall had, was starting to lose its appeal and Aphrodite found herself at a loss for keeping her mind occupied.
Not to mention how worried she was about Oswald and his mother, the strange silence from her father and the cryptic words Duke Strathmore had said the night of the play.
Unable to keep herself confined in the Hall anymore, she was wandering the garden with a book in hand just in case. The afternoon was calm, with a benign wind fluttering through the trees.
She found a shaded spot with a bench, sat and opened her book. The words were bland to her, since she had read them twice before. There had to be something in the Hall, or outside it, that she could do.
Was this how Claire had lived, in boredom for so long?
“Cousin Aphrodite,” Leo greeted her as he came forward. “I was looking for you.”
Her brows darted up; it had been a few days since she had seen Oswald’s cousin and she felt happy to lay eyes on him. Clad in his unremarkable priest clothing, and his permanent peaceful smile on his face, Leo was one unflappable man to her.
“Hullo Leo, why did you want to see me?” she asked.
“Stay here for a moment,” he said before pivoting. “And close your eyes.”
Surprised, Aphrodite nodded and closed the book over her finger, moments before she let her lids flutter down. She heard nothing but wind whistling through the trees at first then she heard his boots crunching over dried leaves.
“You may look now,” he said.
As she did, her eyes landed on a puppy, a tiny little Pomeranian; its alert foxlike face, thick, soft coat and lolling tongue claimed her heart immediately.
“Good Heavens!” she reached for it. “Where did you get him?”
