Page 85 of His Lordship's True Lady
As an accomplished horseman, Hessian knew of two strategies for dealing with a runaway mount. The first, learned early in a horseman’s career, instructed the rider to use main strength to pull the horse’s head around to the rider’s knee, to force the beast to travel in smaller and smaller circles, which necessarily resulted in a reduction in speed—or in a series of vigorous bucks aided by the physics of a curve taken at a gallop.
The second strategy was one Hessian had come upon on his own: allow the creature to run free. Revel in the privilege of being one with an equine glorying in its natural spirits and pray God the footing was sound. Exhaustion usually brought the horse back under control soon enough, without a fruitless and often dangerous battle waged by the rider.
Hessian also theorized—hoped, more like—that knowing the occasional wild dash was permitted allowed a spirited animal to better tolerate domestication. Horse after horse had proved his theory worthy.
Hessian was not a horse, but the compulsion to dash headlong, despite all caution to the contrary, pounded through his veins.
He extricated himself from Lily’s arms and sat back. Her gaze held reproach and disappointment… until he untied the bow in the center of her nightgown’s décolletage. Then she smiled, and the considerable animal spirits lurking in Hessian’s soul sprang into a joyous gallop.
“This is not wise,” he said. “But for us, now, I cannot think it wrong.”
He pulled his shirt over his head, and Lily’s smile became all the encouragement he needed to shed his breeches and help her out of her nightgown. She beheld him as if he were her every passionate fantasy brought to life, and then she beckoned.
Hessian straddled her, his eyes closed lest the sight of her unclothed send his best intentions straight into the ditch. She brushed her hand over his chest, stroking the fine hair more than his skin. The effect was maddening, until her hand drifted lower and lower still.
“The last time,” she said, “I didn’t get to see you. I like this better.”
Hessian lovedthis—loved the gloss of her fingers over his cock, his stones, every part of him that knew nothing of plans, schedules, or calendars, and everything of wild pleasure.
“I like it all,” he said. “I like your every touch, your sighs, your kisses, your passion. I like your silences and your tart tongue. I like—I likethatrather a lot.”
She’d sleeved him with her grip and begun a slow stroking.
Then, “I like that rather too much. My turn to play, Lily.”
She was gracious in victory, letting him put his hands and mouth to her breasts, until she was an undulating sea of desire beneath him.
Hessian had been faithful to his wife, but he’d not been a saint before or since his first marriage. Nothing in his experience prepared him for the enchantment that intimacies with Lily wove. The experience was profoundly physical—and pleasurable—but also an encounter of the heart. Pleasing Lily was not only a matter of consideration, but also the measure of his own satisfaction.
“Hessian Kettering, you have toyed with me long enough.”
Not nearly. He braced himself above her nonetheless, because the hour was late, and morning would arrive all too soon.
“That feels…” Lily’s sigh was the sweetest benediction. “You feel marvelous.”
Her body eased around him in glorious welcome, and then thought was impossible. All was pleasure, stretched between clamoring desire and a lover’s determination to deliver his lady more satisfaction than one mortal woman could endure.
Hessian succeeded—barely—for Lily had apparently been intent on a reciprocal goal. She lashed her legs around his flanks and counterpointed his thrusts until Hessian’s control began to slip.
Lily unraveled beneath him, and Hessian withdrew even as his own satisfaction overtook him. He shuddered his release against her belly, heaving as if he’d been run to ebullient exhaustion.
Which he had. He drifted into the drowsy aftermath, heedless of tomorrow’s challenges, heedless of anything save the soft rise and fall of Lily’s breasts against his chest. Her legs fell to his sides, flesh caressing flesh in yet more sweetness.
“I cannot let you go, Hessian.” She sounded dazed and disgruntled.
“At present, I can barely move.”
Lily smacked his bum—gently—which helped him pull together the scattered parts of his mind. Some brave, determined soul needed to leave the bed and locate a damp flannel. Hessian nominated himself, for Lily could not move until he peeled himself away from her.
In fact, she did not move even when he was standing beside the bed, the damp flannel in his hand. The picture she made—naked, tousled, replete—sent naughty thoughts coursing through him, when he should not have been able to sustain a naughty thought for the next week at least.
“You withdrew,” she said, stroking his hair as he swabbed at her belly.
“I nearly couldn’t.” Nearly hadn’t. “And withdrawing is not a guarantee of anything.”
“So why do it?”
“Because we are not married.” Weren’t even engaged. “Any reduction in the likelihood of conception should be encouraged.”
