Page 84 of The Captive Duke
He rubbed at himself with another cloth, and Gilly marveled that she should feel no lapse of dignity between them.
“You would weep for joy,” she said, nuzzling his chest with her cheek. “One understands this.”
“Does one?” His tone was dry, indulgent too. “You can’t possibly. Give me your hand.”
He took her hand, removed it from where she was caressing his chest, and put it over his softening length.
“Do you feel anything different, Gilly?”
“Of course it’s different. Men don’t stay…aroused but for a few moments, and then…it’s supposed to be like this, isn’t it?”
Had Greendale lied to her? He’d filled her head with all manner of nasty comments, but she’d regarded those as his opinions, to which he was entitled. He’d had his opinions regarding marital relations, too, but in those, she’d been so terribly at his mercy.
“I’m supposed to be soft, yes,” he said, kissing her brow, “because I am so thoroughly satisfied, but here…” He brought her fingers to the end of his shaft. “I have no foreskin.”
This was of some moment to him, she sensed that, but Gilly hardly knew what she was supposed to say. She wouldn’t have known if he’d had three foreskins, whatever a foreskin was.
“Your functioning doesn’t seem impaired. You were…”
“Yes?”
“A revelation, Christian. You were a wonderful revelation to me.”
He was silent while she explored him in the darkness, traced his length, shaped his stones, and sifted through the nest of hair at the base of his shaft. His hand fell away, and he lay quietly while she learned him, until he grew aroused again.
“Was it the French?” She asked the question now, while she still could, while it was pitch dark and she could plead she didn’t know any better, though she’d known the answer the moment she’d conceived the question.
“Yes. The French.”
She moved over him, straddled him, and curled down onto his chest as if she’d protect him bodily from the memories. He framed her face and held her still while he kissed her, and then he nudged at her sex with his cock.
“I can touch you like this,” she said, tracing her fingernails over his nipples. He drew in an audible breath, then settled a palm over each of her breasts.
“And I can touch you.”
They teased each other in lazy wonder, until Christian went still beneath her. “Gilly?”
“Hmm?” She let him find her then, let him ease that first glorious, sweet, tantalizing inch into her body.
“You are a revelation to me too.”
Fifteen
HISGILLY COUNTERPOINTED PASSION WITH A TOUCHINGmodesty. She had her nightgown back on before Christian had finished using the tooth powder, even as the first gray lights of dawn stole around the curtains.
“I should get back to my own bedchamber,” she said, shrugging into her black dressing gown, which sported more fantastical embroidery than Christian had seen on any one garment.
He picked up a sleeve and peered at the green, gold, and purple patterns chasing around the cuff. “Does this qualify as mourning attire?”
She belted it snugly. “It’s black, and who’s to see me?”
He put his hands on her shoulders, and she waited while he lifted her hair out of her nightclothes. “I’ve destroyed your braid, Countess.”
“And you’re proud of this,” she said, sounding proud too, as well she should.
“Sit you,” he said, guiding her by the shoulders to the chest at the foot of the bed. “We need to talk.”
Her expression went carefully blank, and he had to wonder what was going through her female brain.
