Page 42 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
Alongside a ragged gasp, a terrible jolt stiffened her limbs. “You couldn’t possibly know that.”
A suspicion began to form in Luke’s mind. “Is that why you don’t want me to touch you there?”
A shamed nod; her hands released their tight grip upon his hair to obscure her face beneath them.
“Poor darling.” He hid a smile against her throat. “Lizzie…that is utterly and completely natural. Preferable, even.”
“It can’t be. It’shumiliating.” Her head tossed fretfully when he traced the delicate line of her collarbone with the point of his tongue. “Oh, don’t—you’ll only make it worse!”
“Good. I always want you wet for me.” His voice dropped to a cajoling croon. “Put your hands on me, Lizzie.”
She whimpered behind the shield of her fingers. “Where?”
“Anywhere you like.” The temptation to tell her to slide her hand between them and wrap those dainty little fingers around his cock was nigh irresistible. “My shoulders. My hair. I love your fingers there, holding me close to you.” Slowly she dragged her hands away from her burning face, let her fingers scrape slowly through his hair. “Yes, like that. Kiss me now, Lizzie, and—openfor me.”
And she did, with a muted sob he took into his mouth. His fingertips teased through crisp curls, found her slick and wanting. “You good girl,” he breathed against her lips. “Let me touch you like this—you’re so soft, so sweet. Someday I’m going to kiss you here.”
Her head thrashed fretfully even as her hips arched into the gentle strokes of his fingers, driven by an instinct older than time. “Oh, you can’t!”
“Will you hold my hair then, I wonder? When I caress you with my tongue—just here?” He found the little bead of her clitoris, used the slick dew of her body to blunt the friction of his fingers as he rubbed in a smooth, rhythmic glide that made her gasp and arch. She was so close, every muscle in her body straining for release.
And he needed to see it happen, to watch her fall over that edge into madness. He needed to feel her reach that peak and surrender to it. “Look at me,” he urged as he eased his longest finger into the tight clasp of her body.Tootight—she was going to feel like a fist around his cock, but he could not imagine it would as pleasurable for her.
Her eyes opened, the warm cocoa hue hazy with desire for one glorious moment, until they filled with trepidation as he attempted to wedge another finger inside her. Her hips tucked in an effort to relieve the pressure of them; her hands fell to his shoulders, nails digging into his flesh. “I don’t think—”
“I need you to take them. My cock is larger than my fingers. I don’t want to hurt you.” Her inner muscles clenched in distress, unaccustomed to such a trespass.
“It aches.” Her teeth worried her lower lip as her blunt nails needled his shoulders.
“I’ll make it better for you.” He brushed a kiss across her forehead, held her eyes as his thumb rubbed her intimately, until he heard the hitch of her breath, felt the tensing of her thighs. Until she arched to the slow plunge of his fingers, unconsciously catching up the rhythm he set.
He watched her find her pleasure, felt the delicate contractions seize her as her soft inner flesh held him tightly. Watched the wonder sweep across her face, the sparkle of her dark eyes, the pound of her pulse in her throat.
He didn’t want to let her go. His muscles screamed in protest as he withdrew his fingers at last, as he eased the hem of her nightgown back down over her bare legs. With one hand he swiped the sweat from his brow, wondering at the unnatural trembling of his fingers. Her panting breaths shivered against his throat, and despite himself his fingers tangled in her hair and drew her up for one last kiss—the last one he would allow himself this eve.
“Go,” he said gently, against the plush softness of her lower lip. “Go now, while I can still let you.” At last he eased her off his lap, and she stood awkwardly for a moment, unsteady as a newborn foal. His hand slid inside his dressing gown, gripped his shaft, pumped slowly.
Those dark eyes were riveted. He could feel the heat of that gaze, and clenched his teeth against the spiral of pleasure already sliding up down his spine. That wasn’tshockin her eyes, nor horror—it washunger.
If he asked her to touch him again, she would do it. She would wrap those small hands around his cock and bring him to spend. And then she would end up back in his arms, because he doubted he would be satisfied only with that, when now he knew what she felt like, how she looked in the throes of passion. The sounds she made.
Another pump of his fist. “Gonow, Lizzie. I am trying to keep my promise to you, but you—you could make a liar of me.”
And thank God, she went—startling like a frightened doe, her unsteady gait eliciting a strange dark thrill.
“And, Lizzie,” he called after her, and she paused in the doorway, her dark curls bobbing over her shoulders as she turned her head. “Lock your door this evening. And every evening thereafter, until we are married.”
With a small nod of acknowledgement, she fled through the door, closing it behind her.
Somehow, Luke suspected this would not be the last evening he spent with only the comfort of his own hand.
Chapter Eighteen
Imogen.”
Luke’s voice, issued in the low tone of demand, made the tiny hairs at the nape of Lizzie’s neck stand on end and her fingers jerk, pricking at the lump of dough she’d been kneading to make bread for supper. Like a blast of frigid winter weather had burst through the windows, chill bumps rose along her arms.
Imogen, seated comfortably at the table with a cup of tea, failed to recognize the warning carried within the single word he’d issued. She flicked a bored glance his way, and then commenced sighing over her cup, redirecting her gaze out the window.
