Page 44 of Desperate Proposals
For several agonizingly long moments she heard nothing. Then, finally, the creak of the floorboards as he moved. Her heartbeat picked up, but still she kept her eyes closed. Was that not what she ought to do? Wait for him to go about the business, the tupping? A bit belatedly, she remembered her part in it all, and she spread her legs, truly exposing herself to him.
The air felt cold.
She heard him release a long, appreciative sigh.
“You’re lovely. Absolutely lovely,” he said, his voice gravelly and strained.
Her eyes shot open. Her? She lifted her head slightly, eager to see his face.
He had taken himself in hand, and was slowly stroking up and down.
Her breath caught in her throat. The sight of him brought forth outrageous desires from within her—images of acts and possibilities she’d never known. Why, merely entertaining such thoughts seemed positively shameless. She forced a shuddering breath, then met his gaze.
“May I touch you?” he asked, licking his lips and closing his eyes even as his hand worked. “If you do not wish, I promise—”
“No,” Evelyn rasped hurriedly, cutting him off. “I mean, yes, you may. You may, that is…” She swallowed and lowered herself back onto the bed, squeezing her eyes shut once more. “Please. I find myself…” She paused as she felt the blush in her cheeks nearly erupt into flames. “Desirous of it. Of all of it.”
How could she bear to face herself in the mirror again? Evelyn Wolfenden, the shockingly debauched spinster?
No, she silently corrected herself.Evelyn Hartley.
And then she gasped aloud. His hand was upon her breast, gently squeezing, holding it as if testing its weight. His thumb rubbed along the underside.
The new, tense feeling twisting about inside her burst forth, overpowering all of her senses as it forced itself to the forefront, demanding to be attended to. Ignorant of how to do so, she did all she could, which was to arch her back, pushing herself up against his hand.
He took her other breast into his mouth, grazing the nipple with his teeth while his fingers teased at the other.
And finally, to her utter mortification, Evelyn did moan.
But there was no time to dwell on it, for his ministrations continued, building pleasure upon pleasure within her. And then he shifted, and she felt him against her waist, hard and insistent. She bucked her hips upward, but that only pushed him away.
He’d left a bead of wetness upon her skin.
“Not yet, not yet,” he said, and he moved once more toward her neck.
When he kissed her along the line of her jaw, she mewled, like some pathetic kitten. She grabbed at him, digging her fingers into the hard curves of his upper arms.
“Why not?” she hissed, desperate to have him closer. Desperate to end this delicious torture, this harrowing display of humiliating noises she’d never known herself capable of making.
“Because,” he asserted, before placing a silencing kiss upon her mouth.
After several heady, drawn-out moments, he pulled back, his lips wet and swollen. He reached down between her legs, cupping her possessively. Then he deftly parted her lips and dipped two fingers deep within her, before curling them back again as if beckoning something forth.
“It’s only gentlemanly, after all, that you have your pleasure first.”
Before she could marshal a verbal reply, her body once more supplied an inelegant, involuntary response: a long, hedonistic groan.
And then he pulled his brilliant fingers out and slid them slowly up along her to someplace higher, someplace on her body she’d previously been unaware of but knew the moment he teased it with his slick fingertips. It felt like heaven, when he touched her there, and she could not fathom what was happening as she clawed at his neck and shoulders. Her core felt restless, and she writhed under his hand, his forceful kisses upon her neck. It was agonizing, frenzied; she knew not what she sought but resolved to have it all the same.
And then, with a sudden lurch, she hit ecstasy. Her vision sparked, and shouts escaped her throat. Even as he was atop her, she flung herself into him, limbs heated and weak, drunk on this languid, liquid bliss.
She felt his low chuckle against her cheek, followed by a gentle kiss.
He pulled himself up. She could not move, she found, so she did not protest when he gently took hold of her thighs and pulled her forward, toward the edge of the bed. With a soft touch, he pushed her legs apart, running his hand along her once more.
She shuddered. And then, something thicker and harder than his hand was pressed against the wetness of her lips, sliding against them in slow, measured movements.
Electricity shot through her.
