Page 26 of Portrait of a Lady
Chapter 5
“I always wonder how many long-term affairs are born of a Vauxhall Gardens masquerade. How many encounters that began as one-time assignations grow to become more? Were I a romantic, I might suppose that many of these liaisons lead to love and marriage. As a cynic, I’m far more inclined to believe they lead to heartbreak and bastards.”
-The London Gossip,12 March 1819
Evelyn clung to Hugh as he kissed her so thoroughly she wondered how she’d ever gone so long without experiencing this. Why had she ever been afraid? Everything about this was good and right, while still somehow feeling naughty. But, as he kissed her senseless, she realized that it wasn’t the act of kissing she was enjoying so much. It was the man doing the kissing.
It was Hugh, who took his time nibbling at her lips before progressing deeper, coaxing her mouth open and treating her to the warm rasp of his tongue. It was his weight atop her, solid and hot, yet somehow not oppressive. It was the way he’d let her know that she could make this stop at any moment with a word, that he would not press her for things she was not yet ready for.
She’d nearly ruined the evening with her ill-conceived plan of seduction, not realizing that she hardly need try at all—not if the hardened press of his cock against her were any indication. Patience had told Evelyn what it meant, and she found it more thrilling than she ought, knowing that he desired her enough to now be in such a state.
His harsh breaths panted against her neck as he lowered his head, kissing her chin, her jaw, her neck. He snatched open the belt of her dressing gown, revealing every bare inch of her from neck to toes. Evelyn tensed beneath him, squeezing her eyes shut as he came up onto his hands and knees, studying her with a gaze that missed nothing. It wasn’t difficult to deduce that men found the forms of women pleasing to look upon, but at the moment she could not help but wonder how many others he’d seen unclothed and how she compared.
Those thoughts fled the moment she heard his harsh intake of breath and opened her eyes to find him studying her as if he’d never seen a naked woman before. She shivered when he trailed his knuckles down the valley between her breasts, stroking gently across her belly and pausing at the patch of hair at her groin.
“Christ, could you be any more perfect?”
She couldn’t conjure the words to respond, because then he was lowering his head, his mouth aimed at her breast. Her breath came out on a gasp which melted into a sigh as his lips brushed her nipple. He was still just kissing her, only now the touch of his lips had become far more wicked, turning her into the unrestrained, wanton creature she had been last night at Vauxhall. There could be no room for doubt or fear, not when the touch of his lips upon her body felt so good she never wanted him to stop.
“Good?” he murmured, darting a glance up at her, his lips hovering inches from one hardened nipple.
“Yes,” she moaned just as he drew it into his mouth and flicked at it with his tongue.
He slid his hands beneath her arching back, poising her at the angle he wanted as he moved from one to the other, leaving soft, short kisses in his wake. She cried out when he latched on to the opposite nipple, sucking it deep and hard in a way that sent a lightning strike of pure pleasure straight between her legs.
She tangled her fingers in his hair and held him there, unable to remain still as he subjected her to such wondrous torment. His lips wandered at will, tracking a path down the center of her belly. She’d never imagined anyone kissing her there, but, oh, it felt nothing like she might have imagined. It should have tickled, but it only added more heat and urgency to the sensations building within her, making her desperate to feel those lips of his everywhere.
She suddenly felt too hot, as if she might go up in flames at any moment. Even the open dressing gown was too oppressive, so she snatched her arms free of it. Hugh paused to pull it from beneath her and cast it aside before crouching back over her, his attentions now centred on her legs. Her face flamed hot when he pried her knees open, but she submitted with eagerness to the stroke of his tongue and press of his mouth against her inner thighs. Each kiss left her feeling drugged, as if she floated on the surface of a languid stream.
The shock of him nuzzling at her groin brought her out of the trance, and her eyes went wide with alarm as she gazed down to find him lying between her legs, his face level with her quim. He stole a glance up to find her watching him, and gave her the most decadently wicked grin she’d ever seen. Keeping his gaze locked with hers, he thrust his tongue into her slit, lapping at the little nub buried within.
She clenched her teeth around a strangled sound, trapping it in her throat. When she had agreed to kissing only for the night, she had never imagined he might go so far as to kiss herthere.
“Shall I continue?” he murmured.
Evelyn could not form a single word, so she simply nodded. Hugh lowered his eyes and went at her again, this time without holding back. The groan she’d muffled before came spilling out when he put his mouth on her, wrapping his lips around the delicate flesh hidden within the thatch of dark curls. He moaned as if pleased with the taste of her, palming her thighs to push them farther open. Her head fell back onto the pillow, her limbs turning to jelly and her insides unfurling into a torrent of near painful pleasure. Just as she had last night amongst the ruins, she felt as if the inevitable ending would tear her in two, yet she strained toward it, wanting it more than she’d ever wanted anything. There was no time to be embarrassed over how wet she’d become, the ministrations of his tongue coaxing more and more of that telltale moisture from inside her. There was nothing to do but cling to the coverlet and ride the cresting swells of her culminating bliss, growing stronger and stronger with each flick of his tongue.
When he latched onto her clitoris and suckled with deep pulls, she splintered, her entire body stiffening and her toes curling as climax unfurled violently through her.
Could those high-pitched, wanton sounds be coming from her? They must be, for the moment she sagged to the bed, sated and spent, her mouth fell closed and the sounds ceased, replaced by her harsh, labored breaths. Hugh gentled his tongue strokes against her, lapsing into soft, soothing licks as she melted. If before she’d felt as if she floated on the surface of a body of water, she now felt as if she’d plunged into its depths, her form weightless, the very air stolen from her.
She sighed as he kissed his way back up her body, pausing to tease a nipple before laying over her once more. His hips fitted in the cradle of her pelvis, he gathered her in his arms and took her mouth in a searing kiss. Evelyn’s head spun as the sweetness of it took on a more carnal nuance with the taste of her own arousal slicking his lips.
The urgency of his cock against her thigh reminded her that while she had been brought to a satisfactory end, Hugh had not, and for the second night in a row.
Pressing a hand to his chest, she gazed up at him and gathered the courage she needed to go through with the thought that had just dropped into her mind. While she might not be ready to allow him into her body, she did not wish to leave him unfulfilled for yet another night.
“Evelyn,” he rasped when she allowed her hands to travel lower, toward the buttons of his fall. “You shouldn’t.”
Her hands shook, but she forced them into action anyway, loosening the first button. “I think now would be a good time for you to call me Evie.”
It wasn’t a name anyone outside her family used, but the man had just had his mouth on her most secret of places. Surely that warranted the use of the shortened version of her name.
“Evie,” he groaned, when she loosened another button, then another. “We agreed to kissing only.”
“I make the rules, remember?” she reminded him, surprising even herself with the command in her voice. “I have decided that I want to touch you as you touched me last night.”
Patience had told her how, mentioning that many men did it to themselves but seemed to like it so much more when another person was doing the frigging.
