Page 35 of Unmasked by the Marquess
He skimmed his hands down her arms and felt her shiver in response. She was all hard angles, sharp lines. Bones and sinew covered in silky skin. “I see you perfectly well.”
She snorted in response and he smiled at how unladylike—indeed, ungentlemanlike—the sound was.
She had no freckles below her chin. He cupped her breasts in his hands—truly, he had much more hand than she had breast, but that only meant he could possess all of her at once—and heard the hitch in her breath. He looked up at her face and saw that she had closed her eyes, but her jaw was set. Keeping his eyes on her face, he ran his thumbs over her taut nipples, and saw her eyes fly open.
“You like that.” He did it again. And then again, until she moaned. Good. This knowledge was enough to work with. He leaned forward and drew one of her nipples into his mouth, sucking gently, then harder, then worrying the tip with his teeth and tongue. Her breathless sounds of pleasure and need went straight to his cock.
“I’m not feeling patient.” Her voice was strained.
“What are you feeling, then?” he murmured, before bringing his mouth to her other breast. He slid his hands down her sides, past the slight dip of her waist to her hips and lower. He squeezed her backside through her breeches, soft under his grip on her otherwise spare frame.
She was quiet, and he thought she had lost her train of thought. Understandable, given the circumstances. He could feel her heart racing, feel her breaths quickening.
“I’ve wanted you for a while.” Her voice was serious, so he pulled his mouth away. Her breasts were wet from his mouth, reddened from where his coarse stubble had chafed her.
“I know,” he said. And he had. He had known almost from the beginning that there was an attraction between them, shared and dangerous. “I’ve wanted you too.” He pulled her closer against him, between his legs, letting his arousal press into her thigh.
She let out a helpless little moan. “Don’t make me wait. Please. Let me... make me come soon, Alistair.”
He felt a rumble in his chest. Was he growling? Christ. Did she think he would say no to such a request? He opened the fall of her breeches, tugged them down around her hips, and fell to his knees before her.
Charity wasn’t sure she had ever imagined a sight more erotic than Alistair kneeling before her, still dressed in his perfect evening clothes, his lips against her most sensitive flesh. She wove her fingers through his sleek, dark hair. Even in the candlelight, flecks of silver were visible among the black, which somehow added to the pleasure she was taking from the sight. Another item to add to her list of depravities.
Feeling his tongue slide in between the folds of her flesh, she tried in vain to part her legs for him. But she was still in her damned boots and breeches, and there was only so much she could move. His stubble rasped against her inner thigh, and if he didn’t make her come soon, she was going to do it herself. Then, thank God and all his angels, he slid a finger inside her—only one finger, which shouldn’t have been enough but somehow was because it washisfinger—and she felt her pleasure rise.
“Yes,” she whispered. “That’s it.” He was stroking her with his tongue exactly where she needed it, filling her with his finger, and it was perfect. It was so simple, it was the easiest thing in the world, this rush of pleasure that was washing over her. “Yes,” she said again, and it dissolved into a moan of pleasure as her climax overtook her.
He kept his mouth on her, his finger stroking inside her, until her last wave of pleasure subsided. Then he had one arm around her shoulders and the other behind her knees, and he was throwing her bodily onto the bed.
“Robin,” he rasped, “do I need to be careful?” He had shucked his coat and was unfastening his breeches, but other than that he was fully dressed, hardly even rumpled.
“Careful?” She was still dazed, and it took her a moment to understand. “Do you mean about babies? Yes, please.”
“No, no, that goes without saying.” He tugged off one of her boots and then the other. “I meant...” He grabbed her breeches by the waistband and peeled them off, leaving her completely naked. “God.” He stared, but by now she understood that his stares weren’t critical. When he spoke, his voice was a rasp. “You’ve done this before, I think? Or do I need to take care?”
She smiled and flopped back onto the pillows. “You don’t need to take care. Please don’t, in fact.”
“Very well.” He pulled himself out of his opened breeches, and she propped herself up on her elbows to get a better look. She licked her lips.
He pushed her legs apart and knelt between them, still wearing all that clothing. Oh well, she’d just have to get a look at him later. His hair was disordered from where she had run her fingers through it, and his expression was almost solemn as he gazed down at her. With one hand, he slowly stroked himself and with the other, he absently caressed her thigh.
She reached out, pushing his hand away so she could touch him herself. She wrapped her fingers around his shaft, letting her thumb slide across the slit. He groaned, and she felt a drop of moisture bead on the head. Tilting her hips up toward him, she guided him toward her core.
Now he brushed her hand away. They were going to tussle over this, were they? That was fine by her. More than fine. He braced himself over her with one arm and positioned his cock so the head breached her entrance.
“Yes.” She raised her hips to meet him, reveling in the stretching and fullness as she surrounded him. As he entered her.
She had forgotten how good this could be. It was so basic a pleasure, so obvious, like drinking cool, clean water on a hot day. It felt so uncomplicated, so right, to have him inside her in this way, filling her and brushing against all those places that came alive with sensation.
“Fuck,” he growled once he was fully seated inside her.
That was the coarsest language she had ever heard him use, and now she wanted to hear more. She clenched around him, and was rewarded with an incoherent sound accompanied by a thrust.
Yes.She already felt her desire begin to coil up inside her again. So simple. So easy. They ought to have been doing this for weeks now. Maybe if they had done this earlier—although that was impossible, because of her disguise and his propensity to self-flagellate—maybe this act wouldn’t have so many layers of meaning. It would have been two acquaintances, two bodies, a sufficient amount of mutual desire and the accompanying actions. Instead, every time he thrust into her, every sound and breath, every brush of his lips against her neck—it all added up to something more than that.
She could smell his hair, clean and scented with whatever he used to keep it so neat. His starched collar was tantalizingly rough against her naked skin, and she tugged it aside in order to kiss his neck. She smoothed her fingers down the silk of his waistcoat to the wool of his breeches, feeling his muscles flex as he worked his body relentlessly into hers. She shifted her feet on the bed and felt her ankles brush against the cool leather of his boots.
Surely, the fact that he was so thoroughly dressed shouldn’t add to her pleasure? It ought to be demeaning, or even absurd, to be lying here naked, getting swived into the mattress by a man who was dressed from cravat to boots, the only exposed part of him the very part that was inside her body. But it wasn’t. It was simply Alistair, and of course Alistair had on a pair of perfectly tailored breeches while he was fucking her silly.
