Was he?
“I want you.”
“Why me?” she asked. “Of all the others? Of all the rich beauties, of all the dukes’ daughters, of all the girls who try to move heaven and earth to attract you? No pretty words—the real words.”
“Because you are like me.”
That mystified her. And then he pushed the blade in and she was stunned to see a trickle of blood race down his body. It would ruin his shirt. “This is madness.”
He bent forward, the knife still cutting into his skin, and he skimmed his lips along her throat. She stood, passively, letting the remarkable sensation wash over her. Soft lips—like velvet, like silk. No…more than that. Like the touch of a flame. Or the brush of an angel’s hand.
“Saying no is madness,” he rasped.
His tongue stroked the length of her neck. Her body became fluid. She was wet—indecently, wonderfully wet between her thighs. The stubble on his jaw teasingly scratched her skin. Her pulse seemed to beat everywhere at once—in her head, her lips, her fingertips, her…her sex.
“You are beautiful.”
How many men had said that? But it mattered, from him.
“Touch me.”
“Only if you take the blade from your heart.”
“I will plunge it in if you leave me now. If you do not touch me. I cannot live without your touch. I could go to another woman. I know you are thinking that. I could bury my heavy, aching cock into her and fuck until my brain explodes and all the while I would be in pain because I wanted you. Do you have any idea what bloody torture that is?”
“I think I know.”
“I want to marry you, Grace. All I need is a yes. One simple word.”
“Yes.” And there was no turning back. She hungered to touch him, and, once she did, she had to go forward.
If she touched him, she had to agree to do everything a husband and wife were intended to do.
Slowly, she pulled off her glove—a white, virginal, and utterly irritating scrap of satin. She reached out, touching her fingertips to his chest, his skin hot and damp beneath her touch.
“Take the knife away,” she breathed. He was drunk and his hand cupped her bottom—a place a man’s hand had never been—but she was afraid he would crush her to him and stab himself by accident.
He was young. Spoiled. Passionate. Wild.
Hers. With one simple word.
“Yes,” she said again, to ensure there was no mistake, and she released a sigh of relief as he tossed the blade back to the desk. But in the next instant, he slid her skirts, petticoats and all, up her thighs. He pulled her drawers down before she could squeak, held her as she stepped out of them.
“You smell of lust, Grace. You stink of it and I love your smell. I want to cover my hands in it, my cock in it.”
His earthy words made her more wet, more creamy and slick, and she could smell herself, flushing as she did so.
“Now, hold up your skirts for me and let me explore.”
She obeyed and his hands slid around her naked inner thighs. His palms were strong, a little rough, and as he squeezed her skin she feared she’d fall to the floor.
“Stand up, Grace,” he commanded in a growl and his hands skimmed higher, up and up to the juncture of her thighs, to her hot and sticky quim. “Part your legs for me a little more.”
She did, aware of the wetness leaking down her inner thighs.
“Ah, yes, good girl,” he murmured, and his look of fierce hunger softened with his heartbreaking smile. “Lovely, soft curls.”
His fingers combed through them and she squirmed. Her quim felt tight and achy and hot and she was wriggling to ease the tension.
“Is your clit hard now? Would it like to feel my fingers stroking it? Would you like me to rub hard?”
She had no idea. A strangled, confused groan slipped from her lips. His bold erotic talk was what she wanted but not entirely what she’d expected. She was to be his wife—she’d thought he would be sweet. It would be sensuous and they would not speak—
Like a statue, she stood unable to move, and his long, strong fingers slid into her cleft. It felt so good, it felt—
His fingers sawed across her sensitive nub and she screamed. Her cry rang throughout the large room and his lordship laughed in response. “I knew you would scream,” he purred, and he suckled her neck, making her cry out again. His lips, his tongue, his teeth—all teased the tingling skin of her throat and turned her body to molten heat.
He fiddled with the buttons of her gown, muttering curses, and she knew then why he had wanted her in something easy to remove. A few gave way, her bodice sagged, and at once his hands were there, lifting her breasts over the ruffled neckline.
She saw the pale curves lift, felt the strain against the silk, then felt her breasts spill out. “God yes,” he groaned. “These tits. These enormous, plump, glorious breasts. I’ve been hungering to get my hands on these for a week.”
His head dropped to her right breast and she moaned at the whisper of his silvery-blond hair brushing her flesh. At once, his firm mouth closed over her puckering nipple and he suckled so hard she dropped her skirts and grasped the back of the nearest chair.
Yes, she had played with her own nipples before, but not like this. He sucked greedily, lavishly, then rolled her free nipple between thumb and forefinger. It was so much—too much! She shut her eyes tight, swamped by sensation. Stars sparkled behind her lids. Something hard stroked her nipple—his teeth, she realized. She was astonished. Shocked. A little scared.
But he was a master, skillfully using the hard pressure of his teeth to send her soaring. She drank in his masculine scent and it wrapped around her like a magic spell. Letting her lids flicker open, she saw him suck first her left breast, then her right, leaving a trail of saliva between the two. Her nipples were wet, and harder and longer than she’d ever seen.
Lord Wesley glanced up, fair hair dusting his vivid eyes, and her heart gave a pang. His smile was gloriously wicked. “Enough play, love. Let us move on to the main event.”
Grace wanted it to be slow and seductive, but he was far too aroused, she supposed. Tugging at his trouser buttons, he groaned, “I’m too damned hard to get these things off, blast it.”
She giggled at his loud moan of relief as the buttons gave and his placket opened. He shoved his trousers down just past his hips and she saw it—him—for the first time.
Darker blond hair dusted his abdomen, then made a curly thicket around the length of him jutting out. Before her mesmerized eyes, he wrapped his hand around its girth and gave a stroke that made his eyes roll back in his head.
He dropped to the floor and stretched out on his back on the rug. One arm pillowed his head and he held his…his hard cock upright. She stood like a ninny, a little nonplussed by his speed.
“Come here and straddle me,” he rasped. “I want you on top of me, Grace. You can control how hard you want the strokes. How deep you want my cock to go.”
Perched on top of her bodice, her large breasts stuck out, making it difficult to judge where she was as she lowered to the floor. Her breasts were much too big, unfashionably so, but Lord Wesley could not take his eyes off them.
“They’re luscious,” he promised. “Now sit on my prick, love, then bend forward and smother me with those tits for a while.”
She had never thought they would make love for the first time on a carpet in his father’s study. Yet the wickedness of it made it exciting. She was his coconspirator and she liked it. This