She shook her head, curls bouncing. “He’s not well enough to risk travel. No, that wouldn’t be wise.”
“I suspected it wouldn’t be.” He couldn’t help but smile. “You might want to open your cloak. I’ve kept the coach heated.”
Slowly, teasingly, Venetia tugged at one end of the ribbon that tied the wool shut. His throat dried. He’d watch dozens of women undress, but the sight of Venetia playing seductress aroused him instantly.
She drew the sides of her cloak apart, revealing a stretch of pale satin skin.
It took him a full minute to realize he was looking directly at her bare legs. Not quite bare—she wore creamy white stockings and pale blue garters. Rigid with sudden tension, he gazed upward at the stretch of her bare stomach, the curves of her naked breasts, at her cheeky, hopeful smile.
Other than stockings, she wasn’t wearing a damned stitch beneath the cloak.
“What in damnation are you thinking?” Marcus demanded.
Venetia sat demurely, despite her nudity, her legs crossed at the ankles. On the seat opposite, Marcus was glorious. The buff breeches he wore displayed the hard muscles of his legs. Blue superfine fit like a second skin across a broad chest and broader shoulders. A heavy greatcoat lay discarded at his side. He was a man who had seen everything—done everything—and she’d gambled on a bold, wild tactic to intrigue him.
She took a deep breath. “I want you to understand that I am not a frightened virginal miss, Marcus.”
He gritted his teeth, growled between them, “You can’t travel to Dorset naked.” He rubbed his jaw and she watched the pass of his hand. Freshly shaven, his skin would be smooth, soft, and smell of his soap.
“Why not? This is our own private world in your carriage, is it not? Who will see me other than you?”
“What of meals?” he snapped. “Using the necessary?”
She hadn’t expected him to be so enraged. “I can just hold the cloak closed.”
“You plan to walk in public completely bare beneath your cloak?”
“No one would know but you,” she protested.
Agony flashed across his handsome features, twisting his sensual mouth. “God, and that’s the bloody magic of it, isn’t it?”
Venetia summoned her courage and stood in the lightly swaying carriage. They were making haste out of London before the streets became congested. She lowered to her knees on the floor, the comfortable carpeting and the thickness of her cloak cushioning her. Heat rose from bricks in the floor, warming her skin.
“Venetia—”
She cut him off by cupping her hand over the bulge in his breeches. “I painted a picture,” she told him in a breathy voice as she fumbled with the first button on his flap. He was so engorged the placket was pulled tight. “A picture of a man who looked like you being pleasured this way by a courtesan with auburn hair. In his theatre box in Drury Lane.”
When he didn’t immediately speak, she gazed up and saw turbulent thoughts behind his turquoise eyes.
“In front of the audience,” she whispered.
The solid ridge jumped in his breeches, straining against the buttons, making her task of undressing him more difficult. She couldn’t tell him more about her picture—that the earl fell in love with his ravishing courtesan.
“Are you certain you want to do this?” His voice was raspy, hoarse.
“Yes,” she whispered, freeing the second button from the loop. “I want to take you into my mouth.”
Her hands shook with expected nerves, but also with weakening desire. When she’d seen this act in pictures, she’d marveled. A man’s penis was so long, how could it fit in a woman’s mouth? It couldn’t go down a woman’s throat, could it?
With trembling fingers, she opened the last button. Parted the falls of his trousers, peeled down his soft linen underclothes. And gasped.
She was eye to eye with his cock.
She marveled at it, running her fingertip along the shaft. It bobbed at her touch like a top-heavy rose swaying in the wind. In pictures, rendered in purples and angry reds, it had looked enormous. Close up it was gigantic. Carefully, she closed her hand around the shaft, surprised to feel it swell and firm against her palm. A droplet of moisture gathered at the tip. The head was surprisingly adorable and begged for a kiss. It even possessed a small beauty spot—a dusky brown spot beside the glistening eye.
“Is it so fascinating?”
She met his gaze and noticed he was waiting, quite tense, for her response. Despite his power, his privilege, his experience, he was concerned about her opinion. Were both men and women always nervous in this arena?
“What do you call it?” she whispered.
“My cock, my prick…staff, rod, maypole…John Thomas…sometimes my Commanding Officer, for that’s what it often seems to be. So tell me, does it please you?”
She nodded. “It is very aesthetic, my lord.” She used his title, excited to play make-believe. To step into the erotic scene she had created where she was courtesan to his earl.
“Really?” He leaned back, obviously proud and pleased, and she had to giggle. “What makes it so? In an artist’s opinion?”
That was easy to answer. “The proportions of the head to the shaft.” She toyed with the surprisingly soft, velvety head. “Perfectly made to ease the beast into a woman’s cleft, allowing the passage of the thick steely shaft behind it.”
“Not too big?”
“The whole is very big, my lord. You have a fine cock of considerably generous proportions.”
He laughed.
She couldn’t believe she was having a discussion about his intimate parts. But it gave her courage, this teasing exchange. “And the color—”
“The color?” His black brows went up. “I’d never considered the color to be at issue.”
Some erotic pictures featured unattractive pasty white members. “It’s a lovely dusky tan.”
“I must remember to let it get more sun. Keep it from losing its appealing tanned look.”
Venetia giggled. Marcus was panting, and he no longer looked jaded like the earl in the theatre box. His fluid was flowing now, the heat taut and shining.
Closing her eyes, she bent down and pressed her lips to the head. She stuck out her tongue and licked him. Dabbed at him. Then she flattened her tongue, swirling it over his satiny skin. His juices wetted her tongue, tantalizing her with a taste both rich and slightly sour.
He gave a soft groan that sent a surge of triumph through her. Though she held power, she still wanted to please him. Flattening her tongue, she caressed the head, then licked the shaft. Oh, it was delicious, warm, beautifully velvet.
She traced a vein with the tip of her tongue.
His head arched back. “Temptress.”
She bobbed her head on him with no idea what he truly wanted. She sucked hard, then slow and teasingly, with lavish, slobbering strokes. She touched his ballocks, terribly afraid to hurt him. They squished when she lightly squeezed and seemed to scurry up, away from her hand.
His hand settled in her hair. To stop her? No, he moaned lustily and she fondled his balls with one hand while gripping the hilt of his cock with the other.
Gathering courage, she drew his cock into her mouth as deep as she could. She gagged in shock and pulled back.
She tried again. Tears drizzled from the corners of