He lowered his head toward her throat, breathing deeply. ‘Your perfume is of roses again today,’ he murmured huskily. ‘And something else,’ he added curiously.
Julianna trembled slightly even as she felt the bloom of warmth in her cheeks as she easily guessed that other perfume to be the arousal deepening between her thighs. An arousal she knew was caused not only by Marcus’s close proximity but also by thoughts of having to touch herself in front of him.
‘Julianna?’ Marcus prompted huskily as he saw the fevered glitter that had appeared in those dark grey eyes.
She avoided meeting his gaze. ‘I—could we please hurry? As I said, I have another appointment. Marcus?’ she said sharply as he placed a hand beneath her chin and turned her flushed face toward his.
‘Something has happened.’ Marcus looked down at her searchingly, noting those fevered eyes, the flush to her cheeks, the redness of her pouting lips. ‘Tell me, Julianna.’ His hands lightly grasped the tops of her arms as he refused to allow her to turn away from him. ‘Tell me, damn it!’ He shook her slightly.
‘I—I cannot!’ she said on a sob, head bowed. ‘I—it is too shameful. Too embarrassing! I should not have—I cannot say it!’ she gasped on another sob.
What on earth?
Marcus stilled as he contemplated those over-bright eyes for several more seconds, the flush to her cheeks, the pouting and aroused lips, and the way the fullness of the tops of her breasts pressed up and over her gown, as if bursting to be free. ‘Ah,’ he finally murmured with satisfaction. ‘Perhaps part of our lesson today is superfluous?’
She raised startled eyes. ‘What?’
Marcus smiled slightly. ‘Tell me, Julianna, did you perhaps touch between your thighs last night, breathe in the perfume of your arousal, as I had suggested you would do for me today?’
‘No!’ Her face paled slightly as she pushed against his chest in an attempt to pull away, breathing heavily as she failed to free herself. ‘I—yes! Yes, I—I touched myself!’ she admitted as she glared up at him heatedly, challengingly. ‘It was your fault!’ she continued defensively. ‘All your talk of arousal and... Yesterday evening, after I had bathed, I looked at myself in a mirror, at my nakedness, and then—then I touched my breasts, and the moisture you spoke of gathered between my thighs, and ... and ...’
‘And?’ Marcus encouraged her.
‘And I am ashamed of what I did! So ashamed!’ She broke off with a wail as she collapsed against his chest and cried in earnest.
Marcus took her into his arms, allowing her tears. While he stroked the length of her spine, he enjoyed the sensation of having Julianna cling to him, of knowing that he had been responsible for Julianna’s arousal yesterday evening. ‘And did you like it, pet?’
‘Too much!’ She trembled at the admission.
‘One can never like physical pleasure too much, Julianna,’ Marcus chuckled huskily.
‘No?’ She sounded uncertain.
‘No,’ he assured her softly. ‘Did you breathe in your own unique perfume?’
‘Yes!’
‘And did that arouse you even more? Enough so that you stroked yourself there?’
‘S-stroked myself?’ Her voice was muffled against his chest, but he could hear her shock nevertheless.
‘Did your pleasure increase as you touched yourself? Did you climax?’
‘Yes. Yes. I don’t—’ She burrowed her hot face closer against his chest. ‘No, I do not think I climaxed.’
Marcus chuckled again. ‘You would remember it if you had. Are you wet now, Julianna? The truth now,’ he warned as he felt her hesitation.
Julianna groaned softly in her throat as she felt her desire grow just talking to Marcus in this way, having him so close to her, breathing in the warmth of lemon and sandalwood that was so uniquely him. ‘Are you not shocked?’ She frowned as she looked up to find him looking at her with curiosity rather than condemnation. ‘Disgusted, at least, at my having behaved so—so shamefully?’
He gave a shake of his head. ‘I believe I feel pride more than anything, in knowing that our short time together has broken down your previous inhibitions so readily. I am not in the least shocked or disgusted by your behaviour, Julianna,’ he assured her huskily. ‘Rather, I should like to have been there, to have been allowed to watch you.’
She blinked. ‘You would?’
He nodded. ‘It would have aroused me to do so.’
‘Sight...’ she breathed softly, wonderingly.
‘Yes. That you now know some of the pleasure of your own body is a natural process, pet,’ he explained as she still frowned her uncertainty. ‘And a necessary one, too, if you are to help guide a partner into also learning what pleases you.’
It was all too much for Julianna to take in. Far too much, after the things she had already revealed to Marcus today, and when her body trembled and ached with heated arousal just being close to him in this way, able to feel his hard strength beneath her cheek and against her sensitive breasts, to breathe him in.
‘You said my—my actions yesterday only rendered part of our lesson today superfluous?’ she reminded softly.
He nodded. ‘You have still to learn of a man’s...musk.’
Julianna’s gaze instantly moved lower, the lengthy throb so clearly visible between Marcus’s thighs telling her of his arousal. ‘Now?’ she breathed softly. Curiously. Eagerly.
Marcus released her to lean back against the chaise, giving her easier access to the buttons fastening the sides of his pantaloons. ‘Right now,’ he said throatily.
Marcus’s erection surged up thick and long, and his heart began to beat a loud and wild tattoo in his chest as Julianna’s hands moved tentatively, and then more surely, to unfasten the buttons of his pantaloons.
And again he worried that, after wanting her, desiring her, loving her for so long, he wouldn’t be able to retain control over the increasingly desperate need he felt to make love to her completely.
The last thing Marcus wanted to do was hurt Julianna, frighten her with the depth of the passion he felt for her, as that bastard Armitage had so obviously hurt and frightened her in their marriage with his coldness and brutality.
‘Marcus?’
Damn it, he could see by the uncertainty of Julianna’s expression, as she hesitated about folding down the flap of his pantaloons that would bare him to her completely, that she was already doubting the wisdom of her actions, that if he did not do something, say something soon to alleviate that uncertainty, she might cut and run. Perhaps, this time, forever.
Her next words confirmed it. ‘If you would rather we put an end to our bargain now, I believe I have learnt enough to—’
‘I have no intention of putting an end to our bargain!’ he bit out, instantly regretting that hardness as he saw the way in which she flinched. ‘We made an agreement, Julianna,’ he reminded evenly. ‘And I am not about to renege on that. I hesitate only because—I know you have been married, Julianna, but the things you have said of that marriage have not... Have you even seen a man naked?’
‘Not John, certainly.’ She raised her chin determinedly at the enormity of her admission, at what it must tell Marcus of that loveless marriage. ‘But I saw my brother, Christian, in his drawers often when we swam together as children—’
‘I said a man, Julianna.