How to Master Your Marquis (20 page)

She had asked for his help, after all. It was the gentlemanly thing to do.

Without her masculine clothes, her body seemed delicate by contrast, as fair and flawless and translucent as a curving Ming vase, almost too fragile to touch. And yet he knew she was sturdy. She had just rowed two miles up and down an unruly tidal river. He fitted his palms around her breasts and closed his eyes. She felt like heaven, heavy and just yielding to the gentle pressure of his hand, her skin damp and soft. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered.

“I love your hands,” she whispered back. “I love your lips.”

He leaned forward and kissed her, as softly as he could, nudging her lips in a tender rhythm until she opened them for him, a fraction of an inch, a fraction more. He took her sweet breath deep into his lungs. More. He wanted more. He found the tip of her tongue and stroked it with his, as delicately as he might stroke the nose of a kitten, and the sound she made as he stroked her was very much of the kitten variety, a kind of eager mewl at the back of her throat.

A sound so tantalizing, he wanted to call it forth again.

So he stroked her tongue again, and again she mewled for him, and his hands at her breasts spread apart into individual fingers, each caressing her skin. He swirled his forefingers around each nipple. He sent each thumb to explore each thin-skinned underside, and Stefanie’s hands pressed into his back, and her kitten sounds turned into growls of pleasure.

More. He wanted more.

He sent his tongue deeper into her slick mouth, tangling with her, and she tangled right back, and her fingers, still somehow clutching the blanket, speared into his hair and rubbed his scalp with eager knuckles. She arched her back, pressing her breasts into his hands. He should stop now, she was warm and flushed in the snug blanket-wrapped space between them, she had recovered perfectly.

More. He wanted more.

“Hatherfield.” Her lips moved to his cheek, to his jaw. “Oh God, Hatherfield. Don’t stop. I’m burning for you, I need you.”

“I thought you were freezing.” He couldn’t resist.

She took him by the head and pulled him downward, until they were sprawled on the floor inside her blanket, the air cold on his legs and hot everywhere else. He ran his hands up her chest to her long neck, into her short damp hair, around the pure curve of her ear. He was lying on top of her, holding himself up by the elbows. He pushed her hair back from her face. She was gazing at him, half lidded.

He could stop now. His layers of clothing lay thick between them; he could feel the tantalizing shapes of her body against his, but not the silk of her skin, the texture of her. He could feel her legs wrapping around him, but not the friction of her sliding flesh. He could feel the bursting strength of his erection inside his trousers, but it was all contained, all caged in by cloth and civilization. So far, he had done her no actual ill. He should stop now.

She was warm now. She was as hot as a coal under his fingers.

“Please, Hatherfield,” she said, and let go of the edges of the blanket.

His breath stopped in his chest.

She was fair all over, a ginger’s creamy pale skin, dotted here and there with delicate freckles. He wanted to kiss each one. Something beat in his head, something about stopping while he could, but he ignored that irritating voice and concentrated on her freckles, the ones on her shoulder, the ones just below the hollow of her throat, the sprinkling of them on her chest. Her fingers scrabbled at his back, pulling at his jumper, pulling at the cotton shirt beneath. He reached around and grabbed her hands and pinned them to the floorboards, above the edge of the blanket, and he kissed her deeply on the mouth.

“I stay dressed,” he said. “Do you understand?”

She nodded.

He lifted his body and trailed his mouth down the line of her neck to her breasts, her beautiful siren’s breasts, and he sucked one nipple into his mouth. She gasped hard and arched her back.

“More?” he said.

“More!”

He bent his head again and used his lips to suckle her, his tongue to rasp the sensitive rosy pink tip, until she was crying out and her hips bucked beneath him.

He moved to the other breast, while he caressed the first, mimicking with his fingers what he did with his mouth. Her cries rang like music in his ears; her fresh skin tasted of Stefanie, pure and undiluted, falling into no known category of saltiness or sweetness, floral or mint or spice: just her, just Stefanie, just life.

“Hatherfield, please,” she said, almost sobbing.

“What is it, Stefanie? What do you want?” He wanted her to say it, he wanted the proof of her desire in his ears.

“You know. You know what I want.” Her fingers, freed from his enclosing hands, flew down to the waistband of his trousers.

“No!” he snapped.

Her hands fell back. Her eyes flew open.

“No,” he said, more softly. He kissed his way back up her neck to her ear. “Let me help you, Stefanie. I know what you need. I’ll give you what you need. Just lie back and let me take care of you.”

“I need you. I need you inside me.”

I need you inside me.
The words burned through his skin.

“I’ll take care of you. Trust me.” He swept his hand down her breast, across her belly, to rest on her hip. With his thumb he brushed the tiny curls.

She exhaled a long and heavy sigh.

He rolled to her side and allowed his gaze to follow his hand. The sight nearly did him in. Her pale hips made a graceful curve under his large hand; a neat auburn triangle pointed to the parting of her legs. He moved his hand and spread the fingers outward, until his thumb brushed one side of her hip bone and his pinkie just nudged the other, and the swell of her mons fit precisely into the hollow of his palm.

He turned his head and met her round eyes.

“You are the most beautiful sight,” he said. “The most beautiful woman.”

“Even when I’m wearing my trousers?”

“Even in your trousers, and most especially without them.” He brushed her lips with a kiss.

She placed her hand atop his. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you? You know what to do with me.”

“I’ve done this before, but never with you.” He kissed her again. “Tell me how.”

“I . . . I don’t know, exactly. Slowly?”

“Slowly, then.” He moved his hand slowly through her curls, down her mound, until his forefinger found the soft flesh within. He touched her swollen clitoris with a hummingbird’s lightness. “Like this?”

“Yes!”

“How many fingers?”

“One. Two. I don’t care.”

He slid one finger down the channel, already slick with arousal, and searched out the small fissure at her center. He circled around the rim and brought his finger up to his lips. The rich scent made his blood jump; he sucked it into his mouth and then found her again, that immaculate sweet flesh, and this time he pushed his finger inside her an eighth of an inch, just wetting the tip, until her hips moved restlessly and he pushed a little farther, a little farther, until his first finger joint was inside her and she made a carrying call, a wild sound, and her knees drew up and back down again, and her muscles closed hard around the fortunate first quarter of his finger.

“More?” he said.

“Yes, damn you! More!” she shouted.

Another quarter inch, and another, and another. Now his finger was halfway inside her, so that his thumb could easily rub against the nub above.

Her hand wrapped around his wrist. The nails dug into his skin.

“MORE! DAMN YOU!”

God, she was magnificent! He kissed her, he massaged her in lazy strokes, feeding his finger into her channel. “Do you know what amazes me?” he said. “How you can grip my single finger so tightly, and yet I could still fit my cock into you. My cock, Stefanie, which is about the size and strength of a brass cannon just now.”

“Hatherfield!”

His finger was all the way inside her now, right up to the knuckle, buried in hot silk. He held it there, while his thumb went on with its rhythmic teasing, rubbing in light and tender circles, while her hips rose high.

“Open your eyes, Stefanie. I want you to look at me when you spend. I want to see what you’re thinking.”

She opened her eyes, looked at him, and climaxed hard and fast, her wet flesh clenching around his finger, her chest gasping for air. “Oh God, oh God! Oh
God
, it won’t stop, it . . .
oh!
” Her head fell back on the blanket. The pulses died slowly away on his finger, until her release was only a distant flutter, a final half-remembered twitch.

He slid his finger out of her and drew up the side of the blanket to cover her from the cold air of the room. She turned her head into his shoulder.

She might have slept for a moment. He wasn’t sure. Her breathing steadied against the wool of his jumper; her heartbeat took on a slow thud. The fire behind him seemed to have taken. He could feel its warmth at his back, could hear the familiar sizzle of burning coals.

“Did that help?” he asked at last, when she stirred.

“Yes,” she said. “But what about you?”

“I’ll manage.” In fact, he was shortly going to die of spontaneous internal combustion.

She reached again for the waistband of his trousers, and he rolled away in a flash and jumped to his feet.

She struggled upward in a tangle of blankets and pale limbs. “What’s wrong? What did I do?” Her short hair fell away from her face, exposing her pale face, her darkened large eyes. He turned away from the sight.

“Nothing. Just give me a moment.” He went to the window and braced himself against the sill, staring at the cold back alley. The chill of the air penetrated his clothes. He thought of ice and snow, of cold river water, and when that didn’t help, he thought of his stepmother’s haughty face. Her triumphant eyes.

He turned. “Cover yourself. You’ll catch a chill.”

“Hatherfield?” She rose to her feet. “What’s wrong?”

“I told you, nothing’s wrong. We need to dry your clothes, get you dressed . . .”

“You’re acting like an ass. Stop it now.”

“I’m only being practical. You’ll be late . . .”

“You’re acting like an ass, Hatherfield! And I will just . . . I will just
slap
you in a moment, if you don’t stop!” She was starkly and unashamedly naked. Her hands were fixed to her beautiful hips. Her eyes, good Lord, they shamed him.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “Wrap yourself up. Please, Stefanie. There is absolutely nothing wrong. With you.”

She looked at him a second or two longer, and then she picked up the blanket and wrapped it wantonly around her body, which was worse somehow, which made him imagine her wrapped in his own blankets in his own bed in his own damned bedroom. He bent and found her clothes and laid them out next to the fire. He was still erect as hell, but at least he could move.

“His name was Gunther,” she said.

He turned. “What’s that?”

“The man I was with before. Well, he was a boy, really. I was eighteen, he was about the same. I’d known him all my life. He was the mayor’s son, a minor aristocrat I suppose, and we played together as children.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “Why are you telling me this?”

“He understood me, in his way. The only one who did, apart from Emilie. He knew why I needed to get away, that the castle was like a prison to me. He helped me sneak out at night, and I was free then, I wasn’t a princess, I didn’t have duties and decorum and a life mapped out for me. I think we were about thirteen the first time we went larking. It was all innocent. And then that summer, the summer I turned eighteen, it all changed.” She sank onto the cot and stared at the fire.

He studied her for a moment and sat down next to her, a foot or so away.

“I felt so restless. My latest stepmother had just died giving birth to another stillborn, and I really loved her, she was wonderful, almost a sister. Father was away at some spa or another, probably looking for another wife. I was going mad, I thought I would burst from my skin, and Gunther . . . I suppose he’d filled out a bit, he’d grown taller. His spots had sorted themselves out at last. And I convinced myself I was in love with him.”

“Were you?”

“I suppose I was. Yes. The way one is at that age, all heedless and delirious. So one night I let him kiss me, and a few nights later I let him touch me, and then . . . I don’t know. I suppose I’m just wicked inside, a wanton. I just wanted it so badly, like a burn below my skin. Like I did now, as if I would die if he didn’t . . . if I didn’t . . . well, I don’t think I even knew what I wanted. He didn’t really know what to do, either. It wasn’t very successful at first, and then by the time we had finally learned how to get it right . . .” She shook her head.

He picked up her hand and held it between both of his.

She gathered her breath. “His father . . . I don’t know if he realized what was going on or not. But he made Gunther marry another girl, a daughter of a factory owner, large dowry. Large breasts, too. I thought . . . I was stupid. I thought Gunther would say no, and we would run away together. I thought, maybe I’ll be with child, and he’ll have to marry me and take me away from all this. But I wasn’t, and he did. Marry her, I mean. So that was that. A ruined woman. A useless princess, really, because if anyone knew, I could never be married off for the betterment of my country. No gentleman would want me.”

“I want you.”

“Not to marry.”

He bit back his next words, because he couldn’t say them. Had no right.

Instead, he said, “You’re not ruined to me. It doesn’t matter. I’m glad, at least, that . . .” He paused, because how did one phrase such things? He didn’t want to offend her.

“Glad that what?”

“That you cared for him. That he cared for you.” And especially glad that she—and he—would never see this wretched Gunther fellow, this infinitely lucky rascal, ever again.

“Yes. Well. Here’s my point; I do have a point. My little affair with Gunther was very nice, the last time or two, when we had finally worked out how to do it all properly. But it wasn’t like . . . like what happened just now. He wasn’t like you at all. That was all very much
that
, and this is . . .
this.
And I want to tell you that whatever it is—or I suppose I mean
whoever
she was, the one who came before me, the one who makes you spring away like that afterward as if you loathed the very thought of what we’ve just done—well, that was that.”