Pleasuring the Lady (The Pleasure Wars) (12 page)

But that voice was very quiet and easily squashed by another, louder one. One that told him not to take as she suggested, but to give. To bring this woman pleasure so powerful that she was weak in his arms and even more ready for the debauchery he intended to entertain once she was his wife.

“You are a temptation I never expected,” he drawled as he lowered her to her back on the settee. “How could I have never seen it before?”

“No one saw me,” she murmured, and he saw a flash of pain in her gaze before she turned it away.

“Well, I see you now. So very clearly,” he growled before his mouth was on her a second time.
 

This time he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t allow her to innocently lead him. He claimed her with his tongue, sucking at her, swirling around her, tasting her and reveling in how his arousal increased with every single kiss. Reveling even more in how she shuddered with surrender after a mere moment in his arms.
 

He would have to be very careful if he didn’t want to go too far before they wed. And for some reason, he didn’t. Taking her was a pleasure he wanted to savor after a vicar pronounced them man and wife.

He drew a breath of calm and then put a bit of space between them. Just enough that he could allow his hand to travel down the length of her body. He smoothed his palm over her breasts, and she gasped, just as she had at the Donville Masquerade when he touched her similarly. He could still feel her pebbled nipples on his tongue and hear her soft moans of pleasure.

He would have them again tonight.

“I want to do something, Portia,” he explained even as he caught a handful of her skirt and began to inch it up her body. “Will you allow it?”

He saw a shadow cross over her face. A brief moment where she questioned him, doubted him, but then she shook it away. “I told you before and I repeated it tonight…I am yours in any way you like if you will help me. You have, and I won’t renege on my part of the bargain.”

He frowned at her blunt terms, but continued to lift her skirt. Soon enough she wouldn’t see his touch as a duty. He knew very well that she was responsive, that she could be brought to release with his hands.

Now he wanted to try the same experiment with his tongue.

He sat up and looked at her. Her dress was hiked to her thighs, revealing worn stockings and a long expanse of legs he could imagine wrapped around his waist as he took her in l urgent strokes.

Later. Later.

For now he pressed his palms into those creamy thighs, urging them open as he held her gaze. Her body trembled, but she didn’t resist as he made a space for himself between her legs and leaned in. There were three inches of silken fabric covering her sex, and he slid them up to rest on her belly before he looked at her again.

Through the slit in her drawers, he saw a hint of pink flesh. Wet, pink flesh that glistened in tempting and teasing fashion.
 

“I’m taking these off,” he said, putting his fingers into the waist of her undergarments. “Don’t wear them again.”

Her eyes went wide. “Ever?”

“Never. I never want to lift your skirt and find your body covered again unless it is by something I give to you to wear.” He held her stare. “Do you understand?”

She nodded, a jerky motion though he couldn’t tell if she was utterly offended or completely aroused. Perhaps a touch of both.

He tossed the drawers away and sucked in breath through his teeth. He had touched her pussy in the carriage but not seen it. Now it was spread open to him like a fine meal and he forced himself to stay calm. To move slowly.
 

He looked up at her face. Her cheeks were dark red and she was shaking, but she didn’t flinch. She didn’t tell him to stop. He admired that strength. That dedication to the course she had put herself on.

“Don’t be ashamed of your body,” he said. “Not with me.”

“No one has ever seen me this way,” she whispered.

He flinched, thinking again of the fact that she was looking for Windbury that night at the masquerade. Had no one merely
seen
her this way or was she truly untouched?
 

“You are beautiful,” he reassured her. “You look good enough to eat.”

She swallowed, and he could see the wheels of her mind turning, turning, turning.
 

“Eat?” she repeated.

He nodded. “Surely you saw this at the masquerade. Saw the women being licked and pleasured?”

She let out a tiny moan and then nodded. “I-I saw them.”

“Didn’t you wonder what it would feel like to have a man’s tongue on your skin? To feel him drive it deep inside of you? To taste you?”

Her nipples were getting hard beneath her dress, and he smiled. She was an apt pupil indeed.

“Answer me,” he ordered softly.

She nodded again. “I wondered.”

“Then let me show you,” he said, and lowered his head between her legs. He rubbed his cheek against her inner thigh, inspiring a hiss of air from her lungs before he spread her lower lips with his thumbs and licked her from top to bottom with the flat of his tongue.

She arched beneath him with a wail of both surprise and pleasure that echoed in the room around them. Once again, he was nearly overwhelmed with a desire to drive his cock deep within her, but he controlled it. Tempered it. Reminded himself that soon he would do just that.

For now, though, he focused on her sex. He licked her again, tasting her sweetness, feeling it flood his mouth as she grew wet with his attentions. She arched beneath him, her eyes wide as he swirled his tongue around the swollen pearl of her clitoris.

“Miles,” she gasped, and he smiled as he looked up the length of her quivering body without slowing the pace of his mouth on her wet slit.
 

She was writhing, her cheeks pink, though not from embarrassment this time, and her face contorted with pleasure. He pushed her legs open even farther and began to suck on her clitoris, swirling his tongue over the little nub with just the right pressure.

She cried out as her body began to convulse beneath him. She moaned as she turned her face into the settee cushions, her hips lifting toward him in a silent, reflexive demand for more. A demand he met as he dragged her through release until her body shook and she lay limp and panting on the pillows.

He licked her one last time, then sat up to smile at her. She was staring, eyes glassy with dazed desire, up at him.

“Do you feel like you have repaid some of my, as you put it, kindness?” he asked, stroking his fingers along her thighs slowly. His cock felt so hard that he could have driven it through a wall.

But he knew the wait would make the ultimate pleasure all the better.

She blinked at him. “That isn’t all, though. You have taken no pleasure.”

He shrugged. “Seeing you lose control is very much a pleasure.”

She sat up enough that she leaned on her elbows, though she made no motion to fix herself. “You know that isn’t what I mean. You give me release and take none for yourself. How can that put me in any position except that I continue to owe you more and more?”

With a frown, he reached up and pulled her skirts back over her body before he stood and paced away. Her utter lack of faith in him was troubling, especially when coupled with her surrender of her body. Most women of his acquaintance couldn’t give themselves without faith in their partners at the very least.

It left him once again questioning everything he knew about the woman who would be his bride in only a few short hours.
 

“If you spend your life counting what you are owed and what you owe, you will never be happy, Portia,” he said softly. “We are in this situation now and we can make the best of it or not. It’s up to you what that answer is. One way or another, we will be wed tomorrow. Now, would you like to take a brief tour of the wing we have prepared for your mother?”

She got to her feet, watching him with continued wariness but also a hint of chagrin. Then she smoothed her wrinkled dress and reached for his arm.

“Yes. I would very much like to see what you have in store for my mother.”

He nodded once and led her from the room, but as he guided her upstairs, he was struck by how little had been resolved by their encounter. He wanted her all the more, but Portia was still an unexpected mystery he feared he might never solve.

Chapter Nine

It was her wedding day. Those words echoed in her head, repeating over and over until she thought she would go mad with it. But there was no pretending this moment away now. It was far too late for that.

Portia stood in the hallway of Miles’ home, staring through the open door to the ballroom where her fiancé was located, his broad back to her. A few friends and family members, including her fidgeting mother, sat along aisles, awaiting her entry that would signal the beginning of the wedding.

Her knees trembled. She had hardly slept after leaving Miles’ home the night before. She had not eaten that morning. She kept thinking about his touch, his bringing her pleasure, the bargain they had made about sex and sin.
 

She had no idea what her marriage would be like, but she had no doubt it was going to change her life forever.

Everything felt like a dream as her brother took her arm and glanced down at her. “Are you ready?”

She flinched at his tone. Hammond sounded so pleased to be rid of her, so happy that this moment had arrived, no matter how they had come to this place.
 

“I have no choice but to be ready,” she responded, trying to maintain composure. “So we should begin.”

Her brother did not kiss her cheek, he did not even look at her as they began to walk into the room together, down the long expanse of the decorated ballroom and toward Miles.

Miles turned as they hit the halfway point of the room, and Portia saw him catch his breath a little. She wished she could read his thoughts. Know if he thought she looked pretty in her gorgeous new gown, which had been finished only that morning, or whether he was just trying to keep himself from fleeing the room screaming.

She turned her attention to the others in the room. On her side of the aisle, her mother sat, blinking a little too much as she clung to Mrs. Potts’ hand. But she was smiling and that warmed Portia’s heart immensely. At least she could save her mother.
 

Ava and Christian were there too, also smiling, though Portia recognized Ava’s hesitation. And then there was Hammond’s wife, Iris. Her arms were folded and she watched Portia like a bird of prey would do. She briefly wondered if Iris would swoop at her if she were to try to run.

On Miles’ side of the aisle were just his sister and brother-in-law. Tennille watched her with unfettered kindness and an utter lack of hesitation. For some reason, Portia was welcome with them, though she certainly had not earned that place of friendship with Miles’ family.

Portia’s thoughts vanished as she reached Miles. Her brother took her hand and placed it in Miles’ before he stepped back to take his place beside his own wife.

The clergyman began to talk. He droned on, speaking about the purpose of marriage. When he reached the point where he spoke of how marriage was a remedy against sin and fornication, Portia stiffened. She wasn’t certain her own marriage would prevent either. Nor was she entirely convinced she wished to be free of those things if they made her feel so good.

She shivered and tried to attend to the rest of the ceremony. It passed mercifully swiftly, and soon he said, “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”

There was a resounding amen and it was over. She was a wife. And not just any wife, but wife to one of the most celebrated rakes in London, whom a dozen women had tried to capture. She was Marchioness Weatherfield.
 

Her knees shook, and she clung to Miles’ strong arm as he led her from the ballroom and back to a parlor where they would gather themselves before they met everyone else for the wedding breakfast.

As he shut the door, she moved to the other side of the room and stared at him. She had no idea what to say. How to say it. How to face him as a wife.
 

He seemed to have no such hesitation. He crossed the room in three long steps and gathered her into his arms. His mouth was on hers, heated and passionate. He claimed her with his tongue and her body lit on fire. She couldn’t control the needy moan which escaped her lips as she clung to him, shaking with desire and the knowledge that in a few short hours he would take her body and they would truly be bound forever.

He pulled back, his eyes wild, and smoothed his jacket. “Good morning, wife.”

She smiled despite all her worries and fears. “Good day, husband.”

He grinned in return and for a moment their eyes locked. She saw emotions in his stare, lightness she hadn’t noticed before when she saw him as merely a friend, before she’d felt the full impact of his desire.
 

“They are gathering in the Blue Parlor,” he said with a shake of his head. “So I suppose we must join them.”
 

She tensed. “The Blue Parlor where last night…where you and I…”