Pleasuring the Lady (The Pleasure Wars) (14 page)

She felt something hard there, something rubbing her trembling sex through his trousers. His member, if the drawings that had aroused her years ago and the images from the night of the masquerade were correct. He would put that inside of her to make her his in every way.

She wanted that now. More than anything.

“Are you going to take me?” she whispered, lifting herself against him in an effort to feel the pleasure she knew was coming.

“Here? In my office?” he asked.

She nodded, gasping when he rocked forward and the hardness that was still covered rubbed her perfectly.
 

“No. Not here, not like this. In a few hours everyone will leave and I will take you to my bed and I will press this—” he took her hand and put that hard member against her fingers, “—deep within you until you cry out with pleasure you have never known. But for now, I only want to remind you that you are mine. And that I can have you anywhere, anytime, including when our parlor is filled with guests, wondering where we’ve gone.”

A groan escaped her lips at that naughty thought.
 

“Some of them will know,” he continued, pressing his hand against her again. His fingers breeched her now and he began to curl them gently within her. “They’ll know that we are succumbing to desire. They’ll guess that you are here, with me, your legs spread while I bury myself inside of you.” He drove his fingers deep. “Like this.”

She arched her back as pleasure began to build, steady and swift, in her clenching sheath. But this time it wasn’t enough. She wanted more, she wanted him, all of him, some of him, any of him.

“What about me?” she gasped as she reached out to stroke the hardness hidden within the folds of his trousers. “What will they think I am doing to you?”

His gaze jerked to hers, and he stared at her for a moment. Then he unfastened his trousers and pulled the hard length of his member free.

She stared. She had never been so close to a naked man before. Even at the masquerade, she had only watched from the corner of her eye. Now he was here, his body inches from hers, her fingers near him. She could feel the heat radiating from his body and see the strain as he leaned in to her.

“They would guess you are taking my cock with your body,” he whispered, wrapping her fingers around him. “That I am stroking inside of you as you beg me for more.”

She moaned as he began to move his fingers faster inside of her. He was stroking her toward release and she found herself doing the same with him. Her hand moved over him in the same rhythm as he moved inside of her. His hips began to jerk as she cried out, and she was lost.

Her body rocked out of control as wave after wave of intense release flowed through her. She gasped as she continued to stroke his…he had called it his cock…and then, to her surprise, he grunted her name and his essence flowed from his body between them.

For a moment, they stayed like that, his fingers inside of her, her hand around him, staring at each other as they panted in mutual release. Then he glided his fingers from her sheath and smiled.

“The next time you open your legs for me, it will be for my cock,” he said, pulling from her grasp gently and yanking his trousers up around his naked flesh. “Be ready.”

She quivered at that sensual promise and the dark and dangerous look in his eyes as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her to wipe her hands. There was the dichotomy of him again. He was an animal bent on having her in any and every way his wicked mind could imagine. And yet he could be kind, he could be thoughtful, as he was when he gave her a cloth to wipe off her hands or had dresses made for her or did something to help her mother.

How she would ever come to fully understand him, she did not know.
 

She turned to find him holding her gown out for her. “Allow me to assist you,” he said and helped her as she stepped back into the pretty dress.
 

He was as skillful at buttoning it as he had been at loosening it and soon she was fixed, as though this moment between them had never even happened. She glanced at her hair in a mirror above his sidebar and shook her head. She looked exactly the same as she had before they left the parlor, only a little flushed.

“Ready to return and pretend this never happened?” he asked with a low chuckle that made her still-tingling sex clench with need once again.

What in the world was he doing to her?

“Y-Yes,” she stammered as she took the elbow he offered and they left his office to return to the parlor. When she touched him, the tension crackled between them and she forced herself to take a long breath.

“You are very pink,” he said, close to her ear as they moved toward the open parlor door.

She looked up at him with a shake of her head. “Do you not wish to take responsibility for that?”

He chuckled as they entered the room. “I’m more than pleased to take responsibility,” he said as he released her. “Now go and be hostess. And think of what will happen when all these interlopers are gone and you and I are alone in my bed.”

She staggered slightly as she walked away from him, past Ava and her knowing smile, toward a small group of revelers who she had not yet met with since the ceremony.

But she couldn’t stop thinking of exactly the image Miles had put into her mind. Of his bed, of his cock and of the moment when she would finally be completely and irrevocably claimed.

Miles loosened his cravat and tossed his jacket on the chair beside the roaring fire before he moved to the small sideboard in his chamber and poured himself a strong drink. He had been married for eleven hours. Eleven hours filled with breakfasts and parties and family luncheons and visitors and well-wishers and an early supper he couldn’t eat fast enough so that everyone would simply go home and leave him to Portia.

Portia, who he hadn’t even thought of until she was revealed as his obsession. Portia, who he now dreamed of claiming day and night.

A dream that would come true as soon as she saw her exhausted mother settled in her new set of chambers far across the house.

He did not begrudge her those moments with Lady Cosslow, but he did wish they would pass faster.
 

As if his wishes had been granted, there was a light knock on the door behind him and he turned as Armstrong opened the door.
 

“Lady Weatherfield, my lord,” he said.
 

Miles smiled. It was the first and only time his wife would be escorted to his chambers as if she were a visitor.
 

“Thank you, Armstrong, that will be all.”

The butler nodded and stepped away to reveal Portia. Her hands were clenched together in front of her, her face was pink and her eyes darted around his chamber as she remained in the doorway, waiting.

“Will you come in?” he pressed, motioning her inside.

She jumped, as if she had forgotten she was standing stock-still in the hallway, and nodded as she stepped inside. “Of course, how silly of me.”

“Close the door,” he demanded, using all his self-control to remain in one place and not charge on her like an aroused bull.
 

She hesitated ever so slightly and then reached behind her to do as he requested. When the door clicked shut, she jumped.

“Have you seen your chamber yet?” he asked.

She shook her head. “N-no. With all the excitement today, I have not.”

He motioned to the door. “It is through here.”

He moved there and opened it. She walked to stand beside him and peeked into the room. No fire had been lit there and it was dark.

She laughed, the tension broken by the sound. “I’m sure it is lovely.”

He smiled with her. “It is, I assure you. And you will see it fully tomorrow morning. But tonight, we will adjourn to the other room.”
 

He pointed to the door that led to his bedroom.
 

“Yes,” she murmured and her eyes went impossibly wide.

“In a moment,” he added. “Would you like a drink first?”

She swallowed hard, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Brandy?” he asked, holding up his own glass.

She nodded again. “Please.”

When he handed her a glass a moment later, he was surprised as she downed the entire portion in one heaving gulp. He stared at her, eyebrows lifted.

“Are you well?” he asked.

She blushed as she set the empty glass aside. “I admit my nerves are shaken. It has been a…a very trying day.”

“Sit,” he urged, pointing to the chairs by the fire.
 

She took the one that did not contain his jacket and clenched her hands in her lap. He took the other, leaning forward to take her hand before he spoke again.

“How did you find your mother?” he asked, massaging the palm of her right hand.

She shivered at the touch. “Well,” she croaked out. “Thank you. She is settling nicely into her new quarters, and Mrs. Potts takes very good care of her.”

“Excellent. I’m certain she will have a period of adjustment, but I want her and you to know that she is most welcome here.”

Portia tilted her head and for a moment he saw a flash of deep pain in her stare. “Why?”

He blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“I know that you and I agreed to a bargain, my utter surrender in exchange for your help, but you do not have to be so kind to her. Why are you?”

“You are so accustomed to the unkindness of others that you refuse to believe it,” he said softly, watching as the firelight danced off her face. “Portia, I do not love you. You do not love me. That is not why our match was made, so we do not need to pretend it has anything to do with what we are.”

She didn’t react to that statement, for negative or positive, so he continued.

“But you
are
my wife now. And I will treat you with kindness and generosity because you deserve to be treated no less. Our bargain aside, you do not need to live in fear of me or worry that my kindness is fickle.”

She pondered that a moment. “Are you saying we could become…friends?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “That would be my greatest hope. That a friendship will bloom between us from the warmth we already share.”

She pressed her lips together. “It is the most we could hope for, I suppose.”

He wrinkled his brow at the faraway tone to her voice. Slowly, he stood and held out a hand. “That and passion.”

She stared up at him, lips slightly parted. “That and passion,” she repeated.

“Which I will make sure you experience as often as we both have an interest in it. I will give you pleasures that you have never imagined.”

As she placed her fingers in his, he drew her to her feet. Slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers and brushed his lips back and forth against hers. She relaxed, sighing into his mouth as her arms came around his neck and her body molded to his. He drew back reluctantly.

“Come to my room,” he whispered, shocked by how broken and needy his tone was. “Come to my bed. Now.”

Chapter Eleven

Portia trembled as she followed Miles through what felt like a very ominous door. Once inside, she took a breath as she looked around the room.
 

His bedchamber was darkly designed and intensely masculine both in color and décor. It had a huge bed against the wall opposite the door. A roaring fire danced in a massive fireplace, warming the room and searing her already heated flesh. He had a few pieces of fine furniture scattered around the room, but her eyes came back, again and again, to that bed.
 

That damn bed.

Her gaze slipped to Miles, who had shut the door separating the sitting room from the bedchamber and was leaning against it, staring at her. He was devastatingly handsome, his shirt collar loosened, his hair mussed, one foot folded over the other. His dark stare bore into her, daring her to run or defy him.

She had no intention of doing either.

Instead she turned her back to him and motioned to the line of buttons which closed her gown.

“You have already proven your deft fingers in more ways than one today. Will you unfasten me?” she asked softly, shocked by her own boldness. What was happening to her? What was he doing to her?
 

There was a moment’s breath of hesitation, but then he moved behind her, his hands gliding to her shoulders. She leaned into his touch with a shuddering sigh, one that grew louder as he unfastened the first button at the top of her gown.

She waited for him to move to the second, but instead he pressed his lips to the tiny sliver of flesh he had revealed. A shock of sensation shot from the place where he touched her and settled between her thighs, where her sex began to throb madly.

“How do you do this to me?” she whispered as he unhooked the second button and allowed his mouth to move down her bared flesh.
 

“What do I do?” he asked before he moved his attention to the third button. His breath brushed her ear, and she shivered with pleasure and need. “Tell me.”