The Stanhope Challenge - Regency Quartet - Four Regency Romances (5 page)

Opening her thighs wide for him, she trembled. “Adam, please.”

“I know, my darling,” he crooned, pressed her back to gain better access to her sweet core. Then he bent to suck her swollen bud into his mouth. As she ground her teeth, he rose to watch her face transformed by ecstasy. “You like my mouth on you. And I?” He pinched her nub. “I love to eat you. You are so giving.”

“Oh!” She grabbed his shoulders. “What is this feeling overcoming me? A coiling, a storm.”

“You have not felt this before?”

“Never.”

Joy overwhelmed him. “This is the energy, the drive to take me inside you.” He pushed her to her elbows and sucked on her tiny bud once, twice, three times until to his delight and shock, she broke apart in an orgasm that had her keening. If he could make her come like that with only his mouth, what would she do naked in his bed with his cock buried deep inside her?

She pressed a hand to her stomach. Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, this is wonderful! Umm. Heavenly!”

He sent two fingers up inside her slick channel.

“Fee,” he moaned, his head dropped to her lower abdomen. From here, he could inhale again the aroma of her desire for him, and in gratitude, he stroked her molten core. “You flow like summer rain. I need to be inside you. Now.” He had never rushed a partner, but this sudden urgency to possess her was startling and demanding.

He swirled her to one side so that she lay along the bench on her back. He took himself in hand, one knee to the bench, bent to her and sank inside her sweet channel. The pressure, the heat stopped him. She was heaven, soft and hot and more than he could ever have anticipated.

“Adam,” she beseeched him as her fingers reached between her legs and touched the base of his shaft. “There. Oh, my, you are large, aren’t you?”

He snorted. Complimented. Captured. And hell take him now, but he had to pull out.

The angle was wrong. The position precarious. But he had to have her. Straddling the bench, he brushed back her skirts, hooked her legs up over his forearms and positioned his cock at the entrance to her beautiful core. This position he adored was one he’d learned quite young. Meant for a woman who gave her body to her lover with endless cream flowing over her lips and coating her thighs. He had the tip of his penis just at the opening to her dark entrance and conversation drifted their way.

He froze.

“Adam, Adam.” Fee was begging him in a whisper. “Don’t stop. I—”

“Quiet, darling.”

Voices became louder. And headed their way.

He flipped her skirts down. “Fee, someone is coming.”

“No!” she moaned and rather loudly, too.

He winced, the denial of paradise with her a torment in his groin. “We will continue—”

“Promise?” She sat up with his help, looking at him dazed.

“Absolutely!”

She blinked, her attention suddenly on his very straight, very ready and very unhappy cock. “My,” she exclaimed and licked her lower lip. “That is lovely.”

“You are making me daft,” he muttered, reassembled his flies.

Then he helped her to stand. When she did, her gaze was clear and riveted on him. “Take me home with you.”

Pulling her against him, he floated in a haze of sexual need. When he had planned to seduce her, he had expected she to be the only one enchanted. “Yes, by god.”

“No one will know,” she offered like a conspirator. “Not anyone. Not even the curse.”

Chuckling, he kissed her mouth.

“So that’s how I taste?” she murmured, eyes closed, her tongue tracing her lips. “How do you taste?”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. What a treasure she was. “Want to learn?”

“I do! Yes, yes. Why not?”

“No one will know,” he said, though he didn’t have the mindfulness at the moment to understand why he said that.

“No one will care,” she replied, as she nestled against him, and he led her from the maze.

He smiled, too damn pleased with himself. He courted disaster to take her home, to his bed and a glorious orgasm. But hell, he knew now that whatever she had felt as he’d eaten her luscious pussy and stroked her core, he had to have a piece of her the way a man should. The way a husband should. The way he was entitled. To hell with the curse! Its chaos was working, but at the moment, he did not care. If they were meant to suffer more than they had already, it was sheer torment to be without her now.

They rounded the side of the house, found one of Wingate’s footmen and told him to find Adam’s coach. Within minutes, Adam’s servant pulled up the brougham. Once the door was closed, Felice came willingly to his arms.

“Kiss me again,” she pleaded, her elegant fingers splaying up into the curls at the back of his head. “I’ve wondered what your flavor was. Licorice? Molasses?” She put her mouth to his and enjoyed his texture then let her tongue plunge inside.

“Felice,” he murmured as he fondled one peaking nipple though her gown, “you undo my resolve to be courteous and slow. I believe you’re a witch.”

She threw her head back for a full-throated laugh. “Comes with curses.”

He chuckled with her. “We’re ruining your dress.”

“You’ll buy me another.”

“I will give you anything you want,” he whispered as she caressed his thigh.

“Anything?”

Shocked to laughter, he nodded. “Tell me what you wish.”

A light flashed in her eyes. “An education in the art of love.”

The coach rolled to a stop. The horses stomped and snorted.

Stunned, Adam stared at her. She was his wife. His very charming, giving wife. She seemed sensual, too. But he had been duped once before. His instinct here however said she spoke the truth.

The coachman knocked on the door. “Sir?”

“Thank you, Brown,” Adam called to his coachman, but to Fee, he warned, “Be aware that my gift to you will be a generous one to myself, as well. It is most improper to take advantage of a woman.”

“I am not just any woman. I am your wife, and I wish a mutual pleasure for us, Adam.”

She could not have spoken more persuasive words. He grasped her hand and kissed it. The two of them straightened their clothes quickly. Once repaired, he rapped on the door for Brown to open it. He descended and held out his hand for Felice. “You may brush down the horses and retire for the evening, Brown.”

The man flashed him an astonished look.

Adam, for all his lust and haste to get Fee into his bed, understood his man’s sudden reluctance to proceed. “This is Mrs. Stanhope, Brown. She will be spending the evening.”

His servant checked Fee’s expression. She summoned the ability to smile politely at the man and acknowledge him suitably as the lady of the household should, despite the rather odd circumstances of their introduction. Turning with a regal demeanor, she gathered up her skirts and preceded Adam to his front door.

He grinned at her social graces.

In the morning, I shall worry about what we have done.
But for now, Adam flung open the door to his townhouse, whisked Fee up in his arms and told the butler to go to bed. The servant nodded and shut the door as Adam bounded up the stairs to his bedroom with his precious burden.

Damn the curse, for one night. He’d take a bit of bliss for himself and make more for his wife, as well, as he educated her in the finer arts of making love.

Felice hung on to Adam with feral hunger. She’d meant to be his good and obedient wife, in bed and out. She’d imagined he might care for her, like her as a bed partner beyond the pleasantries of their friendship. But this wildness in him thrilled her.

As he let her slide down his torso while he opened his bedroom door, she leaned against him and went eagerly with him as he led her inside. But she came to a halt, surveying his sanctuary. A Stanhope bedroom. A legendary den of private pleasures. The master suite of a Stanhope was reputed to be the one place on earth a woman could indulge in the most mindless intimacies she could imagine. If some women rued the day they entered one and fell in love with a Stanhope, far too many regaled others with the tales of decadence. True, those women had been paramours. Not wives of Stanhopes. Never wives.

Adam cupped her face. “Felice, do you now have second thoughts?”

Tearing her gaze from the red velvet canopy and counterpane over the massive bed, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “No. Not I. I thought about my decision to marry you long and hard. I am committed to you and making a happy marriage.”

He swept one arm around her waist and grinning against her mouth said, “I am delighted, too, you are willing to brave a man many call wild.”

“Mr. Wild, I’ve heard of you. A talented politician. But brash, eager and tormenting to women. Just like your brothers.”

“My brothers, Arrogant and Difficult?”

She chuckled. “What’s in a name? I know they have other redeeming qualities, just as you do.”

He walked backwards, leading her further into the room rich in ruby velvets and damask, punctuated by gold appointments. “Contrary to what you may have heard or read, no other woman has ever been here. Not in this room and not in my bed.”

“But your first wife?”

His eyes darkened, his lashes dusting his rigid cheekbones. His voice was a rasp. “She was never here.”

Felice was filled with such joy at knowing her uniqueness to him that she was momentarily speechless.

He stared at her, knitting his brows, all of a sudden hesitant. “I want you to know that in the morning, if you wish to go, I will not forbid you.”

His largesse tore at her. Was he that magnanimous to take a woman to bed and let her decide if she would leave…or return to him? Wonderful for a woman’s independence, but what if that woman was his wife? And she wanted to remain?

Felice shook off the dismay of tomorrow’s choice. Instead, she put her hands to his chest, the fine wool of his waistcoat smooth and scintillating to her senses. “I will tell you my decision then.”

His eyes narrowed on her mouth, and he stepped against her, his hand at her nape supporting her as he leaned over and kissed her with ravishing intent. At that moment, she gave up all caution, worry and dismay. She was here where she had longed to be. And he?

He was taking her mouth, treasuring it, exploring it, absorbing it into his entire being. She let him and met him with her own desires. Her arms clutched him closer and her heart beat faster. Her lips, her breasts, her belly, her loins turned to flame.

He broke away with a gasp.

“Allow me,” he told her as he spun her around and with nimble flicks unbuttoned her bodice. She could tell his fingers faltered. Shaking herself in anticipation, she stepped out of her slippers. No sooner did she discard her earbobs than he had her spun about again, her red gown slithering over her curves to the floor. With a few deft strokes, he had the two hooks of her chemise undone, the thing gaping open. With an indrawn breath, he slid his warm hands beneath the thin fabric as he pushed it from her shoulders and over her breasts. He discarded her petticoat next.

She dared not move a hair on her head.

Silently, he stood there for a very long moment as he surveyed the naked display she afforded him. Clad only in her thigh-high ivory stockings held up by garters, she displayed every charm and every flaw she possessed. And she dared not breathe.

“My darling wife,” he said on a broken voice, “you are quite the loveliest creature I have ever seen.”

“Please, Adam, never tease me.”

“Tease you? I promise never to do that.” His eyes gleamed. “At least not with words.”

She grinned at him. “And how will you do it otherwise?”

“You are the tease! Come to me!” She ran to him and he caught her up in his arms and strode with her to a huge winged chair where he laid her across his lap. “I shall show you.”

“I fear,” she ventured when she sat there before him quite naked and he fully clothed, “you have me at a disadvantage.” She flicked his cravat then put her fingers to the buttons of his waistcoat. “I cannot sit here naked while you are still trussed up like a Christmas goose.”

He settled his arms on the rests of the chair and sat back. “Have at me, then.”

Emboldened, she got to her feet, but he must have thought she was about to leave, for he seized her wrist. She merely intended to straddle his legs. An impulsive decision, she knew, that might offend his sensibilities and induce him to throw her out. Or bind her closer.

Even as she gathered her courage and sat down on his thighs facing him, she inhaled the fragrance of her desire for him. Did that rise to his nostrils too?

His nose twitched. His eyes fell closed and when he opened them, they shone with lust. “You are a temptress.”

“I’m glad you think so,” she crooned as she went to work on his cravat, vest and shirt to tug them off and drop them to the floor. His chest was furred with black down. Beneath, the muscles ran firm. She skimmed her fingers over the sculpted planes.

He caught her hands and warned her with a look.

“You have touched me twice now,” she explained with a raw courage she summoned from somewhere deep inside, “and I have not had the pleasure of reciprocating.”

“You are bold.”

“You wish me prudish?” she dared him.

“Never. Your eagerness is refreshing and requires me to summon the greatest discipline. I will teach you the fullest pleasures, if you will allow me my way.”

“Totally.”

He brought her palm to his mouth and buried his lips there. “Such trust, I will honor.”

At his declaration, she flexed her derriere. Her juices inside her gushed, and she wondered if she would embarrass herself flowing with too much need of him.

“Did your first husband give you any lessons in love?” he asked her as he flicked his tongue to the center of her palm.

“Wallace was kind,” she admitted, not quite knowing what to add that would be polite and yet informative. Her knowledge of sexual congress was limited to the fast couplings she’d had with her husband and the more appealing writings of her fellow female writers in the Risqué Society at home in Kent.

“Kind?” Adam asked on a thread of sound. “Spread your fingers, darling. There. Elegant,” he crooned, as he inserted the tip of his tongue in the hollow between each finger.