The Truth About Lord Stoneville (21 page)

“God preserve me,” he said hoarsely. He pushed her hands away and finished unfastening his trousers and drawers, then shoved them off in one easy motion.

She stared. How could she not? The huge thing he’d unveiled was practically jutting in her face, darker and thicker and longer than she’d expected. Surrounded by a bed of inky curls, it had two round things hanging below it. His ballocks.

Suddenly his long shaft moved, startling her.

“Touch me,” he rasped. “Touch my cock.” Then, almost as an afterthought, “Please.”

It seemed like such an incongruous bit of etiquette, especially for him, that she laughed.

“You think that’s funny?” he muttered. “I daresay you do. The Marquess of Rockton begging—”

“Shush,” she said with a mischievous smile as she took his “cock” in her hand. “You’re not Rockton. You’re you. Though it
is
funny that you’re begging.”

He groaned as she stroked the length of him, fascinated by how his flesh jumped beneath her hand. His fingers closed over hers, making her squeeze him harder. “Like that. Yes.”

She caressed him for what seemed like only a moment before he choked out, “I can’t bear much more, sweetheart.” He tugged her hand from his shaft and pressed her back onto the bed. “I want to be inside you.”

As he slid off her drawers, panic hit. “I’ve never done this, you know,” she reminded him as he dragged her night rail over her head.

A rueful smile hovered on his lips. “I know, angel. I know.”

He knelt between her legs, and her panic deepened.

“Have you ever even . . . bedded a virgin?” she squeaked.

“No.” Amusement shone in his eyes as his hand found the slick, tender flesh he’d pleasured only a short while before. “But I don’t imagine it’s much different than usual.”

His finger delved inside her, making her gasp.

“A-Aunt Rose said it hurts the first time. And there could be blood, and—”

He cut her off with a kiss, his body hard against hers, though the weight of him was oddly soothing. Holding himself partly off her with one hand, he stroked her below with the other while his mouth fed on hers.

She looped her arms about his neck and threw herself into the kiss. This, she knew. This, she liked. She liked the slow, devouring way he took her mouth, as if she were the first woman he’d ever kissed and he had to eke every drop of pleasure from it.

She was so busy enjoying his kisses that she didn’t realize he’d replaced his finger with something bigger, until the something bigger began forging its way inside her.

Pulling her mouth from his, she tensed.

“Relax.” He held her gaze with his heated one. “Our bodies are made to do this, strange as it seems. And no matter what you’ve been told, it’s the most natural thing in the world.”

“It doesn’t feel natural.”

“That’s because you’re resisting it.” He nuzzled her cheek, then whispered, “Don’t fight it. Let go. I promise I won’t hurt you any more than necessary.”

“That’s not terribly reassuring,” she said as he pushed farther inside her.

With a strangled laugh, he pressed his mouth to her ear. “Shall I tell you a joke to keep your mind off it?”

She arched one eyebrow. “A naughty one, I suppose.”

“Of course.”

When he eased deeper into her, she stiffened, unable to prevent it. It was too strange—having him inside her, so thick, so unwieldy. “A-all right.”

“An old man asked his daughter what sort of plant she thought grew the fastest. She said, ‘A saddle pommel.’ ‘How so?’ he asked. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘when I was riding behind the footman and I was afraid of falling off, he told me to reach around his waist to grab the pommel. It was no bigger than a finger when I grabbed it, but by the time we reached home it was as big around as my wrist!’”

With the evidence of such thickness now planted inside her, she couldn’t help but laugh. And while she was still laughing, he broke through her maidenhead.

Though there was pain, it wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d imagined. And the feel of him, so intimately joined to her, was indescribable.

“All right?” he murmured against her ear, his voice strained.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“It will get better.”

Then he made good on that promise. As he drew out, then thrust in again and again, her pain became a liquid warmth, then an urgent heat that engulfed her senses, searing along her nerves, turning her blood molten.

“My God, angel,” he said hoarsely as he drove into her. “You feel like heaven.”

When she arched up against him, seeking the same sensation she’d felt before, he growled, “I love the way you respond to me.” He pressed a kiss into her hair. “And I love your hair. It smells like spices.”

She stared up into his face. “For a man who doesn’t believe in love, you certainly throw the word around a lot.”

He blinked. A strange alarm flitted over his features. Then he bent to take her mouth again.

She rose to his kiss as a flower rises from the earth to meet the spring. Because when she was in his arms it felt like spring, like the world coming alive after the gray death of winter.

His kiss turned desperate, as if he couldn’t get enough of her, and his thrusts became more urgent, driving into her in hard, deep strokes that made her gasp against his mouth. Still kissing her, he tugged her knees up higher so that he was pounding against the very part of her that ached for him so desperately.

Fire flared high inside her, until she couldn’t think for the flames. Every nerve burned with it, and heat flooded her like molten lava. “That is . . . ohhh . . . my darling Oliver . . .”

“Yes,” he said hoarsely, sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Yes, angel. You’re mine now. Mine, do you understand? Mine . . . mine . . .
mine
 . . .”

The words rang in her ears as she exploded, a wild conflagration of light and white-hot pleasure so intense that she screamed.

With a groan, he drove in to the hilt and spilled himself inside her. And as his body quivered in time with hers, he caught her gaze and added one last time, “Mine.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Oliver lay with Maria in his arms, staring blindly up at the ceiling as panic rose in his chest. Had he really just proposed marriage to a respectable woman? And ruined her, most deliberately, to gain her acceptance of his proposal? How had that happened?

One minute he’d been gazing at her asleep and swearing to leave her alone, and the next he’d been making love to her with a desperation he’d never known. It had been the most profound experience of his life.

That petrified him.

Nor did he understand it. He’d bedded many women, but it had never been like that. Was it her? She
was
different from the others, and not just because of her virginity. It was how she approached things—so practical . . . so fascinated. She’d been naughty and innocent, sweet and deliciously wanton. He never knew which to expect, and the element of surprise had taken him off guard.

For God’s sake, he’d even told her about that dreadful night at the hunting lodge! Had he lost his mind? He’d come so dangerously close to revealing all. God only knew what she’d think of him if he told her the rest. She would certainly never again believe that he could be “saved.”

He would do whatever he must to prevent her disillusionment. He’d become addicted to her soft, tender sympathy, and it terrified him to think of that sympathy turning into disgust. Deuce take it, he was in over his head.

But it didn’t matter. He’d ruined her, and marriage was the only way to fix that.

“Oliver?” she whispered.

He stared down at her delicate features, flushed from their exertions, and felt the same swell of possessiveness that had made him claim her with all the subtlety of an ox.
Mine . . . mine . . . mine.
The words still rang in his ears.

Definitely in over his head. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“Is lovemaking always like that? So all-consuming?”

In typical Maria fashion, she’d put her finger on it. All-consuming: that was what had made it different. He’d never bedded a woman without part of him standing back, aloof and unengaged.

He thought about lying but couldn’t, not with her gazing into his face, vulnerability plain on her features. “No, not always. Not for me, anyway.”

“So it was special for you, too?”

It was that and more. It worried him how much more. “It was amazing, angel.”

“You don’t have to exaggerate, you know. I-I under-stand.” She looked away.

Cupping her chin in his hand, he turned her face up to his. “What is it you think you understand?”

She bit her lower lip uncertainly. “Well, you’ve had so many women . . .”

“I’ve never had a night like that with
any
woman.”

Her expression brightened. “Really?”

“Really.” He dropped a kiss onto her nose. He loved her pert little nose, with its dusting of freckles over impossibly alabaster skin. And her peach-tinged lips. He loved how kissable—

For a man who doesn’t believe in love, you certainly throw the word around a lot.

He tensed. It meant nothing. It was a figure of speech, that’s all.

“This was certainly a fitting end to Valentine’s Day.” She slanted him a glance. “Tell me, was it really just chance that you drew my name at the ball?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Celia told me on the way home that she thought it was Fate.”

He arched one eyebrow. “Only if Fate’s helper is the Duke of Foxmoor. He rigged the drawing for me.”

To his surprise, she laughed. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself! I thought perhaps you’d spotted my name by chance, but deliberately cheating . . . You have no principles whatsoever, do you?”

“Not where you’re concerned,” he said.

That answer seemed to please her. Reassured of her ability to bewitch him, she stretched beside him like a cat, her full breasts moving enticingly under the sheet.

It roused him instantly. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, my dear.”

“Do what?” Her gaze was full of curiosity.

“Display yourself so deliciously. Or I’m going to make love to you again.”

A coy smile tipped up her lips. “Are you really?” She slid up next to him, her hand drawing a line down his bare chest in a motion worthy of the most experienced courtesan.

He caught her hand. “I mean it, minx. Don’t tempt me. I’ll have you on your back so fast you won’t know what happened.”

“And what would be wrong with that?”

He entwined his fingers with hers. Why couldn’t he stop touching her? “It was your first time. Your body needs to rest.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “I suppose I
am
a little sore.” She cast him a teasing glance. “Who could have known that making love would be so . . . vigorous? Or addictive?”

“You have no idea.” Already his cock was rock hard beneath the sheet. “But after we’re married, I’ll be happy to add to your store of experience.”

Her smile faltered. Pulling her hand from his, she turned over onto her side, her back to him. Not a good sign. Worse yet, her withdrawal roused an unfamiliar alarm in his chest. He thought the matter of their marriage had been settled when she let him bed her.

“We
are
getting married, sweetheart,” he said. “There’s no way around it now.” Shifting onto his side to spoon her, he dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “In the morning, I’ll ride into town to secure a special license. With any luck, we can marry in a day or so.”

“A day or so!” she protested, twisting to face him. “No, Oliver, we can’t! Not so soon.”

He eyed her warily. “Why not?”

“I have to find Nathan first. He deserves to hear firsthand that I’m breaking off my engagement to him.”

Jealous anger swamped him. “But you
are
breaking it off.”

“Yes, of course.” She dropped her gaze. “Now that I’m no longer chaste, it wouldn’t be fair to him to do otherwise.”

He snorted. “He’d be damned lucky to have you.” And since you’re breaking it off, I see no reason to wait. He’s the one who left
you
behind, remember?”

Her face coloring, she snatched up her night rail and left the bed. He watched numbly as she pulled it over her head, then slid her hands beneath her hair to draw it outside the garment. The motion was unabashedly female, one he’d witnessed a hundred times, yet she made it somehow lyrical, her hair dropping to her waist like a silky, fire-tinged curtain.

The poetic thought made him roll his eyes at himself. Christ, he was losing his mind. “You’re
marrying
me, Maria.”

She faced him, now girded for battle. “First, I need to know what sort of marriage you mean for us to have.”

Warily, he sat up against the padded headboard. “What exactly are you asking?”

“Last night, you said that going to the brothel was ‘appallingly bad form,’ and it would never happen again. Did you mean that?”

He tensed. It was a monumental question. “I meant that I would never embarrass you in such a fashion again.”

Her eyes darkened. “In other words, your visits to the brothel would be more discreet in the future, is that it?”

“No! Yes . . . God preserve me, I don’t know.” Panic swelled in him anew. She wanted him to promise to be faithful to her. “When I said that, I wasn’t considering that we might marry.”

“So,” she said, her voice cold, “you mean for us to have a fashionable English marriage like that of your parents.”

“Certainly not,” he said sharply. “Damn it, Maria, you’re asking me something I can’t answer.” Rising from the bed, he dragged on his drawers. For the first time in his life, being naked made him feel vulnerable. “Why do you think I’ve never married? It’s because I
don’t
want to have the same sort of marriage as my parents. And I don’t know if I . . . I’m not sure if I’m capable of . . .”

“Fidelity?”

His gaze locked with hers. “Precisely.”

She swallowed hard, then went to the bed to retrieve her drawers. “Well, at least you’re honest about it.”

Stepping over to the bed, he tugged her into his arms. “I’m not saying I can’t be faithful—just that I don’t know if I can promise it. I’ve never tried before.”

Her eyes were overly bright as she glanced up at him. “That’s not good enough for me, I’m afraid.”

His blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”

“Oliver, when I heard you’d gone off to the brothel—”

“Where I didn’t bed a single whore,” he cut in. “I spent the whole night drinking. That’s all, I swear.”

“Yes, I gathered as much. But I didn’t know that at the time. And no matter how much I told myself I had no right to expect fidelity from you, it hurt. Almost more than I could bear. I can’t imagine how much it would hurt if we were married, and I don’t want to find out.”

He stared down at her, scarcely able to believe what he was hearing. “If you’re asking me to vow undying love or some such nonsense—”

“I know better than to ask that of you,” she said in a pained whisper. “But I deserve more than a husband by half measures. You were the one to teach me that.”

The words were like a punch to the gut. “You’re refusing me,” he said flatly. Incredulously.

She reached up to cup his cheek with a disarming tenderness. “You don’t really want to marry—admit it. You never did.”

“You don’t know what I want.” Catching her hand in his, he pressed a hard kiss into the palm. “I want
you.
”

“But on your terms. I can’t accept those terms.” Tugging her hand from his, she wrapped her arms about her waist. “I think you should leave now. The servants will be stirring soon.”

“Good. They’ll find us together, and then you’ll have no choice.”

Mutiny shone in her face. “I always have a choice. But you
did
promise not to embarrass me in the future. Do you now mean to break that promise?”

Shame rose in him, an emotion so foreign to him that he didn’t recognize it at first. It warred with the desperation rising in his chest at the thought that she really might not marry him.

“Maria, please—” he began, then broke off. Deuce take her! This was the second time in one night she had him begging her. He’d never begged a woman for anything.

“You’re being foolish,” he growled. He strode about the room, picking up his clothes and yanking them on without a care for how they looked. “I’ll leave, but I’m not going to ruin you and let you suffer the consequences alone, no matter what you say about it. We’re both tired. It’s been a long day . . . and night. We’ll continue this discussion tomorrow.”

“It won’t change anything.”

“Won’t it?” Marching up to her, he pulled her close for a blatantly carnal kiss. When she stood stiff in his arms, he drew back with a scowl. Her resistance wouldn’t last. “I can be very persuasive when I want.”

Only after he saw that he’d unsettled her did he turn on his heel and leave. But her words tormented him the entire way back to his room:
You mean for us to have a fashionable English marriage like that of your parents.

Blast it to hell—that was the last thing he wanted.

But could he manage anything different? Because she was right: she did deserve a better husband than that. He just didn’t know if he could be that husband.

Yet it made no difference. He’d ruined her and he wasn’t about to let her suffer for his rash act, no matter how much the idea of marriage terrified him.

Tomorrow he was getting a special license. Then they would marry. And that was that.