I Thee Wed (17 page)

His hands were urgent and hard, but his mouth was achingly tender as he tasted her. The sweet, gentle pull of his mouth seemed to tingle through her. It reached up and made her eyes fall shut. It reached out and made her fingers tighten in his hair. It reached down and melted her from within as the place between her thighs throbbed and softened with every roll of his tongue and tug of suction from his mouth.

Francesca rather thought that now would be a good time to release her own beast.

Freed at last, she moaned his name aloud as she buried her hands in his hair, fisting her fingers in the silk curls without fear. What she did, anything she did, would be matched and outmatched by his own fervor. She knew it as certainly as she knew that when she tugged at his hair, he would bring his head up to kiss her again, to devour her mouth even as he had just devoured her nipples, and that she would consume him in return.

The knowledge frightened and exhilarated her at the same time. The man she knew, the cool and severe creature of exacting control, had slipped from the beast as easily as an ill-fitting suit, leaving the naked soul of the hungry animal before her.

She was barely aware that he continued to pull her clothing away. Her gown and chemise pooled about her naked hips, slipping farther downward as he slid his large hard hands around her back to squeeze large handfuls of her bottom. He pulled her closer, away from the door, and carried her across the room.

The fireplace still held coals glowing from earlier in the evening. The large wingback chair was the perfect size to hold them both. He fell back into the chair, and she straddled his lap.

Yes
. She could feel his hardness pressing to her softness. He tilted his hips slowly, rolling himself against her bare
vulva. She hissed and rolled with him, pressing herself against the growing hard length of him.

Her nipples grew hard and pink in his mouth, and gleamed wetly when she pulled away at last. “You, too,” she gasped as she tugged at his shirt studs.

“Yes.” Orion wanted to feel her rigid nipples against the skin of his chest. He reluctantly slid his hands away from the lush handfuls of sweet bottom that he held and reached to fumble at his clothing.

She leaned back to help him, and his heart thudded at the sight of her half-naked on his lap, her beautiful skin gleaming like a golden idol in the firelight, her rigid nipples shining like tender rubies set in the full, rounded sculpture of her breasts. Even the dainty ripple of her abdominal muscles as she balanced herself on his lap entranced him. He could watch her for hours, for every move she made danced with grace and light.

But he did not have hours. He had only this one night to devour her freely—only this one chance to take her to the very edge of reason, and he meant to do it over and over again before the sun rose upon them!

He rolled suddenly, taking them both from the chair to the carpet before the fire. He lifted her with him until she lay upon him, her body stretched along his. The thickness of his erection pressed to her belly as she squirmed, making him moan aloud. Now he had her right where she wanted him! She took his hands and slid them from her bottom, wrapping her fingers around his and urging him to gather up her gown. He took to the task adroitly, and soon her gown lay in a pool of gabardine on the floor. Now, naked but for her stockings and garters, she straddled her bare thighs over his trouser-shielded groin. It was his turn.

Francesca had been undoing buttons all her life, and men's buttons were ludicrously large compared to the tiny ones applied to women's gowns. She didn't even have to look at her
hands, which allowed her to kiss him hard, battling tongues with him as she undid his trouser fastenings.

She wanted him entirely naked, so once she tugged the buttons free from his trousers, she turned her attention to the upper garments. The waistcoat was simple. No need to look at what her hands were doing, no need to tear her lips from his, no need to deprive herself of the wild, hot taste of him.

His waistcoat and jacket got a bit stuck near the shoulders when she tried to push them off him. He obliged her attempts by sitting up and meeting her mouth in matching hunger while he wrenched himself free of the snug clothing. His shirt was looser but was complicated by the cravat at his throat.

Orion, clever fellow that he was, solved the dilemma for her by wrapping one large hand around the back of her head to keep her mouth on his as he tugged the knot of his cravat free with the other hand. Francesca busied herself with the studs of his shirt, pulling them through the holes with rough abandon until the placket was entirely open. Her hungry hands explored the portion of his chest that was left exposed as they kissed, until she wanted more.

Moving her hands to his hips, she began to tug his shirt free from his trousers. This time, Orion was no help at all, for he was now far more interested in caressing her naked body. That was extremely distracting and entirely unfair! She moaned at his possessive touch.

Orion slid his hands over the warm silk of Francesca's naked back, then filled his hands with soft, resilient bottom. Yes. He'd wanted that bottom in his hands ever since that accidental groping he'd given it in the laboratory. And the bottom in question was everything he'd dreamed, rich full curves covered in the finest, sweetest, softest skin—far more lovely than he could have imagined in his limited range of knowledge! Pulling her luscious bottom closer had the happy result of pressing the heat of her vulva against his hardness.
The damp warmth of her sank through his loosened trousers, calling to his cock like a siren luring a sailor.

Although he had every intention of resisting the actual act of diving into that sweet, dangerous sea between her thighs, there was no doubt that he wanted to. In fact, he was quite certain that he'd never wanted anything more!

E
VENTUALLY, Orion realized that Francesca's sweet moans of arousal sounded rather more like miffed grunts of frustration, and that the rhythmic tugging he'd been ignoring was her attempt to pull his shirt up over his head.

Yes. Yes, he wanted that, too—to press his chest against her soft naked breasts, to feel her hardened nipples against his skin, to roll naked with her before the fire.

Although it pained him that he did not have enough hands to enjoy every part of her at once, he released her sweet buttocks to aid her in her quest for mutual nudity.

After that, and a rather amusing bit of gymnastics that freed him of his boots and trousers as well, he rolled her, bare and giggling, beneath him. He pressed her softness down, pinning her safely to the rug where he could get at all of her at once.

Francesca naked was a revelation. The dips and swells of sweet, golden-tinged skin, the full, round generosity of her breasts and thighs and bottom—how could he have waited so long to touch her? If he had only known, he would have
carried her off to his room the first night he'd encountered her in the hall outside the kitchen.

When he told her as much, between long deep kisses that made them both pant with need, she, of course, only laughed. “You might have tried,” she warned. “But Worthingtons aren't the only ones who know how to use a butcher knife!”

She was fierce and independent, yet warm and welcoming and so, so sweet. Now that he had her naked beneath him, skin to skin, mouth to mouth, Orion allowed himself to slow down, to savor every taste, every kiss, every slide of his hand over her satin surfaces.

She eased beneath him, responding to his soothing strokes. Stretching like a cat, she pressed herself to him with slow sensuality, allowing the heat of him to cover her, to sink into her and warm the corners of her soul that had been so empty for so long. The world was cold for one without close family. Aunts and uncles and cousins were all very fine, but they did not hold one, or stroke one, or comfort one in the same way. To be touched, to be held, to be soothed eased her loneliness in a way she'd never imagined possible.

Francesca had thought herself simply in need of sexual gratification. How could she have realized that her needs went so much deeper? Frightened by the strength of her need, she hid her face against his neck and allowed him to soothe that fear as well, though he might think it simple arousal.

As her sudden fear abated, she found herself in a state of languorous awakening. Touching each other, kissing each other, satisfying each other until that overwhelming desire was quenched at last—that was purpose enough.

He rolled to one side of her, his long body still pressed close. She limply felt him lift her head with one large hand while he slid his other arm about her shoulders. As he pulled her in close for a long kiss, she allowed her body to ooze into his as she slid her free hand down his lean, muscled flank.
Oh my . . .

His other hand, large and gentle, slid down her body,
sweeping slowly down over her curves, touching and exploring, delighting them both as he filled his hands with soft, pliable woman. Down the outside of one rounded thigh, and then up the inside.

Francesca let her thighs part in unspoken permission and pleading. She'd craved his touch. Now was not the time to turn shy, although to be caressed where no one else had ever seen turned a lifetime of halfhearted propriety on its head. She'd always been a good girl, not out of devotion to her purity, but out of lack of interest in being otherwise.

Now, it seemed, she had never been a good girl at all—merely a seductress in waiting.

Waiting for the warm, firm, gentle touch of this particular man.

He cupped his big hot palm over the vee of her pubis. Francesca found the urge to rise up to meet him irresistible. His kiss deepened as he moaned at her eagerness. Why should she pretend otherwise? She wanted him. He wanted her. All was as it should be—or at least, it would be if he meant to get on with things! She rose again, rolling her hips high to press herself to his hand.

Orion hesitated. If he touched her, aroused her, satisfied her with his hand, would he not be crossing over into some territory he might find it hard to someday leave?

Then she rolled again, and his fingertips slipped into the wet heat of her. They both shuddered at the contact. She released a mewl of need into his mouth.

Francesca had never ached for anything so much in her life. As he gently parted her to slide his fingertips up and down along her slit, she found herself grasping his muscled biceps, clinging as if she might shatter and fly away at the pleasure that rolled through her.

His touch became firmer and more sure, but the perfectly erotic pressure never became too much. He seemed to understand precisely what she needed. In some corner of her thoughts, she was astonished at her shamelessness as she
panted and moaned into his mouth while he slid his fingers up and down, rolling and pinching and tugging at her clitoris with each pass. She wanted more. She wanted him to become part of her, inside her.

She slid one hand down his rocklike muscled arm to his hand. Covering it with her own smaller one, she pressed him into her until one long finger slid within. The penetration felt so good, so right, that she cried out in pleasure.

He took her cries into his mouth as he stroked that long finger deeply into her, then withdrew, sliding up along her slit, still teasing at her clitoris with every stroke. The pleasure rose as he increased his pace, until she hung helpless at the precipice of such pleasure as she could never have imagined. She left her hand over his as he stroked her, until their wet fingers tangled and clasped as she panted and cried out her first release into his hungry mouth.

Orion held her shuddering body close, letting his kiss soften and become tender. The wonder of her stunned him. Everything, from the scent of exotic spice in her hair to the texture of her delicate gold-tinted skin, to the color of her coral-tipped nipples in the firelight as she arched into him with abandon as he covered her mound with his mouth.

This beautiful creature had given herself to him. Why? What had he done to deserve such a gift? Not that he meant to refuse it again, no matter his unworthiness! He might have been momentarily misguided when he walked away from her the night before, but Worthingtons were not fools! With such a banquet before him, he would be mad to pass up a single bite of delicious, fragrant Francesca.

All but that one—all but the last forbidden morsel. As much as his body urged him to roll onto her, to thrust into her wet willingness, to drive them both higher than they had ever been. Ah, but he wanted to. His body trembled with the effort to resist.

Why, when something was forbidden, did it become so
much more desirable?

He had to fight the powerful urge to plunge his cock into her soft, hot, wet opening, and switching position, he moved down her body kiss by kiss, concentrating on pleasuring her with his lips, tongue, and teeth instead. With the last rational shred of his mind, he found her small hand with his. It took very little silent instruction for her to understand what he needed. His mouth never left her sweet center, but a low, rough moan escaped him when he felt her warm fingers wrap tightly around his cock. She slid slowly up and down, just as he'd demonstrated, but in her inexperience, her grip was delicate and torturous instead of firm and steady.

If anything, it aroused him further. Her unintentionally teasing touch would not bring him to fulfillment, but instead kept him hard and aching for her. Driven nearly insane with the ache, he redoubled his attentions to her labia and clitoris.

Francesca gasped and writhed, rolling her head upon his muscular thigh, but there was no escaping the relentless pleasure of his mouth on her. His tongue stroked and circled and dipped and tasted, and she had no choice but to pant her pleasure into the stillness of the room. In her wild state, she tried to hang on to something solid as her pleasure soared. His hard cock filled her hand. She twisted toward it, reaching with her other hand to wrap it more thoroughly in her grip. When she did so, his tongue increased its actions, flipping wetly across her clitoris faster and faster, driving her higher.

Then his rigid cock was in both her hands. With her lids barely parted, she realized how close it was to her mouth. She wanted him inside her, deep inside her . . .

When Orion felt warm, wet lips wrap around the blunt tip of his cock, he let out a harsh groan of need. She answered it by licking and sucking him farther between her lips, until his cock probed over her panting tongue. He could not help flexing his hips, pushing deeper into her, as the wondrous heat of her tentative mouth enveloped most of his length.

It was not deep enough, but he could not force her—

She sucked him deeper. The sweet heat of her mouth, the slow stroke of her tongue, the inadvertent suction as he tried to pull back so as not to choke her . . . then the reflexive thrust that he could not help. God, he wanted her. He wanted—

With his cock in her mouth and his tongue upon her clitoris, Francesca felt the rising orgasm flood her entire being. He drove her onward, higher and higher, as lost in her as she was lost in him, neither knowing where they ended or began.

Francesca tumbled and then she flew. Hot, harsh gasps of pleasure sounded in the room, and she dimly realized that some of them were hers as she exploded with varicolored lights shimmering outward from his wonderful, talented tongue.

The vibration of her moans around his cock in her mouth sent Orion over his own precipice. He buried his face in her thigh as he groaned deeply, the harsh, animal sound escaping him into her silken flesh as he jerked and spasmed into her sweet, hot mouth.

She did not stop sucking, as a more experienced woman might. Even as he filled her mouth, she continued to roll her tongue over him, continued to pull at him with soft suction. When she swallowed around him, he closed his eyes and turned to kiss the damp, salty skin of her inner thigh in thanks.

They lay like that for several long moments as their pounding hearts eased their frantic pulses and their gasping lungs settled into deep, peaceful breaths. Francesca allowed his cock to slip from her lips and let her cheek rest on his hip as she collected her shattered awareness back into herself. With her eyes still closed, she listened to the hiss and crack of the fire, felt the heat along one side of her body from the hearth, and along the other side of her where she pressed against the naked man she had just possessed.

It had been wonderful. How had she lived so long without the feel of him? It seemed mad that it had been only a few weeks since she'd been bored and lonely in Blayne House,
wishing something—anything!—would happen to break the tedium of perfect order and organization.

She fought back a laugh. Goodness! No wonder people wrote entire plays about love!

Except, of course, that this wasn't love. This was merely the physical expression of desire. The biological imperative.

Lust.

Replete with pleasure, she lazily ran her fingertips up his muscled stomach and over the hard plates of his chest. The sprinkling of hair there teased at her fingers. He was so different from her. Even his skin felt dissimilar, not as fine, yet sleeker somehow as it wrapped taut around his muscular form.

She'd been right about him from the first moment she had seen him in the foyer of Blayne House. He was a sleek and beautiful beast in gentlemen's clothing. His demeanor seemed so cool, yet he burned so very hot beneath the isolating facade of logic.

And he was all hers.

For one night.

*   *   *

H
UNGER DROVE THEM
back to the kitchen. He wore only his trousers. She wore only his shirt. They had stuffed her gown into a large Chinese vase that stood in the foyer, promising each other in whispers that they would resist the urge to allow the servants to discover it in the morning.

Orion frowned slightly as he took in the long kitchen worktable covered in iced seed cakes. They stood in rows. “A regiment of pastry soldiers,” he muttered. “How did I miss this earlier?”

“What did you say?” Francesca was elbow deep into a shelf in the larder. She emerged with a heel of ham on a wooden board and a chunk of hard cheese.

Orion thought she looked like a meal for a king. He pointed at the cakes. “Did you bake all these?”

She grinned at him and blew a curl away from her
laughing eyes. “I bake when I can't have what I want.”

Orion let his gaze roam over the signs of her frustration. “You must have wanted me very much.” He liked being wanted, he realized.

“Still want you,” she said, around a muffling bit of ham. She was carving the meat and cheese with an enormous knife that Orion recognized from the now-infamous Rabbit Wrangle.

She was smiling, but the look in her eyes pinned him with a question.

Orion let his smile slide away to gaze somberly back at her. “I want you more than I have ever wanted anything,” he told her plainly. “But I won't endanger your future.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You are very noble, Mr. Worthington, but as it is my future we speak of, perhaps I ought to decide that?”

He shook his head. “That is my only rule for this night. Virgins to the end.”

She blinked. “You were serious, then? You haven't—”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Of course I know what to do . . . intellectually.”

She blinked at him. “Really . . . never?”

Orion wasn't sure why he should feel embarrassed about it. Still, his face heated. “Once. Almost. But I became distracted.”

Francesca tilted her head. If he wasn't careful, he was going to make her laugh at him again, and she didn't think now was quite the moment. “I think I'd like to know more . . . but not if you don't want to tell me.”
Oh, but I must know.

He shrugged. “It isn't of any great importance. My twin brothers insisted that I should accompany them to their favorite brothel, Mrs. Blythe's House of Pleasure. I chose a young lady to spend the evening with—and I certainly had every intention of—well—but then I realized that I had a singular opportunity to thoroughly understand the female
anatomy.”