The Inconvenient Duchess

which was interesting, but not as interesting as what his hands were doing to the sensitive skin on the inside of her thighs. And his tongue was gliding along her skin, but his fingers had reached the place where her legs joined, and…
    ‘Oh, Lord.’
    He stopped. He stopped and raised his head to look at her. And he was smiling again. ‘Did you say something?’
    ‘No. Well, yes. It’s just…very good.’
    ‘Good.’ And his hands resumed their movement, and his thumbs began doing something incredible, and his fingertips grazed the opening of her and dipped inside, and she twisted against him, unsure whether she needed to be closer or further away.
    And his kisses continued to climb her legs until she thought perhaps he meant to kiss her…
    ‘Oh, dear God.’
    He paused, with a finger still inside her, stroking gently, and looked up into her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Did you speak?’
    ‘It was nothing. It’s just that I’ve never felt anything like this before.’
    He wasn’t smiling any more. And his face disappeared from view, as he returned to kissing her, and his lips reached their goal as his hands slid beneath her to draw her closer.
    And her hands were twisted in the bedclothes as they had been the night before, but in fear that she would be carried away by the waves of feeling crashing through her body, and she felt the muscles that had resisted the night before, clenching and pulsing, and the confused empty feeling was gone and replaced by chaos and triumph and she thought she musthave cried out for joy, but the room seemed too far away to hear the sound, and then she was floating back to it, and the sensation of her husband’s head resting on her belly and his hand laying between her legs.
    ‘Well.’ The last of her breath left her with a whoosh.
    She could feel him smile against her, and she smiled back, amazed.
    ‘Well?’ His voice was deep and the sound rumbled against her skin and made it tingle. He ran fingertips along the length of her leg and she shuddered against him.
    ‘What happens, now?’
    ‘You honestly don’t know?’ His voice was light and she heard amazement, and a touch of smugness. ‘What happens now is what you choose, my love. I am at your command.’
    ‘Do you want to…what we did last night?’ She could feel that he was hard, but there was no tension in the rest of him.
    ‘We could.’ There was a touch of doubt in his voice. ‘If, after last night, you are not sore. I was not as gentle as I could have been. And I would not hurt you again in a quest for pleasure.’
    She felt a yearning, building within her, to be closer to him. To be held in his arms, even as she held him in her body. ‘I would like to try.’
    He slid up the bed to lie beside her. ‘A different way, perhaps. Easier for you to decide what is right.’ He stroked her with his hand as his lips settled against her breast, tasting and teasing. She could feel her body starting to glow again and wondered, how long? How often? How much pleasure could she stand without dying from sheer joy? She ran a hand along his side and felt the muscles and the strange angles and hardness of her husband’s body. The unexpected planes and smoothness and the roughness of old scars. And, ever sogently she let her hand drift lower, to stroke him as he was stroking her.
    His hands went hard on her and pulled her closer, and his mouth found her neck and bit, sucking the skin until she felt the pull inside her. He took her mouth and it was rough and wonderful and she revelled in the taking.
    Then he trapped her hips in his hands, pushing himself against her, and she braced for his entry, but instead, he rolled over on his back, dragging her on top of him.
    He whispered, ‘Do what you want.’ And took the imprisoning hands from her body.
    She kissed him. Cautiously at first, then building to the intensity that he had given her, thrusting her tongue into his mouth, trying to take him all into her. Then she pulled away to slide a hand between them to find him again, and feel the skin, so unlike anything she’d felt on her own body, and to stoke until his breath came in tight gasps, and she felt a drop of liquid smoothing the path of her fingers.
    And she listened to her body, calling to be filled. Telling her what must happen next, and she straddled him, and guided him until he was inside her and she could stroke with her body as she had with her hand.
    He moaned under her, and cried out, ‘My love’, and the sound