Mistress - Amanda Quick [101]
He felt the tremor that went through her. It was a sweet, powerful signal of her response to him. A fierce joy seized Marcus.
Her fingers tightened convulsively around him. Marcus winced and caught his breath.
“Did I hurt you, my lord?”
“You are going to be the death of me, Iphiginia.”
“Oh, no, I’m so sorry. Are you all right, sir? I did not mean to do you an injury.” Alarm briefly doused the sweet intensity of passion in her husky voice. “I warned you that I did not know precisely what to do.”
“I was merely jesting,” he assured her. He took another deep breath. “I’m nowhere near death.” He continued to stroke her carefully, drawing forth the dew until his hand was slick with it. “In truth, I do not know when I have ever felt more alive.”
Iphiginia’s tentative, experimental caresses threatened to demolish his defenses and scatter his senses to the four winds. He was sweating now, every muscle tensed.
She moved slightly in his lap, adjusting herself. She tightened her legs. Her inner thigh brushed against his engorged shaft. His whole body clenched. Her whispered sighs and quickening breath told him of her increasing excitement.
Then, when he was beginning to wonder if she would ever finish the business, she guided him awkwardly to the exquisitely soft, hot place between her legs. Cautiously, slowly, carefully, she fitted herself to him.
She was so tight. Marcus wondered if he would, indeed, expire before he got inside.
She eased herself downward, drawing in her breath sharply at one point. Then her passage closed snugly around him. Marcus shuddered and held himself unmoving.
A distant warning bell rang somewhere in his fevered brain. He reminded himself that he must withdraw before he spilled his seed. He was not using one of his specially modified French sheep-gut condoms.
And then Iphiginia began to move on him and all rational thought dissolved in Marcus’s fevered brain. More demanding than any goddess from classical times, she clutched at him, whispered his name, pleaded, begged, scolded, demanded.
Marcus teased her gently, tormenting himself in the process. And then quite suddenly she shivered and convulsed in his arms.
“Marcus.”
She collapsed against him with a tiny scream of surprise and pleasure.
The warning bell sounded again somewhere, but Marcus was unable to respond. He gripped Iphiginia’s thighs and surged upward. He bit back the exultant shout of satisfaction that threatened to erupt from his throat.
Several moments later he sagged back into the corner of the carriage seat. Iphiginia sprawled on top of him.
There was silence. Marcus listened to it while he inhaled the unique, earthy scent of sexual satisfaction that drifted in the air of the closed cab.
The carriage turned a corner and came to a halt a few minutes later. Marcus stirred reluctantly and lit one of the interior lamps. He allowed himself a few seconds to savor the feel of Iphiginia nestled against him and then reality struck him.
“Iphiginia? We have arrived at your home.”
She mumbled something indistinct and snuggled closer. Her skirts rustled softly. Marcus realized that she had fallen asleep. He smiled.
“Wake up. Hurry, my dear.” He shook her gently, urging her to a sitting position. He heard the footman clamber down from the box to open the carriage door. Marcus hastily reached out to latch it.
“Iphiginia”
“What is it?” She patted back a charming yawn and blinked with sleepy languor. Her skirts were crumpled around her thighs. One neat coil of hair had come loose. It dangled over her ear. A white plume bobbed at an odd angle. “Is it morning?”
“No, it is not.” Marcus quickly set himself to rights. “It’s the middle of the night and you look as though you have been tumbled in a carriage.”
Iphiginia giggled. “Fancy that, my lord.”
Marcus paused in the act of shoving his shirttails into his breeches. He gazed at her, riveted by her happiness.
He was responsible for this, he thought with a sense of awed wonder. He had made her happy. It was an infinitely more satisfying achievement than the creation