Silk Is For Seduction - Loretta Chase [133]
She still had one hand tangled in his hair while she moved the other over him, taking possession of him the way he took possession of her, so easily and naturally, with a touch. He heard the brush of her fingers over the wool of his coat sleeve and the rustle of his starched neckcloth as her hand moved downward. When she came to the waist of his trousers, he caught his breath.
She slid her hand down, and his cock swelled and rose at the touch, and “Mine,” she said softly. “All this manly beauty. All mine.”
He caught hold of her dress, the embroidered flowers feeling almost alive under his hand. He dragged it up by fistfuls, a great mass of dress and petticoats that billowed over his arm. He stroked over her drawers, upward over her thighs and between her legs to the opening of her drawers. He cupped her and she shivered. “Mine,” he said. “All this feminine perfection. Mine.”
His mouth found hers again and he kissed her and drank in the taste of her and the feel of her mouth and her tongue, and he took it all in like a man starved. And while he kissed her, he slid his fingers into the soft cleft between her legs. She was wet there, and her legs trembled as he stroked her, and then he was trembling, too. So much happiness.
“What a lucky man I am,” he said.
She let out a throaty laugh. “You’re about to get luckier.”
She unfastened his trousers fully and grasped him. “I want you,” she said softly. “I want you inside me. I want you to be mine and I’ll be yours.”
“Yes, yes, yes, whatever you say.” He pushed into her, and he seemed to fly up into the heavens. He saw stars, and “Oh,” she said. “Your grace.”
“Gervase,” he said.
“Gervase,” she said, and she made it a whisper, and the sound made him shiver. “Mon amour.”
Then in French: murmured words of nonsense and love and pleasure while they made slow love, then faster love, until there was nowhere farther to go, and they seemed to leap to a blinding happiness, like flying to the sun. Release came in a cascade of sweetness. Then he was sinking onto her, burying his face in her neck, and murmuring her name.
For a time they simply lay together.
Quietly. At peace.
So hard to believe, after so much turmoil. But here he was, in her arms, and there was her heart beating steadily in her chest and filled with happiness.
She held him, relishing his weight and the feel of his silky hair against her skin and the scent of him, while her breathing quieted, and the world came back.
“That was much more fun than self-sacrifice,” he muttered.
She laughed. “Yes, cheri, it was.”
He raised himself up to look at her. “Cheri,” he repeated. “Why does it sound so delicious when you say it?”
“Because I’m delicious,” she said.
“The delicious Duchess of Clevedon,” he said. “I like the sound of that. I like the feel of her better,” he said. “And the scent of her. And the sound of her voice. And the way she moves. I love her madly. I would like to stay here, and count all the ways I love her, and show her all the ways I love her. But the world calls. Life calls.” He kissed her, so tenderly, on her forehead. “We have to put our clothes on.”
It took only a minute or two, since they hadn’t taken very much off. For her, a slight rearrangement of her undergarments, a few hooks to fasten, a stocking to pull up, a garter to tie. For him, a quick business of pulling up his drawers and trousers, tucking his shirt in, and buttoning a handful of buttons.
He found her black lace fichu, and she tied it.
He collected her hat from the corner it had bounced to. He brushed it off, and attempted to straighten the plumes.
She watched him for a moment, then laughed. “Oh, Clevedon, you’re the dearest man,” she said. “Give me that thing. You’ve no idea what to do with it, but I do love you for trying.”
He stilled briefly. Then he looked down at the hat and back at her. “Isn’t that it?” he said. “Trying? If we try with all our hearts, do you not think we can make a go of this—of us? And then, even if it doesn’t come out quite as we wish, at least we’ll