Harry did not know why he still felt a niggling bit of doubt at the back of his mind as to his fiancée’s intentions toward him. Mary Elizabeth was a woman of her word. She would never break it. But the strange way she had agreed to marry him made him wonder what detail he was missing.
But then he turned over and had her under him, and his body could not care about any detail but the way she felt against him, pressed soft between him and his sofa cushions.
Harry stopped trying to figure a way around this woman and her stubborn pride. He simply gave himself up to the curves of her body, the way her mouth tasted beneath his, the flavor of chocolate and champagne on her tongue. He pushed away his doubts to be dealt with on the morrow.
He knew suddenly, as he drew back for air, that he would solve his own problem. He would rise with the dawn, announce their engagement to the entire household, and then keep her tethered to him by a length of silk cord if he had to until the special license arrived from London.
Or he could always lock her away, like a prisoner in some Gothic novel. That would please him, especially if he locked himself away with her.
Such scandalous actions would set the ton, not to mention his mother, on a roar. Not that he cared, so long as Mary Elizabeth was his.
Being a duke had its privileges.
“I’m not over your knee, Harry.”
Her sleepy words did not match the fire that burned in her eyes. Harry wondered if this woman he loved would ever quit challenging him.
He hoped not.
But Mary Elizabeth had yet to learn that there were times when he was going to be, as she put it, the boss of her. It was time that she found out.
Harry kissed her lips before she could say anything else. The sweetness of her tongue beneath his spoke of dark chocolate and even darker thoughts. He did not linger there, but kissed his way down to her breasts, encased as they still were in peach-colored silk.
Harry raised his head long enough to look into her face, and when she offered no objection, he slid two fingers inside her bodice, while his other hand deftly searched out the ties to her gown. He knew his girl well, and knew that she kept no lady’s maid. Her gown was tied up underneath her arm with silk ribbons, and it took him less than a trice to loosen them and for the silk of her bodice to slide away from her body like a tide slipping over sand.
Mary Elizabeth did not seem to notice or care that her bodice was going, so Harry raised himself off her long enough to let it slip down to the carpet at the foot of their sofa.
His lady smiled up at him, stretching, her breasts straining against the lace of her stays. “That is a world more comfortable,” she said.
Harry felt his hand begin to shake with lust, and he stilled it, as his father had so often stilled his hand against strong drink. He smiled at the woman who would be his duchess, taking in the devilish light of challenge in her eyes. He had not subdued her yet. He thought then that it would probably take the rest of his life to teach her who was in charge in their bed. And he would enjoy those lessons, however long they spun out.
He unfastened her stays then, loosening her laces even as his fingertips played over the soft peaks of her breasts. His lips joined his fingers until she was writhing under him, her hands in his hair, drawing him down to her, urging him on.
He had forgotten all about lessons and dominance as he feasted on her, kissing and fondling first one breast and then the other. The stays simply became a barrier between him and the woman he loved, and he tossed them aside, so that they landed a little farther away from their perch on the sofa.
Harry knew that he was quickly reaching the point of no return, and as he scanned the flushed, pleasure-filled face of the woman he loved, he found that he had to be sure. Dominance in bed was amusing, but he would guard this woman, even from himself and his own selfish desires, for the rest of his life.
So he spoke, breaking the mood like shattered crystal. “Are you certain, Mary? Are you sure you want me? That you want this?”
Mary Elizabeth opened her eyes. Their usual maple brown glittered with buried bits of green. She smiled at him, as if she were twelve years his elder and not the other way around. As if she had seen the world, or all she needed to see of it, and out of all the lands, near and far, he, Harry Percy, was her choice.
For blessed once, the woman in his arms cared nothing for his money, his lineage, his so-called power, or his title. For blessed once, the woman in his arms was there for him, and him alone.
“I love you, Harry,” Mary Elizabeth said. “I choose you.”
* * *
Mary Elizabeth felt a little guilty about the fact that though she was not lying to the man she loved, she was leaving him on the morrow and he did not know it. She wondered if he would take a page from her brothers’ book and follow her into the wilds of Scotland, intent on making her his. He would not be able to catch her and drag her back, as they had done with their errant women, for she was not so foolish as to travel alone. Even Sampson, as fleet as he was, could not catch up to the mail coach to Aberdeen.
Mary Elizabeth pressed herself against her man, sighing as the hard heat of his body touched her naked breasts. Harry’s hands were everywhere, unfastening her clothes in a trice. She would remember to devil him about how he had learned his way around a lady’s undergarments, but she would do it later.
She pushed aside all thoughts of the dawn as well, and opened her mouth to feast on his. When Harry pulled away to trail his lips down to her breasts, she wriggled against him, her own fingers seeking the warmth of his skin as her mouth could not. Her fingertips brushed his manhood, rising hard and proud against her hand, and he hissed, drawing back.
“Did I hurt you, then?” she asked, a little concerned that he would be so missish at such a time. But she should have known her man better by then.
“Pleasure hurts as well as heals, my lady,” Harry said, trapping her fingers inside the heat of his palm. He drew back and sat up, looking down at her as she sprawled on the sofa. A few cushions had found their way to the rug along with her bodice and stays. With Harry gone, she wriggled out of her skirts and petticoats as well, and pushed them over the edge with all the rest.
One flounce caught under his thigh, and she let it dangle, for all she wore now were her stockings, and they did not get in her way. She wondered if she ought to take them off, as it was her first time, but when she reached for her garters, Harry caught her hand again and stopped her cold.
“Oh, no,” he said. “You’ll keep those on.”
“I will?” Mary Elizabeth asked. She lay back against the soft cushions, feeling like the Queen of Sheba. “You sound as if you think you are the boss of me.”
“In bed, I am.”
Mary Elizabeth laughed out loud at that, and sat up. She went to reach for the second untouched glass of champagne, but Harry was there before her, taking it up in his hand.
He took a swallow, his eyes never leaving her face. Mary Elizabeth reached for it again, but he held it out of reach. “Harry, I want a bit of that fancy French wine.”
“Do you, now?”
“I just said I did.”
Mary Elizabeth wondered why she was sitting there arguing with him in the altogether when she simply could have reached behind her, taken up the first glass, and refilled it herself. But there was the light of joy as well as challenge in Harry’s eyes, and she found that she wanted to join with him in whatever game he was playing, even if she did not yet know the rules.
“Say please,” Harry said.
Mary Elizabeth laughed and grabbed for the glass. Harry kept it out of her reach, pouring a bit of the wine down the front of her, then licking it away, spending a bit of extra time lapping at her nipples, even when she was sure that all the champagne was long since gone. Mary Elizabeth lost herself for a moment in the motion of his tongue, but when he pulled away at last, she remembered her wine.
“Please,” she said.
Harry did not hand her the glass as she thought he might, but raised it to her lips and tipped it back, that she might take a drink. She sipped at it, and he held the glass for her as delicately as any lady’s maid might have spooned broth into her when she was ill. He was nothing like a lady’s maid, however, and nothing like a nurse. His great body, which did not seem that large when he was talking, now seemed to dwarf her as she sat beside him.
Mary Elizabeth did not find herself troubled by her nakedness, nor embarrassed, which she supposed did mean she was a bit of a wanton. That did not worry her, for Harry would keep her secret. Whatever game he was playing at, he loved her and would defend her against all comers.
Of course, that did not change the fact that she did not know the rules to this game, and she was getting tired of waiting for him to touch her in earnest.
So Mary Elizabeth did as she always did in any situation in her life and took matters into her own hands. She pushed him back against the sofa cushions so that he was sitting a bit reclined, and she rose up over his lap, swinging one leg over him as she would a horse.
“There now,” she said. “That’s better.”
Harry did not bat an eyelash nor did he drop what was left of their wine, but his voice was a bit strangled when he answered her. “Is it, now?”
Mary Elizabeth wriggled against his manhood, the open, wet warmth of her pressing into the fine wool of his trousers, filling her with the approach of the bliss that Harry had given her in the library. His eyes filled with blue fire as she did it, and when she leaned down to kiss him, he dodged her mouth.
“Mary, you are baiting the bear,” he said.
“No,” she answered. “I am baiting you.”
She could not reach his mouth, so she trailed her lips along the side of his neck. She felt his hot breath next to the softness of her breasts, and she wriggled again, this time not to tease him, but to find his manhood beneath his clothes.
Before she could begin to unfasten his falls, Harry caught her hand in his. He set the wine down and caught her other hand, too, drawing her wrists behind her so that she could not touch him at all.
“Mary,” he said, his voice calm and his eyes blazing. “I am the man here. As on the dance floor, I will lead, and you will follow.”
Mary Elizabeth shivered at the way his voice changed. She looked into the blue of his eyes, wishing he might touch her, but not certain that she had the courage to ask.
“I want you, Harry. Show me what to do, and I will do it.”
He smiled then, and pressed a kiss to her breast where it rose higher with her arms behind her back. He held both her wrists easily in one hand, loosely, for she did not try to get away. His lips trailed across to her other breast and suckled there, but only a little, not drawing deep, not giving her even a glimpse of satisfaction, but making her lust rise higher.
“Harry,” she said. She did not sound polite to her own ears, but demanding, and he laughed a little against her breast. She wriggled then, and he stopped laughing, beginning to suckle her in earnest.
He still did not touch her in any other way, and with her hands behind her back, she could not touch him. Mary rose up, trying to brush herself against him. When she did, her breasts made contact with the buttons of his waistcoat, and she shuddered. She had forgotten that he was still fully dressed. Somehow, his clothes made her nakedness seem even more erotic. She was sure that if he did not touch her soon, she would die.
But she did not die. Harry’s free hand slipped between her body and his, caressing first the tops of her thighs and then the juncture between them. He found what he was seeking almost at once, and he did not make her wait, nor did he play at wooing her. Harry’s callused fingertips found the place between her thighs that was the fountain of all bliss, and he pressed there, hard, while one of his fingers slipped inside her body and did something else that made her come apart completely.
Mary Elizabeth screamed then, the pleasure was so great. Harry caught her scream with his mouth to muffle the sound, but she did not care if the whole house heard her. There was no one else in that house, nothing else on earth, but Harry and herself, and the music their bodies made together.
The pleasure did not recede all at once, but trickled out of her, one spasm at a time. She found herself draped across the man she loved, her cheek pressed against his heart, which was thundering as loud as if he had run a mile. He gasped, as she did, and he had not had any pleasure yet at all.
This concerned her, but only a little, as something to be dealt with as soon as she got her breath back. But before she could breathe deep, Harry had her tossed over his shoulder, one hand caressing her bum and the other bracing her legs.
“Harry, what devilry is this, then?”
“I’ll not have you on a sofa,” he said. “My wife deserves a bed.”
The word wife on his tongue thrilled her as she knew the word duchess never would. Mary Elizabeth hung down, contemplating his fine derriere before he tossed her on the bed. How they had made it into the next room so quickly, Mary Elizabeth was not sure, but the bedclothes had been turned down, and the linen sheets were cool against her heated skin. She wriggled against them, making a snow angel she could not see, as she watched the man she loved undress before her.
He was quick about it, so she could not see everything as she would have wished, but what she could see, she savored. The light was a bit dim, being only candlelight, but she could see the width of his shoulders and the smooth tapering of his hips. She followed the trail of hair from his chest down to his manhood, and when he lay down beside her on the bed and covered her body with his own, she swirled her fingers in his chest hair even as she kissed him.
He kissed her long and well, but his hands were busy, positioning her the way he wanted her, tucking a pillow beneath her hips and then a second one beneath the small of her back, until she felt a bit strange. She did not have time to feel foolish however, for he was between her thighs then, the whole beautiful, muscled Harry-ness of him, and he kissed her, his fingertips exploring her again, making her sob with need though she had only just reached the peak of pleasure.
He slid inside her just as she was beginning that climb again. He was a large man, which was a good thing, for he surrounded her on all sides, so that she could not have gotten away if she had wanted to. She did not want to, but her body was hungry for the pleasure again and seemed to want to climb him of its own accord to seek it. But Harry knew what she needed, so that even as he breached her maidenhead in one clean stroke, she felt only the smallest bite of pain before the larger wave of pleasure rose to swamp it, taking her reason with it.
He moved against her as a battering ram might take down a fortress wall. She did not stand against him, but welcomed him in. He battered her all the same, taking her step by spiraling step higher into pleasure, until she screamed again, this time saying his name. His lips clamped over hers, and he shuddered against her until he too lay still.
They lay together then. Mary Elizabeth wondered for one brief, odd moment if she was dead and he with her, for surely such pleasure could not exist anywhere on the earth.
For such a thing to be, the world was a far different place than she had ever known it to be. It made her wonder.
She lay there, wondering, until Harry raised his head and smiled down at her. He kissed her, her gentle Harry once more, the passionate barbarian asleep for the moment behind the blue of his eyes.
“And that is why you will marry me.”
Harry said that, and then nestled down beside her, his body still over hers, and promptly fell asleep.