Chapter Eleven

Seated inside her, his body inside hers, their torsos pressing together, Ashcroft ceased moving. “Are you all right, Miss Emery?”

Patience nodded. The strangeness abated, and a new wonderfulness slipped into its place. It didn’t seem real, while also being the most exquisitely vivid moment of her life. “I like it.”

Liked being filled by a hard cock. Liked it more than she imagined she might.

It was wicked beyond measure. Sinful. Unseemly and indecent. The sensation of being…for lack of a better word, impaled. Of sharing her body. Of having a man share his with her. It was utterly physical in a way no other activity seemed to be—but that had to be a trick of the mind resulting from the newness of what she was embarking upon.

By society’s standards, she was wicked and immoral. The quintessential fallen women. She’d fall a thousand times if this was where she’d land on the other end.

Ashcroft hissed a sharp breath. “You’re so snug. So hot and wet.”

He let out what sounded almost like a growl. He withdrew and sank back again, withdrew and sank back again. Patience didn’t dare blink. Her gaze was fixed on the mirror. It was simple. Simple and utterly mesmerizing.

He unleashed his intensity upon her, rutting with sweet ardor. Patience matched the marquess movement for movement, thrust for thrust. Taking him again and again, not caring about the soreness. It was the culmination of endless dreams.

Patience’s appetite had been roused. She’d thought she’d known how hungry she’d been before she met the marquess.

She’d had no idea.

He shifted himself, moving higher above her and angling himself so he could reach between them and touch her. He pressed his fingers against her pleasure point. Patience made a minor adjustment to his position so he hit her exactly in that magical place, sending shimmers through her body.

She couldn’t help herself. She moaned and cried out, careening toward the inevitable, not quite achieving satisfaction. Reaching and reaching, straining to grasp for everything that could be hers…

For a second time, Patience broke. And lost herself, spasming around his cock.

Spent, she relaxed. The marquess withdrew himself and, sitting on his knees on the section of mattress between her legs, held his cock over her as he released his essence onto her stomach.

He left the bed, crossing the room, his deflating cock bobbing with each step. Even as it reassumed a resting state, it seemed big. Without any real experience, it was difficult to know.

The only examples she’d glimpsed belonged to the hardworking men of the docks, who would relieve themselves where they pleased. Among them, modesty wasn’t a virtue. That was, once she realized what to look for. Those other cocks in her memory were nothing but scampering mice compared to the kingly serpent lying between the marquess’s legs.

Ashcroft returned with a soft towel and wiped her clean of the viscous liquid he’d spilled on her skin. He folded the cloth and dabbed away the moisture smeared on the interior of her thighs.

He straightened. “Thirsty?”

Floating in profound relaxation, Patience blinked. “I am, rather.”

He poured them each wine from the pitcher on a table at the far end of the room. The fire had burned low, the dim light enhancing his beauty. A long hollow traced the center of his powerfully built back where his backbone lay, and two tiny dimples rested in the small of his back above smooth and muscular buttocks.

Patience positioned herself under the bedclothes, nestling in the fine linen and overabundance of down pillows. No doubt the room had been specially made up to the man’s specifications. There was indulgent, and then there was what the marquess required. A world of difference lay between the two.

“Are you well, Miss Emery?”

Well was not the term to describe what she was. She was resplendent. Satisfied. Whole.

If there was a book in which Patience could write her name for the devil to collect her soul, she’d scrawl ink across the paper without a second thought. If that’s what it took to keep the marquess. Nothing in her life felt as good as this sin.

And she never wanted to stop.

“Mmm. Yes, thank you, my lord.” She took the crystal glass he offered, wet her lips, and let the fragrant liquid infuse her senses. With a deep inhale, a bouquet of red summer berries, plums, and wildflowers filled her nose. How had she never known before that wine was a sensual act of lovemaking for her mouth and tongue?

Because part of her had needed this before these small bits of life, instead of being taken for granted, could assume significance. She’d needed to explore a man’s body. Needed a man to explore her body. And for the two of them to use their bodies together.

The fucking. Ashcroft had promised. Ashcroft had delivered.

But delivered so much more than she could have dreamed. By opening her legs, he’d opened her eyes. Again.

…

Fucking always left him thirsty. Giles tipped his cup back, drank deeply, then poured more wine.

This time, however, instead of drinking, he sauntered back to the bed.

Patience Emery was the sort of creature a man didn’t work out of his system. Hell, he didn’t want to work her out of his system. There was no part of him that wanted this to be finished.

Coupling with her had proved how right his instincts had been.

Close to her, he reached out and fingered the loosely curling strands of her hair, examining the texture. So soft.

They’d already devoured one another—what they needed most, they’d taken. Now they could delight in one another, slowly and deliberately, exploring new avenues of lust.

He dipped his finger in his wine and traced a curve over her arm, leaning over to follow the line he’d made with his tongue. She inhaled. Giles glanced up, grinning when he met with her surprised and aroused expression.

Finger wet with wine, he began to draw swirls and lines over her skin. Each stroke was followed by his tongue. As he went, he breathed in the scent of her skin and the perfume of the wine mingling with the light fragrance of sex that permeated the air.

The arm was merely the beginning. He traced up to her smooth shoulder and over to the base of her neck. And then down, paying homage to the beauty that was this woman and her capacity for sensual pleasure.

Her breasts he handled with special care, exploring the texture of the areola, licking and blowing and biting to see how they would react. When his teeth found her nipple, she sucked in a breath. “Good?”

“Yes. Oh, yes.”

When he sank his teeth harder, she squealed and jumped. “Too much, my lord.”

Giles maneuvered himself over her, his knees sinking into the soft mattress. He proceeded to her stomach, traced her navel, and then kissed his way lower. At her thigh, he paused, swirling wine and lapping it up. He used his tongue as a brush to paint her—paint her in pleasure. He attended to each plump knee, each curving calf, and the narrowed cylinders of her well-turned ankles, then kissed each toe.

Kneeling by her feet, he swallowed the last of the wine and tossed the glass to be lost in the tangle of bedcovers piled at the end of the bed. He reached down to palm himself, cock already hard at the idea flowering in his mind. “I want to watch you touch yourself. I want to see how you make yourself come.”

If he’d expected a modest resistance to the suggestion, he was in for a pleasant surprise. With nary a hint of embarrassment or discomfort at the idea, Miss Emery spread her legs open and reached a hand to her open lips. Her first and second finger explored the rosy labia. She began to swirl her clitoris, starting slowly. Miss Emery’s eyes closed, and she circled faster.

He curled his hand around his cock and stroked himself, pushing his foreskin up over the head of the shaft for maximal stimulation. It was very nearly too intense, even for him.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he growled.

“I’m thinking about what it felt like to be filled by you.” Her voice was husky with need.

“Was it different than you expected?”

“Better…better by far. Everything I ever wanted and so much more.” She frowned in concentration. Her mouth opened, and her body began to tremble. Her breath came faster. “I loved having you inside me. You were so hard…you made me…make me complete.”

Giles worked himself harder. Just as the first cry of passion left her lips, he let himself go, riding the peak in waves, and shot his seed out to fall where it would.