“I don’t think I should need more. Both of them men would be a proper match.”
“Duke Sutherland has a reputation, however,” Anna’s mother warned.
“I expect he is a passionate man,” Annabelle said.
“There is more to marriage than passion, my dear daughter.”
“I will speak with them both. Get better acquainted.”
Chapter 4
Duke Sutherland was not hard to find. He was in a drawing room off of the ballroom, surrounded by a group of laughing men, telling one of the wild stories for which he was well known. Annabelle pretended to be searching for someone. It would not have been proper to approach the Duke so directly. When the Duke saw Annabelle, he cut the story short and left the men calling for the ending. “Another time perhaps.”
Bertram led Annabelle down the hallway. Anna was sure no one had seen them, it would be quite the scandal.
“Blackburn proposed to you, did he not?”
“He did.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him that I wanted to get to know you both better before I decided,” Annabelle said.
“A fair deal,” the Duke said with a node of his head. “Perhaps we could talk somewhere upstairs. We are unlikely to be bothered there.”
Annabelle tried to hide a smile, but she couldn’t keep one corner of her mouth from rising. She felt butterflies in her stomach, excited by the impropriety of being alone with a gentleman. It was forbidden, and that made her legs shake and her loins tingle. “Perhaps that is best.”
They walked quickly up a nearby staircase, and though they were both unfamiliar with the home, the first door they tried in a long hall opened into a bedroom. It wasn’t the master bedroom, it was smaller, for guests perhaps, with a small bed adorned with pillows, and a small writing desk along one wall.
“This will do for a chat,” Bertram said, and Annabelle shook her head. Something was taking a hold of her, a passion she felt growing in her loins, a warmness that reminded her of a fever in a way.
“I don’t think you really wished to speak, did you?” she said, stepping forward so his body was close to hers.
“Right you are,” the man said in a hushed whisper, and then his mouth was on hers for the second time that night. He was hungry, passionate, and their kiss was deep and long. He put his hands on her waist, lifted her into the air, and spun. He carried her to the bed, and then dropped her upon it. The young woman laughed as she bounced a few times on the soft mattress, no doubt expensive and filled with down.
Her laugh died in Bertram’s mouth as he lay down upon her and kissed her once more.
His hands were on her again, but not on her hips. He moved them up, across the front of her gown. The tops of her breasts were heaving above the scooped neckline and his lips tore from hers and went there, planting a wet trail along the top of each breast to the other and then back again.
She wondered if he would stop and ask her before disrobing her, but he didn’t. He wasn’t that type of man. His hands were at her breasts, replacing his lips, and fingers hooked into that plunging neckline, and he pulled the material down, tight as it was. Her breasts spilled forth, still held up by the half cups of her corset. Her nipples hardened in the cool night air, coming in through an open window, dark red, the color of good wine. He groped at one breast with one hand, using his other to hold him up over her. His hips dipped through, and he kept grinding back and forth upon her, his hard manhood pressing against her pelvis between her legs. It felt like heaven even though it had to get through both his pants and the material of her gown’s skirt.
Bertram squeezed her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and the young woman groaned. Her other nipple remained free for only a moment longer, and then the young Duke lowered his head and ran the tip of his tongue over the sensitive bump.
There was a fire burning in her loins, and Anna closed her eyes as the man took his hand from her breast, though his lips and tongue remained on the other. His newly free hand went down between their bodies, grinding and rocking still against one another. He gripped her long skirt in one hand, and tugged it upwards. She lifted her hips so he could push the material up and over her rear, and then with one quick motion he took a hold of her small clothes and pulled them off, ripping them in the process. She squealed and he dropped the material over the side of the bed.
“Touch me,” Annabelle whispered in the darkness, the only light was blue, from a full moon and streaming in through that open window.
The Duke didn’t speak, but he complied, his lips still locked around one nipple. He ran the pad of his index finger up the wet pink lips between the young woman’s legs. He didn’t penetrate her, he just ran it up and then down her slit. Annabelle groaned, and she widened her legs, and when he looked up, tearing his mouth away from her breast she was looking at him, her eyes begging him to make love to her.