"Not by half," he said. But he took her hand and put it on his hard length.
Her hand instinctively curled around his silky maleness. To her delight, he visibly shuddered, then cupped her face, and brushed his lips over hers.
She tightened her hand just a little. His eyes glazed over and a harsh sound came from between his lips. His hands slipped down to her jaw, guiding her face up to take her mouth.
In the back of her mind, Mia was losing her nerve. What if Vander no longer desired her, once her breasts had been freed from her corset? Even she felt distaste for her breasts, so why should he feel any different?
"I want to touch you," Vander growled into her mouth, his hands gripping her bottom and pulling her against him. "I want to hold those lush breasts of yours, bury my face in them, suck your pretty little nipples . . ."
Oh dear God.
She would have to let him do it. Either that, or she could call the Four Nights rule into effect.
"Please," she asked desperately, "Please might we wait until tonight, when our room is dark?"
He ground against her, a harsh noise breaking from his chest. "Does it feel to you as if I can bloody well wait until tonight?"
Mia felt dizzy, as if she might faint. Perhaps she should get it over with? If she didn't look at his face, she wouldn't know how he felt. Would not knowing be better than knowing?
Yes. Unquestionably.
His nimble fingers were unbuttoning her gown in back, but he lost patience and ripped open the last few buttons. Mia numbly let him lift the gown over her arms and head.
He fell back a step. "Duchess, the corset you wore the other evening was impressive, but I must say this one resembles nothing so much as a steel cage designed to contain wild tigers."
The corset employed a great deal of whale-bone to control her figure. It fell from her body and the laces' silver aglets tinkled as they hit the floor.
Then all that remained was her chemise.
Chapter Twenty-six
NOTES ON FLORA'S NEW WARDROBE
Flora mortified to find seamstress views her as bony. "The Fripperies of Outward Appearance are unimportant," she informed the lady.
"Pas pour les hommes," the Frenchwoman said grimly, pins in her mouth obscuring her comment.
Flora knew no man of worth would take such foolishness into account. Still . . . "Can you improve the bodice of this gown?" she implored. The gown was made of white pleated muslin and left no doubt that Flora had very little in the way of feminine endowments.
The modiste mumbled something about sow's ears.
~ is this working? Probably not.
Interesting change, though.
Do men truly like bosoms?
It was taking all of Vander's control not to lunge at Mia, now that her corset had fallen away. His wife had turned white as a bleached stone and she was visibly trembling, but she undid the ribbon of her chemise. Closing her eyes momentarily, she pulled it down around her shoulders.
Vander restrained a groan. He felt desperate to touch her, like an animal in a duke's form.
The white chemise dropped away to reveal breasts that were more beautiful than he could have imagined: plump and smooth, with nipples like ripe cherries.
Mia gave a little wiggle and the chemise slid from her arms, was caught briefly on her hips, and fell to the floor. And there she was.
His wife.
His duchess.
"Bloody hell," Vander said hoarsely, words deserting him.
Mia rolled her eyes. "There's no need to offer me such extravagant compliments."
"You are beautiful, Duchess." He could see her thinking about that, but he was in the grip of an overpowering lust and could not wait for his compliment to soothe her fear. He picked her up and lay her on the bed, coming down on his side next to her. "May I touch?"
"No." She meant it.
He ran a hand up her leg and straight to her sweetest spot. She was drenched, and a moan broke from her throat the moment he touched her.
Beside himself with desire, he rolled on top of her, reared back, and thrust inside. No preliminaries, no tender coaxing caresses-just fast, sweaty motion that sent pleasure racing down his limbs, smoky and hot as burning grass.
He kept his hands away from her breasts because she hadn't given him permission, but somehow it was all the wilder for that.
Instead he braced his hands on the bed next to her shoulders and hung his head above her breasts. He could have sworn that her nipples puckered tighter every time he looked.
The bed board slammed into the wall. Over and over and over. And Mia was with him. She was caressing his body, her hands running down over his arse and curling around his thighs, urging him on.
He stilled. "May I touch your breasts now?"
"No!"
"You'll love it," he promised.
With a sudden movement, he rolled, and then she was on top of him.
Mia had been lost in delight, allowing Vander's hard body to pleasure her while she stroked and caressed and kissed what parts of him she could reach.
But as always when her breasts were involved, she snapped to cold attention. Glancing down, she saw that they were standing out from her torso like globes.
"Look at me," Vander commanded.
Reluctantly, she did so. His expression was delirious . . . ecstatic.
"Your breasts are perfect," he rasped. "Soft, giving, your nipples like strawberries waiting for my mouth. I'm not touching. But I mean to kiss them now."
Before she could stop him, Vander's mouth closed over her nipple, and Mia went straight from somewhat ashamed apprehension to a storm of sensation so acute that she involuntarily pulsed around his cock, making him groan aloud.
His big hands gripped her hips and pulled her down as he thrust up. Her hair fell around his face. With every suck to her nipples, the desperate, hot sensation inside her increased, as if she were a boiling pot on the verge of explosion.
All the time Vander told her in a hoarse voice what he was doing, what he thought about her nipples, about her breasts.
She believed him. And when she gave everything to him, her body jerking over and over, his in every sense of the word, the rightness of it echoed down to her soul.
She loved him.
She had never stopped loving him.
The pleasant affection that she and Edward had shared was not love. This mad, wild, consumption of each other's bodies, sweaty and real: this was love.
"Vander," she cried, about to tell him.
But he wasn't listening. He rolled again, and his strength and muscle and weight came down on top of her. His thrusts grew even fiercer; as he came, he shouted, the abandoned mad pleasure in his voice sending her body into another spiral, until she convulsed around him.
In that space of white-hot joy, there was no Vander and no Mia: they were one, panting, crying out, moving together in a primal dance as old as the earth itself.
It was blissful and raw.
When Vander withdrew, neither of them said a word. He pulled her close, and dazed, Mia tucked into his shoulder.
She had given him everything, ceded her body. And he had given his back to her.
They had consummated their marriage.
Chapter Twenty-seven
From the Duchess of Pindar to her Publishers, Mssrs. Brandy, Bucknell & Bendal
September 15, 1800
Dear Mr. Bucknell,
I have scarcely left my chamber for two days while reading Miss Julia Quiplet's three novels, and shall shortly begin Mrs. Lisa Klampas's novel.
I know this may sound as if my own writing has been neglected, and it has been neglected, but I assure you that the opposite is true. Miss Quiplet's books have been very inspiring, and even partly restored my faith in romance, and renewed my conviction that Love is the Secret Architecture of the world.
I will happily provide an endorsement of Miss Quiplet's next novel.
All best wishes,
Her Grace, the Duchess & etc.
Two days later
Vander woke when the blue light of dawn crept through the window. For a moment he didn't know where he was, as if he had been thrown into a kaleidoscope, shaken and tumbled.
His body felt different.
Slowly he turned his head. Mia was curled against him, satiny hair falling over his arm. She was smiling in her sleep.
It wasn't just his body that felt different: he felt different. He felt unbalanced. Vulnerable. Every night he became a madman, pounding into his wife, groaning, out of control.
Control had been the backbone of his life. A flicker of panic followed that thought. Perhaps his father lost his mind because of the fierce love he felt for the duchess, for the woman who cuckolded him.
No.
He could not forget what Chuffy had told him: His father had shown signs of madness even as a boy. And the former duke had abused his wife. What sort of love was that?