Her Mystery Duke(13)
“No touching yourself in your bed?”
The question made her want to laugh. What would a man care what a woman did in her private moments so long as she gave herself to him with regularity?
“Thérèse.” He feathered his fingertips over her cheek. “Is he solicitous of your needs?”
He brushed her hair back and then traced her ear. Strange heated chills shot like winter’s lightning along all her nerve ends. Dr. Edmonton had been her gentlest, most considerate lover. But David’s very touch, just the right amount of teasing pressure, spoke of a skill she had never before experienced. Never dreamed had existed.
What must it be like to be made love to by such a man?
His body relaxed. His breathing grew heavier. Wheezing again. A soft snore issued. Having taken heat from her body, he slept again.
Yet his cock still throbbed against her. A hollow, hungry ache built in her loins.
“You like to fuck as much as a man does.” Bernard’s accusing words echoed in her mind.
All right, so it was true: she liked bedding with a man. She might have remained chaste as a nun. But she’d been forced by circumstances to share her body. To unbutton her bodice and allow men to fondle her breasts. To let their hands up her skirts, let them touch her private places. And when men did these things, they hadn’t been cruel. She’d found that she liked being touched, fondled, caressed—very much. She liked watching their erections grow and knowing that they found her attractive. The too-plump girl with the shabby clothes and the raving, insane father finally had something to offer. A way to make it in the cold, uncaring world.
Was it such a sin to find her pleasures where she could? To have lain beneath those men and taken pleasure in their rising arousal, the thrill of their cocks filling her, thrusting within her, sharing in the exhilaration of the moment of their crisis?
Yet she’d always remained somehow cold, unable to feel more than a vicarious joy. She’d learnt to pretend a crisis of her own. Later, when she next found herself alone, she would take her release at the behest of her own hand whilst she’d recounted every moment of her carnal encounters. Her conquests.
Wetness seeped through the thin muslin of her nightdress. David’s cock leaking against her. The feel of the heated, pulsing erection against her made all her pulses pound. Answering wetness trickled between the thickening lips of her cunt.
Damn, of all the things. Now she would never sleep.
He was already disturbing her peace and he wasn’t even conscious. As soon as he remembered where he belonged, then he needed to leave. She didn’t need this sort of disruption in her life.
He simply had to go.
Chapter Three
David was very aware of the girl lying beside him. Beneath the scent of lavender that permeated the bedding, the stench of aged wood and paint bloomed, like mildew flourishing in the dark. But stronger yet, the scent of sleep-warmed feminine flesh.
He couldn’t see her, but her large blue eyes and sweet, round face, and masses of golden, loosely curling, shoulder-length hair that fell from its pins as she had bent over him were burned into his mind. Nothing else resided in his memory. Just the girl.
He didn’t know how he’d come to be here or what he was doing here. Something lingered around the periphery of his thoughts, wispy, like cobwebs. He couldn’t pull it up clearly enough to grasp it. Had he possibly drunk too much?
He searched for his last clear recollection. He had been in his chambers at the Inns of Court. Since the open of Parliament, he’d been driving himself, trying to get enough promises for votes. Weeks where he was never without some pamphlet in his hand, frantically reading, while riding to a string of endless meetings and dinner parties. Staying up at nights, feverishly writing.
He’d been debating all morning, one last chance to sway one or two votes. He finally had the time to steal a brief nap in his private chamber. But he couldn’t sleep. Two cups of black tea on a stomach gone empty for hours proved to have been a dreadful idea. It hadn’t settled well at all. The chamber became hot, so hot, and his cravat seemed to tighten and strangle him. Air. He had to have air. He had stood and become instantly dizzy and disorientated, and staggering outside where he had chucked his guts into the gutter like a common drunkard.
Someone had come to aid him. Helped him into his carriage. But there the memory died.
The bed shifted and rather ancient-sounding ropes creaked. He opened his eyes and, in the dim light, saw the girl moving in her slumber. She turned on her side to face him. The deep shadow in the valley between two very generous breasts drew his attention. Yes, he had felt their softness brushing against him as she moved to reach across his whole body when she had bathed him.