The Last Duchess (The Lennox Series)(50)

“I read . . . oh! . . . a great deal.”

“Not anything available at an ordinary bookshop.” He thrust again, then lingered on the back pull, appearing to find great pleasure in the process.

She stared up at him, willing herself to hold on, to not let go just yet. She wanted to last and last, to enjoy him as long as possible. “No, my lord, they don’t come from a bookshop.” How would he react if she told him they were her very own books, handwritten, with original art, bound by her own hand and read by no one but herself?

“I’ve seen such books, Lucy. They typically include drawings, as well. Very realistic renderings of what we’re doing at this very moment, and a number of things we’re not doing.”

He filled her again, withdrew again, maddeningly slow, but she wouldn’t hurry him. She was determined to make it last. “I confess, it’s my nature to be keenly curious to know what some of those other things might feel like, if they’d be as enjoyable in reality as it seems in my imagination. I find the imagination can be quite . . . stimulating.”

He surprised her when his expression became almost sad. “Poor Lucy, alone in your grand house, but for erotic picture books. I trust you’re enjoying yourself now, rather more than being alone?”

She understood his meaning and smiled up at him. “Sherbourne, I can’t recall when I last felt this much pleasure. You fill me completely, and it’s taking a great amount of effort not to go off too quickly.”

His thrusts became more rhythmic, deeper and harder. “By all means, allow yourself to release.”

“I don’t wish for this to be over so soon.”

“Neither do I, but all this talk of your wicked books and the thought of you pleasuring yourself, alone in your bed, is far too stimulating. I’d thought to outlast you, but now it appears doubtful.”

Her hands clasped his thickly muscled upper arms as she rose to meet each stroke of his body in hers. He bent low and licked her lips before turning his head to kiss her deeply. Their bodies slid together with a fine sheen of perspiration, slick, hot, perfectly matched in rhythm.

She didn’t follow her usual pattern of slow build into a soft, pleasing climax. Instead, she was taken by breathless surprise when her entire body began to shake uncontrollably. Her back came up from the bed into an arch. Finally, at long last, saints be praised, she cried out her immense euphoria. Had it been thus with Matthew? It had been marvelous, she was certain, but had it been like this?

She didn’t know. She didn’t think it mattered at all. There was here, and now, and Sherbourne, and that was all that mattered at the moment.

He stared at her with wonder before he dropped his weight to hers, pressing her into the mattress while his thrusts became ever more powerful. She wrapped her legs around his hips, her arms around his middle, and held on to the last shred of her sanity.

It didn’t help.

As he completed and pumped himself into her, she went off yet again, her needful, too-long-untouched body responding enthusiastically to his.

When the last of their fulfillment settled into a gentle peace, he remained there, above her, within her, his breathing labored, his head resting beside hers, half of his face buried in her hair. She turned her head and met his blue gaze. “Do you feel ridiculous?”

“No, not ridiculous, but somewhat of a villain. Although I’m deeply honored you’ve chosen me with which to break your fast, I feel I’ve taken advantage of your loneliness. I’m older, wiser, more experienced, and should have discouraged you. Instead, I’ve bedded you.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

He smiled and raised a hand to brush her hair from her face. “More than I should, I’m afraid.”

“Why so?”

His fingers traced her profile, down to her throat, where he caressed her tenderly. “Because it can only be this time and no other, Lucy, and having known you, it’ll be difficult to resist knowing you again.”

“Yes, I see your point, although I fail to see why we might not enjoy one another so long as we wish. I’m a widow, not a virginal miss.”

He sighed and rolled off of her, though he took her along and held her close to his side. “I won’t dishonor you by making you my mistress. I suppose I could marry you, but it would, indeed, announce to the world that I’m ridiculous, would it not? I, myself, have chuckled with the rest of them when an old man marries a young woman. I have only to remember the laughing jibes we poked at Twykham when he married Miss Moring last year.”

“Honestly, Sherbourne, how you do go on. Twykham was a year from eighty and Miss Moring barely seventeen when they married. The comparison of Twykham to yourself is absurd. Consider Hollister, if you will. He married Miss Emily Smitherman when he was five and forty and she but twenty. She went on to bear him five children and they are to this day quite happily living in Shropshire. I don’t recall that he was held up in jest, or that anyone so much as blinked in surprise.”