School For Heiresses 2- Only a Duke Will Do (25 page)

And where’s my incentive, husband? I get cake, too, remember?”

Eyes smoldering, he slid his hand beneath her skirts once more, but she stayed him with her other hand. “

Not that sort of incentive, drat you. Since I agreed not to go anywhere without your knowing, you should agree not to restrict my activities with the London Ladies.”

When a frown touched his brow, she slid her hand beneath his drawers to caress his thigh. His naked, brawny thigh. He sucked in a harsh breath.

Delighted to have such an effect on him, she slid her hand closer to his ballocks, skirting them, brushing them…teasing them. “You did promise me that when we agreed to marry, you know.”

With a groan, he closed his eyes. “Yes, but…that was before I found out you were courting…radicals.”

“According to my father,” she said as she stroked everywhere but his rigid flesh, “you knew I was. You said that’s why you married me. To stop me.”

He squirmed beneath her hand. She slid one finger along his heavy arousal, but when he pushed against her palm, she withdrew.

His eyes shot open to blaze at her. “What do you want from me?”

“Our original agreement—that you won’t restrict my activities with the London Ladies.” She fondled his shaft, and he groaned.

“All right, damn you.” Sliding her off him and onto the seat, he knelt on the floor between her legs, then tugged her closer. “You can have your original agreement.”

She beamed at him. “Thank you. That’s all I wanted.”

“I do have one condition.” Eyes alight, he shoved her skirts back to bare her below the waist. She grabbed his shoulders. “Oh?”

“Since allowing you to consort with radicals would damage my future in politics, you must let me advise your group on their choice of candidate. You owe me that, at least.”

“Advise. Not browbeat.”

“Advise,” he repeated, then bent his head to suck her breast. “Come now, wife, I am being most accommodating, and you know it.”

“Fine, though undoubtedly I’ll regret it.”

“I will make sure that you don’t.” Then a wicked smile crossed his face, and he shoved down his drawers and trousers.

“Oh Lord,” she said as an instrument of rather sobering proportions sprang free. So that…beast was what she’d been fondling? It hadn’t felt so large. How on earth did any sane woman “lay there and let the man do what he wants” when he was assaulting her with that? “Um, one more thing—”

“Negotiations over,” he snapped as he aimed the thick rod of flesh between her legs. “The only words I want to hear out of your mouth for the next hour are ‘Yes, Simon…more, Simon…please, Simon…’”

“Please, Simon,” she whispered as the tip brushed her curls. “Try not to slay me with that beast of yours.

”

“Beast?” Simon halted to stare at her, then let out a choked laugh. “My God, you’re a virgin.”

“Of course!” She drew herself up. “You didn’t actually believe what I babbled in the woods about having been with other men.”

“Certainly not,” he hastened to say. “It is just that when I am with you I forget…I mean, you are so damned—”

“Wanton?”

“Wonderful.” He nuzzled her cheek. “I get carried away, and I forget.”

He angled his shaft up between her thighs, a hot, heavy reminder of what they were about to do. When he caressed her between the legs with it, rubbing it up and down against her damp curls, she caught her breath, torn between the pleasure it gave and the pain it promised.

“In the past seven years,” he went on, “you and I have made love in my dreams so often…I have to remind myself that you have not actually done it.”

“You really dreamt of me?” Now he was opening her with his warm fingers, smearing her with her own juices. “That wasn’t just something you said so I would let down my guard?”

“God, you have no idea,” he said hoarsely as he slid inside her.

To take her mind off the strange and rather uncomfortable intrusion, she asked, “What exactly did I…do in your dreams?”

“You tempted me with your hair and breasts and belly. You rubbed your nipples against my chest—”

“Like this?” she whispered as she did what he’d said.

He gave a harsh laugh. “Yes, Cleopatra, exactly like that.” His eyes glimmered. “And you put your hands on my a—…my buttocks. Try that, too.”

Although she blushed, she did as he ordered, but when she went a step further and squeezed the firm flesh, he surged inside her. Instinctively she tensed to feel him so thick there.

“It’s all right, you’re doing fine,” he said huskily. He slid his hand between them to find that spot that always seemed to crave his touch. When he stroked it, she relaxed, allowing him to slip even deeper. A groan escaped his lips. “That’s it, sweetheart, let me in. That’s even better than I dreamt.”

“It’s not at all what I dreamt,” she said dryly.

“What did you dream?” He continued to stroke her where they were joined, which did make it easier to endure him inside her.

“I-I don’t know.” She remembered how Regina had once described it to her. “Angels…harps…like it was when you…did those things with your mouth to me in my bedchamber. Only better.”

“Give me a chance, and you’ll have that again. But first…” He drew back to stare at her ruefully. “I’m told that purgatory comes before heaven for virgins.”

She eyed him skeptically. “Purgatory?” She’d heard varying accounts of a virgin’s pain. The same varying accounts she’d heard about childbirth. And Lord knew how reliable some of those were. “Or hell?”

“You tell me.” Giving her no time to tense up, he plunged deep inside her. The pain was sudden, intense…and brief. It took a few moments for it to pass. Then she sagged against him, relieved that it hadn’t been worse.

He brushed a kiss to her forehead. “Well?”

She wriggled experimentally, but there was only a lingering soreness. “Definitely purgatory,” she pronounced.

“Thank God.” He clutched her hard against him. “Because after seven years, stopping now would be hell for me.”

He began to move, and she caught her breath. It was…intriguing, to say the least. Quite…invigorating. Then he thrust particularly deep, and her pulse leapt. Good heavens. That wasn’t like anything she’d ever felt, not even that night in the bedchamber. There was something so…amazing about being joined to him like this.

Now he was kissing her, his tongue hot and strong, surging inside her mouth the way he surged inside her body, and the multiple sensations began to swamp her. His thrusts beat in counterpoint to the swaying of the coach, the thundering hooves…the clamoring of her heart. Soon the wild rhythm quickened, building, growing, running away with her…

“Do you want me, Louisa?” he tore his lips free to growl, reminding her of that day in her bedchamber when he’d made her beg.

“Yes…I want you, Simon.”

With a groan, he increased his pace. She grabbed at his buttocks to hold on, joining them even more intimately. He drove inside her over and over until her head spun and her body soared and she couldn’t stay anchored to the earth…

“Yes, sweetheart, yes,” he rasped as he plunged to the hilt. “Yes!”

And in that moment the heavens opened up, and angels and harps rained music down around her, blending with her cries.

With a guttural cry of his own, Simon flooded her with his essence, clasping her so tightly she didn’t know where he began and she ended.

For a moment she felt suspended in the heavens, joined to Simon inextricably for eternity while his seed still poured inside her and her heart beat a madly exultant rhythm. Then her heart began to slow and his breathing to settle. The creak of the carriage intruded in her thoughts, along with the realization that they were inches away from a city full of people who had no clue what they were doing.

A little embarrassed, she loosed her hold on him.

But he wasn’t done. “You are my wife now,” he whispered fiercely, still clasping her to him. “You are mine, Louisa. My wife. Say it.”

“Your wife,” she echoed, the words feeling more like a vow than anything she’d said at their wedding. “I’

m yours.”

Some of the fierceness left his face, and he buried his face in her neck, his arms so tight around her that she could hardly breathe. “Don’t ever deny me your bed again. I don’t think I could bear it twice.”

She stroked his hair, the rough pain in his voice melting her heart. Their joining was clearly more than mere lovemaking to him, and that made her regret being so harsh before. “There’s no need,” she whispered.

Besides, today had made her realize the risk she’d taken. Denied an outlet for his urges, a man was liable to find it elsewhere. Especially a man like the Duke of Foxmoor, who could have any woman he wanted. The very thought of him doing something like this with another woman made her ill.

“You’ll be a real wife to me from now on,” he said.

“Yes.” She hesitated, but she had to be sure. “As long as you’re a real husband to me.”

He pulled back to eye her warily. “What do you mean?”

“I won’t tolerate a mistress, Simon. I’m not sure I could even tolerate your going to a bawdy house.”

Relief, then amusement shone in his face. “Didn’t you suggest only a few days ago that I do so?”

She glowered at him. “Now see here—”

“I am only teasing you,” he said with a light kiss to her nose. “Trust me, the last place you will ever find me is a bawdy house.”

He said it with such conviction that she believed him. “And a mistress? You won’t take one?”

His amusement faded to solemnity. “Not even if you banished me from your bed forever.”

She swallowed, not quite sure she believed him. “Why not?”

His eyes began to smolder as he lifted his hand to cup her breast. “Because I happen to like only one flavor of cake, sweetheart.” He kissed her neck. “Yours.”

As he thumbed her nipple, the heat rose in her again. Oh, she truly was her mother’s daughter. And just now she was glad of it.

“You see how easy I am to please?” he said. “Give me cake, and you can do whatever you want. At least until you find yourself enceinte.”

She stiffened. Her sponges! Good heavens, she’d forgotten all about them. Too late to do anything about it now, but she must not forget again.

He nuzzled her cheek. “I suspect it won’t be long until you are with child. Because when a man eats as much cake as I intend to, children inevitably follow.”

The thrill coursing through her was tempered by the knowledge that she still intended to use her sponges. Just for a while. Surely she could be forgiven for that.

You should tell him about the sponges. Simon would understand.

Would he? No other man would. And Simon was more determined to have his way than most. No, she couldn’t tell him yet. But it would be all right; they’d been married less than a week. What was a few more days alone together before she had to think about children? Surely she could get past her fear eventually.

And if she didn’t?

She’d cross that bridge when she came to it. Which hopefully wouldn’t be anytime soon.

Several hours later, Simon lay in his bedchamber beside his sleeping wife and wondered if he would ever be able to satisfy his sweet tooth. He’d had “cake” twice this afternoon, and already he craved it again. He stared down at Louisa’s tousled hair and the wedge of shoulder above the covers turned golden by the waning sun. Instantly his cock stirred. God, he was a randy devil. But seven years of celibacy would turn any man into a randy devil. Even now, he wanted to lick every inch of her fine, porcelain skin, to dip his tongue in her navel, to drink his fill of the nectar between her legs before rising up to plunge his cock so deeply inside her that—

He swore under his breath. His cock was now painfully hard. And he truly would be a devil to take her again. Twice was more than any virgin should have to endure on her first night. Throwing himself back against the pillow, he laid his arm over his eyes. He should sleep. He’d certainly had little enough of it in the past few days.

Yet how could he sleep with Louisa beside him after all these years? He groaned. This obsession with his wife must stop. Bad enough that he craved her every waking moment. But she had used her delectable body to wrest concessions from him that he should never have given. He could not let that happen again. He was supposed to be getting her out of politics, not advising her on candidates. If he didn’t watch it, she would be coaxing him to support some idiot radical who would ruin his future as prime minister. But what was a man to do when his luscious wife put her hands where he had wanted them for years? Especially when he wanted to keep her putting her hands on him?

That’s what mistresses are for. His grandfather’s voice grated. To satisfy you in bed so that you can keep your wits about you with your wife. A mistress has no power. But a wife has the power to ruin you, if you let her.

Grandfather might have been right, but he could never betray Louisa that way. He would take her in hand by standing firm on the things that mattered, and giving her freedom in the things that did not. Because living like his grandfather was not an option. The devastation the old bastard had caused to everyone surrounding him made that clear.

Which reminded him…He glanced over, but his wife slept soundly. He could either stay here aching for her, or get something done. Clearly he was not going to sleep himself. He left the bed, dressed, and ambled downstairs to his study. The minute he entered, Raji hurried to his side.

“Hello there, scamp.” Simon lowered his arm so Raji could climb up. “Sorry to abandon you, but you’ll have to get used to it. No more sleeping in my bed, I’m afraid.” He chuckled. “I don’t relish fighting you to get to my wife every night.”

Raji chattered happily as Simon lit candles in the dusk-dark study and dragged out the last box of letters. If he did not find anything here, he was not sure what else to do. He would help Colin to whatever extent he could, of course, but he might not be able to give him what he truly wanted and deserved. Even if Simon did find the proof, he would still have to convince the king to support Colin’s claim. So far, the man had not upheld any other part of his bargain. His Majesty had not gained Liverpool’s resignation. He hemmed and hawed about its being better to wait until sessions were over. Ignoring Raji, who was sniffing his hair, probably smelling Louisa’s lilac scent on it, Simon took out the top batch of letters and began to read. He was well into his tenth when a sound from the doorway made him look up.