“That was a lovely way to begin,” he whispered. “Don’t you agree?”
*** *** ***
Begin? Minette thought. What else are you planning to do?
She lay in his arms, replete, appalled, and rather hellishly conflicted. She knew she must stop this, but at the same time, she wanted to see what other wonders August might be able to perform. After all, who ever imagined a man could pleasure a woman in such an outrageous fashion? Who ever imagined the rush of warmth and completion he might give her as his mouth and hands played over her body?
She’d dreamed so many nights of lying beside Lord August and basking in the warmth of his embrace. She’d dreamed of him touching her and kissing her with lustful abandon. In fact, she had wished for it so badly that when she awakened to find it happening, she thought herself still in the throes of a dream. Long moments had gone by when she was half asleep and half awake, long moments before she became aware that she was actually, in true reality, in Lord August’s bed.
Her blasted sleepwalking. She ought to have confessed to her brother that it had started again. Warren would have locked her in, or asked Townsend to station a footman at her door.
Then you wouldn’t have had this.
But she shouldn’t have this. My goodness, he was making free with her person in a very licentious way, and he wasn’t finished yet. In his defense, he thought her a kitchen maid, and she let him believe it, because otherwise she would have to go away, and it was August, whom she had loved and idolized for so many years...
Oh, he was so warm and so large and so real next to her, and had apparently gone to bed tonight without any clothes. In her folly, she’d allowed him to undress her too, and give her all manner of caresses, things she hadn’t even read about in romantic novels. At least she didn’t think she had. The language was often flowery and nonspecific.
While she lay there trying to think back to some of the more instructive passages, August stroked her skin, and fondled her breasts and put his mouth upon them, teasing her nipples with his teeth until she shuddered in a helpless kind of trance. Minette knew she ought to stop him. She really ought to stop him and leave. But it felt so good, and she would never, ever have another chance to feel this way, especially once he was betrothed to Lady Priscilla.
And so she dithered and sighed, and clutched his thick, dark hair that was so much softer than she had ever believed. She wished she could see him, see his warm, muscled body lying beside her. Of course, she’d memorized every aspect of his hands, and his face, the only parts of him that showed outside his clothes. If only she could see the rest of him. If only this encounter between them was real, and not some dream-launched caper that would only lead to misfortune.
“Mary,” he sighed.
Yes, Mary. She was Mary for this hour. She’d stay an hour and then she’d tell him she had to go back to the kitchens. Servants rose at early hours. She was Mary, a naughty, wanton servant girl who’d crept into the Earl of Augustine’s bed to warm him on his birthday night.
Minette Bernard, this has gone on long enough. You’re playing a dangerous game.
Just a half hour, perhaps, and then she’d find the strength and opportunity to go. It was only so pleasant to be hugged and touched and caressed by the long-time lover of her dreams.
“You’re very quiet,” he said. His fingers found her face in the dark, and traced down her cheeks to her parted lips. “What now, my angel? Would you like a chance to use this pretty mouth?”
“To kiss you?” she asked. She tried to use a different tone and inflection, the way the servants talked. If he discovered her identity now...oh, what a terrible scene.
“Yes, to kiss me.” He knelt up in the bed. She could hear his movement in the darkness, and feel the mattress dip. She could just make out the outline of his body. So large and strong. He reached and groped for her hand, and pressed it downward along his torso.
Oh, my. He placed it on a hard, hot shaft of flesh, and moved it up and down. She didn’t know if she was touching him or...well. What else could she be touching? But this part of his body was so big and stiff, so much larger than it looked tucked in his breeches. Not that she spent a great deal of time studying men’s breeches. Only August’s breeches, when he wasn’t looking at her, of course, and she knew she’d never seen anything this large outlined beneath the fabric’s surface. Thank goodness it was dark so he couldn’t see her flushing in shock.
“Go ahead and kiss it,” he said. “Don’t be shy.”
He brushed fingers into her hair and drew her face right down to him, to it. She felt panic. Kiss it? The way he had kissed her down there? “I— I’m sorry, milord, I don’t know how,” she said in a shamefaced whisper.
He laughed. “Country girls. If you don’t want a chance at it, I suppose it’s all right. I’m not going to last much longer anyway.”
Oh, thank goodness. Minette believed things had gone rather far enough. If this interlude was nearly over, well, she would miss the pleasant closeness of it, but it was probably for the best.
He drew her down beside him and pressed his great, distended shaft against her hip. She still felt troubled by this unfamiliar aspect of his body, but then he caressed her again with deft, knowing touches that made her melt inside. He kissed her, his warm, sweet breath tasting faintly of brandy. She felt transported by his strange roughness that also felt like gentleness. Thank you, Mary, naughty servant girl, for giving me these moments. She hummed in approval as he parted her legs and began to stroke her in that singular way. Her body grew even damper than it had been before.
“Oh, yes, you like that, my sweet. I know.” She could feel his smile against her lips in the darkness. She took his face in her hands and scratched her fingers through his stubble, and brought his lips back to hers. He groaned against her mouth, but she was the one who wanted to groan, for the pleasure of this intimacy, and for knowing the feel of his stubble and skin, and the fresh, spicy scent of him. How many times had she wished to kiss his lips just this way?
His groan roughened, and he pressed a finger inside her slick, sensitive place, where he had fondled her before, and then shifted so he was over her with their hips aligned. It felt lovely to lie this way, with his weight against her but not against her, since he braced himself on his arms. She stared up in the darkness as he leaned to kiss her. Oh, to see him in the light, to see all the beauty and strength of him overlying her. She placed her hands against his chest and then, before she quite knew what he was about, he surged forward. Her cozy, contented feelings exploded into pain.
She cried out. She didn’t know. She hadn’t expected this. He had forced his big, thick shaft inside her body and it felt like she’d been split in two.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know. I’m hung like a bloody Scotsman.” His voice sounded strained. “Blast, you’re so small. Give it a moment, it will go easier. And I won’t come inside you, so don’t worry about that.”
What on earth did he mean about not coming inside her? He was already there, stretching her wide and hurting her terribly. Minette felt a sort of chagrin, an indignant shock that he was doing this to her. It had been so comfortably blissful as he caressed and kissed her, and then... Her stolen moments playing the kitchen maid seemed to have taken an unexpected turn. A turn which really hurt.
Now what was she to do? She couldn’t reveal her true identity, not now with August pushing his thing inside her in this bizarre and ardent way. She lay beneath him, flabbergasted. She’d never imagined this was what he had meant to do to the poor kitchen maid.
“Don’t you like it?” he asked. “Move with me, and take your own pleasure. It’s more fun for me if you enjoy it too.” He changed the rhythm of his thrusting, and slid his pelvis against hers in a way that brought a jolt of arousal amidst her terror and shock. Oh, but she couldn’t enjoy this. She was fairly certain she was ruined, that this was not something that happened to a proper lady outside of her marriage bed.
And it was all he
r fault, for she was not a kitchen maid, but had let August believe she was. Her brother would kill her. At best, he would whip her. At worst, he would toss her out onto the streets. The idea of his wrath brought a sob to her lips.
“Here now,” said August. “What’s this? I know I’m a big fellow, but I’m trying to make it good for you. Do you have regrets now? Do you want me to stop?”
Did she have regrets? Oh, she had a thousand regrets, but she clutched at him when he would have drawn back. “Please, milord. I’m only a bit...frightened of you.”
“You mustn’t be frightened. No harm can come of pleasure.” He cupped her face and kissed her, a long, lingering kiss that felt completely different from the others, because he was pressed so deep inside her. She clenched a bit around him, and was surprised that it felt rather...good. No harm can come of pleasure.
He wrapped his arms around her and cradled her, moving inside her slowly, sensually, until she began to experience a mounting sense of need. Now that she had fallen this far, perhaps she ought to fall the entire way, and enjoy these moments—however long they lasted. How long would this last? The more he kissed and grasped her, and moved inside her, the less she cared. She felt tender where they joined, but also hot and excited in some way. I don’t understand, she wanted to say. Please help me understand this. But he thought she was Mary, a kitchen maid who crept into gentlemen’s beds for this sort of congress all the time.
“Yes, that’s better,” he said as she moved with him. “I told you you’d grow accustomed to my size.” Once she was in the rhythm he wanted, he leaned back and lifted her into his lap, holding her tight as he moved her up and down on his thick length. She clung to his shoulders, burying her face against his neck and breathing in his smell. It was a very hot, sweaty, energetic business, but she felt so close to him now that they were connected in this way. When she gasped or sighed in pleasure, he answered with gruff, masculine noises of his own.
She tried to reach that same apex of squeezing, aching release that she’d achieved earlier, but she found it all so odd, and so distracting when he groped her or pinched her or—my goodness—spanked her bottom.
“You’re too delectable, my dear,” he said at last. “I can’t hold off any longer.”