“I’m marrying Roderick in a little over a fortnight.”
“Maybe I want to marry you myself.”
“You’re far too dangerous, My Lord, and besides, I’ve changed my mind about thinking that was a good idea. Oh! Ooooh!”
He’d caught her by surprise. Her body exploded with sensation and she bucked and jerked, but she was not ready to cast herself completely into the abyss of pleasure just yet. Lord Debenham had more work to do in order to make up for all the terrible things she’d been forced into, just to get respectably married.
She threw her head back and opened herself up even wider to him, making clear with her sighs exactly what pleased her. “Further up. That’s right. Oh yes, just a little faster and a little harder. Yes, oh my goodness, oh my goodness!” Her climax was sudden and intense and the most thrilling sensation she’d ever experienced. Dear Lord, so this was why people got into trouble.
For a few minutes she lay there, gasping, then Lord Debenham took hold of a handful of her hair and drew her into a sitting position. She looked at him in surprise. He wasn’t rough but it certainly wasn’t a gentle act, either.
“My turn now,” he said, thrusting apart his legs so his member sprang out before him.
She blinked as she was forced to wriggle onto her knees on the soft, though lumpy mattress. He was still gripping a hank of her hair. “What do you mean?”
“Take me in your mouth.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Take me in your mouth. Like this,” he said, pushing her head down so that his pulsing member nearly choked her. “And careful of your teeth. Yes, up and down, slowly, that’s right.”
She was horrified, but his pleasure was infectious, and soon she felt her own body swell again with desire.
The timing was perfect, for just as she felt her juices build up to nearly explosive quantities, His Lordship hoisted her up under her arms, pushed her onto her back and thrust himself unceremoniously inside her.
“God, this is magnificent!” he shouted joyously as he began to pump himself madly in and out.
The tension was mounting for Araminta, too. Every nerve ending was on fire as Lord Debenham continued his frenzied thrusting. She was vaguely conscious of the counterpane slipping to the floor, the protesting groans of the squeaking bed, the slapping noise of their thighs. She wrapped her legs about his waist and dug her fingers into his buttocks in her escalating frenzy as the tension tightened.
And tightened.
Then, with a gasp of utter rapture, she shattered once more as he exploded inside her.
The only sounds in the sudden silence were the chiming of a clock i
n the dim recesses of the house—and the protesting creak of the door as it was thrust open upon a horrified wail, a small shriek and a cry of anguished dismay.
Araminta wriggled up onto her elbows and peered over Lord Debenham’s shoulder.
She was met by the disbelieving look of her husband-to-be, the scandalized fury of her hostess, Miss Hoskings’ mother, and the incredulous look of Cousin Stephen.
Dropping back onto the mattress—Lord Debenham hadn’t moved, but still presented his bare buttocks to the assembled onlookers—her last sight was of the triumphant grin of her seducer.
Chapter Twenty-one
“There’s a nice piece of court gossip.” Ralph, standing at Lissa’s shoulder at Mrs. Nipkins’ round wooden dining table in the tiny parlor, reached across to point out a paragraph in The Times newspaper she was reading.
Lissa rested her head on his shoulder and nodded, more occupied with dreams of their happy, shared future, than gossip sheet news.
“What does it say, dear?” Mrs. Nipkins raised her head and smiled from where she was sewing the skirt of white sarsnet to the bodice of a beautiful ball gown. Her owlish eyes glittered with interest, but they were kind eyes and her interest was never inspired by prurient scandal.
Lissa enjoyed living with her. It was a small house but it pulsed with warmth and good humor. Since Lissa had arrived, Ralph had moved from the second bedroom to a tiny attic, while pretending he’d moved lodgings to next door. It broke Lissa’s heart that she’d been the cause of his having to compromise his comfort, but he’d joked that Lissa’s arrival was the instigator of him rising in the world. And from his attic room he could see the whole of London.
Lissa, caught up with affectionately tracing the veins on the back of Ralph’s hand, let Ralph do the reading while she and her landlady listened.
“Miss Kitty La Bijou, who has taken London by storm with her sensational rendition of Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, is rumored to have secured the forthcoming role of Desdemona—and the attentions of a certain Lord X.”
He was about to continue reading when Mrs. Nipkins asked, “Ooh, yes, I have heard about Miss La Bijou. Very popular she is and quite the beauty. Have you see her? I know how much you like the theatre, Mr. Tunley.”