“Impossible. I will show you.”
He kissed her before she could respond, stealing her breath and reigniting the heat that he had kindled earlier.
Chapter 10
Elijah
Relief that Josie’s hesitation had nothing to do with his brother was so strong, Elijah was almost weak from it. He was determined to keep things that way.
Josie was so confident in herself, it was easy to forget she did not like to try anything new under the view of someone else. Whether it was riding, archery, drawing, she practiced in private until she was competent. Only then did she seek out a teacher. Of course, that had been impossible in this sphere. Elijah would be her teacher from the beginning, and in doing so, he would wipe every thought of his brother from her mind.
Feeling her give way to his kiss, lips parting to receive him, supple body softening against his, Elijah backed her toward the door to her room. While there were no servants in the hall at the moment, he preferred not to be interrupted or seen. An audience had never bothered him in the past, but he did not know how Josie would react, and now that they had started, he was determined to finish.
Every part of his body was throbbing, aching. His cock dug into her soft stomach as his desire ran rampant through him. Elijah moved them into her room with only a small degree of difficulty, then began undoing the buttons along the back of her dress. Josie gasped beneath his kiss, shivering as her dress parted.
Breaking from the kiss, Elijah moved his lips over her jaw, and her head automatically tilted back, giving him access to her neck. Her low moan encouraged him as her hands clutched his shoulders, keeping her balanced.
Though he might not have her heart, he had her body and her promise of faithfulness. Elijah would use those and his knowledge to seduce her to bind her to him. He did not question this sudden desire to claim Josie for his own. She was his wife now. He wanted her devotion and would want that regardless of who his wife was.
Josie
Utterly breathless, Josie whimpered as Elijah’s hot mouth moved over her skin, stirring sensations she had never experienced. No mere kiss of the lips could ever match this—his hands moving over her body, his lips on the sensitive flesh of her throat, and the fabric of her dress slowly sagging as he undid the buttons holding it together.
She could barely think. When her dress dropped to a pool of fabric around her feet, exposing her chemise, corset, and drawers, she whimpered at the loss of a shield. Elijah’s hands felt twice as intimate, moving over barely covered skin, and when his lips moved down her chest, she gasped. Fingers caressed her breast, deftly delving into her corset and pulling them up, exposing the nipple behind the thin fabric of her chemise. She grabbed his hair as his mouth closed around one turgid bud, suckling. Her knees went weak, and only his strong hands held her up.
Every part of her body was awash with sensation, on fire with a need she barely understood. She had tried to touch herself between her legs, and there had been times she had achieved some small pleasure, but even those times, she had not felt likethis.Could anything quench the surge of heat and aching passion throbbing through her?
Something hard pressed against the back of her legs, and Josie’s lips formed a small ‘o’ of surprise. Elijah had backed her against the bed. Without speaking, he turned her around, so she was facing away from him, staring at the bed where he would soon divest her of her virginity. Something hard pressed against her buttocks, the ridge settling between her cheeks.His cock.That was what Evie and Mary had called it.
“Good girl.” Elijah’s warm breath moved over the back of her neck, making all the little hairs stand on end. “Put your hands on the bed.”
In a daze, she obeyed. Not that she never followed Elijah’s instructions, but she rarely did so without question if she even obeyed. Now, though… she felt as though she was in a dream, under his compulsion. Even though she could no longer see him, look at him, she was so acutely aware of him, it did not matter.
The corset loosened, and she sucked in a breath of shock. He was going to undress her entirely, leaving her completely exposed to him. For some reason, that sent excitement running along her skin, similar to her emotions when she was riding a particularly unruly horse, yet different. The danger was not the same, and neither would the end result be, but she had nothing else to compare to how her heart raced, her senses heightened, and everything else in the world melted away.
Hands moved over her, pushing her corset to the ground, pulling her chemise over her head, and caressing her bare skin. Eyes closed, Josie cried out in shock at the sensation of someone else’s hands touching her so intimately, kindling a fire inside her that spread through her limbs, heating her blood.
Slightly bent over before him, she was shocked when his hot, bare body pressed against hers. When had he taken his clothesoff? She did not have much time to concentrate on the question before his hands cupped her breasts, fingers pinching her nipples, his hot lips pressing against the back of her neck, the hard ridge of his arousal sliding between her buttocks. Whimpering from the overwhelming rush of sensations, she squirmed, her hips pushing back against him, and Elijah groaned, his fingers tightening on her breasts.
“Up on the bed,” he growled in her ear, releasing her, and Josie obeyed, still feeling dazed. She turned onto her back, lying with her head on the pillow, eyes widening as she saw him fully naked for the first time.
They had grown up together in the country. She had seen all the Stuart brothers without their shirts at one point or another, even Adam once in his smallclothes when he had gone swimming in the nearby brook, but she had never seen any of them nude. Perhaps she had forgotten, or never really noticed, how splendid Elijah was, like a statue carved by one of the old masters but with a male appendage far larger and far more fearsome than any sculpture.
His eyes, hot, almost feverish, swept over her body, and she froze, staring back at him. She had been so distracted by his muscular build and broad shoulders, the sprinkling of dark hair across his chest and down his stomach, leading to the thick, erect cock which rose from its own thatch of curls, she had almost forgottenshewas naked in front of a man for the first time.
Anxiety rose again, hard and fast. Though not enough to overpower her arousal, it diminished it. What was she supposed to do now?
As though he could sense her inner conflict, Elijah smiled reassuringly as he got on the bed and knelt at her feet. Her knees pressed together, but he took an ankle in each hand and pulled them apart, forcing her to expose herself to him. Josie whimpered when she felt the cool air on her wet netherlips. Every part of her tingled as Elijah ran his hands up her legs to her inner thighs, pushing them open even farther.
“Good girl,” he said, the warm accolade making her feel oh-so-very good again, in a manner she did not understand. “Do not think, Josie. Just keep your eyes on me.”
His head dipped, his lips meeting her pussy, and Josie gasped aloud at the shocking, intensely pleasurable sensation of his tongue touching her there.
Elijah
Never before had Elijah cared if a woman had her eyes opened or closed while she was with him, but it now felt vitally important for Josie to watch him. To be intimately aware of who was touching her, pleasuring her. He did not, for a moment, want to worry that she was imagining his brother in his stead.
He could not see anyone but her, laid out before him like a sweet sacrifice to pleasure—utter perfection. His cock was hard as steel, aching to be buried between her thighs. Her hair was still piled high atop her head, like the lady she was, but she was naked and all his from those blonde locks to her pink-tipped nipples down to the blonde curls over her mound and the pink parts between her thighs to her delicate toes.