Page 27 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“Yes.” She tugged down the drawstring bodice of her shift and at last his mouth moved where she wanted it, that hot, delicious mouth on her breast. Kissing the curve of her cautiously, reverently, as if he couldn’t believe the delights he’d been offered. As if he worshipped at a holy shrine.

Then he cupped a hand around one globe and pulled her nipple into his mouth, and Inez nearly screamed with pleasure.

“Yes. Yes.”

She dragged her hands along every inch of him that she could reach. Plunged her fingers into his soft hair, coating her fingers with the powder he’d applied for his interview that morning. It seemed an eon away; the world had shifted in the meantime. A new epoch of her life had begun, one where she was with Joseph Illingworth and he kissed and licked and nipped at her breasts, feasting like a man at a banquet, and she lay there panting and simmering with pleasure, need heating like an iron rod at her core.

She scraped her fingers over the hard curve of his back, the coat too thick to give her a proper sense of him. She slid her hands down his sides to his waist, plucking his shirt free from the waistband of his breeches. She needed her hands on him. She needed him to never stop what he was doing to her breasts, nibbling and sucking and swirling his tongue around her nipples, which pulled a thread at her center into a taut, burning ache.

But she needed to touch him. Her hand brushed his arousal as she fumbled with the buttons, and his entire body froze like a hound pointing. She cupped his cock within her hand, cradling him through the fabric, and he gave a small, strangled gasp.

His response emboldened her. She freed a button and slipped her hand inside his breeches. He was wearing drawers of soft, worn linen, but warm bare flesh had pushed through the opening. His cock lengthened in her hand as she slid her fingers around the silken skin, and she laughed, a rich, throaty chuckle, at the look of profound astonishment on his face.

“My God,” he rasped. “Inez…”

She wriggled. She would get to have him inside of her. She would be joined to him, completely and entirely his. She wasn’t afraid. She didn’t dread him as she had the times with her husband. Her body felt warm and open and ready for him, drenched with longing. A little mewl of pleasure escaped her as she stroked her hand along him, eager to have him inside of her.

“Inez.” His body trembled as he held himself frozen above her, every muscle taut and straining, as if the entire focus of his attention had moved to her hand. Men. He was so strong and arrogant, and had been so fierce when he fought Wigsby—even now the memory of his swift, brutal blows made her lower parts quiver and ache for him. But take his cock in her hand, and he was completely at her mercy, hers to command. She could lead him as on a string.

She kissed him, overcome with tenderness all of a sudden, touched by his complete surrender. But he panted, almost as if in distress, and dropped his forehead to her shoulder. His back arched, tensing.

“Inez…I…” His breath blew over one nipple, already sensitized from his kisses, and she squeezed in reflex, urging him toward her.

His body spasmed from head to toe, one great tremor, and then he was spilling over her hand, his seed warm and soft as the rest of him.

“Oh, God.” He gave an embarrassed moan.

Inez smiled and kissed his hair as she withdrew her hand from his breeches. He’d wanted her so much he couldn’t hold. She considered it a compliment, and a sign that it had been a while since he had sought relief with a woman. He didn’t go about swiving just any maid; she was special.

And while her husband had always withdrawn to his own bed when he was finished, she knew from overhearing her mother’s guests that some men could be ready again quite quickly. They had plenty of time.

Suddenly he pulled away, leaping off the bed like he’d been shot, then backing across the room. His eyes were wide with anguish.

“I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”

“It’s all right.” She wiped her hand on her shift, leaning up on one elbow. “Come back.”

“I can’t. I should never have touched you.”

“What?”

He fumbled with his breeches, rebuttoning them swiftly and shoving in his shirt, then tugging down his coat. Fully dressed in an instant, as if their embrace had never happened.

A wave of cold horror fell over her. Inez yanked up her shift to cover her breasts and climbed to her feet, her stockinged feet sliding against the rug.

“What do you mean?”

She’d begged him to touch her. She’d welcomed him. She was his, his completely. Didn’t he understand that?”

“I’m leaving,” he blurted.

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t leave now. Stay with me.”

“I meant—I am leaving this house. Leaving London.”

She felt Wigsby choking her all over again. “Because—because of me?”

“No. No. I…my cousin…there’s an estate…I have to go.” He drew in a steadying breath, and his eyes shifted away, as if he couldn’t look at her.