Page 54 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“You can’t kiss me when you’re staring.”

“By God, you’re exquisite.” He brushed his fingers along her brow, pushing aside the lock of dark hair. Soft as corn silk. “I couldn’t bear to hurt you, Inez.”

She tightened her arms around him, clasping the backs of his shoulders, urging him closer.

“What hurts is when you ignore me,” she whispered. “Or walk away. Don’t walk away this time, Joseph.” She pressed her lips to his neck, lighting a fire there. “Be with me. Hold me.”

Love me, he thought she said, the barest murmur against his skin. He could pretend he’d imagined the words as she rubbed her face in the crook of his shoulder, nipping his throat with her pillowy lips, pulling at his neckcloth with her teeth.

But he heard them, and he answered with a kiss. A kiss that broke the last of his restraint and surrendered all, reserving nothing. He would give her all of himself, and then she would know the sorry truth, but until then there was this.

“Oh, Joseph,” she whispered as he moved his mouth down her throat, over her collarbone, to her breasts. “Oh, please.”

She mewled and grappled with his coat as he browsed her breasts, her breath coming in ever shorter, shallower pants. Kissing her breasts pleasured her as much as it did him. She yanked at buttons and he helped her peel off his coat. With a yank she freed the neckcloth and tossed it aside.

“That will⁠—”

She bit his earlobe, and he ceased caring about creases in his coat or a crumpled neckcloth. With a growl he pulled at her bodice to free her breasts. He meant to be careful with the pins—he’d scattered them earlier—but she yanked there too, pins hitting the floor with a small patter, and he smiled against the fresh, warm skin exposed to his mouth.

She was greedy for him, and her passion inflamed him. When he pulled a dark crest into his mouth and sucked, she arched and cried out, rubbing the opening of her legs against the bulge in his breeches.

He was so hard for her, hard to bursting. The self-doubt and consciousness and sheer awkwardness of the situation that usually seized him in this moment had the grace not to penetrate his mind. He had Inez’s nipples in his mouth and her little cries of pleasure, the seeking way she rubbed her body against his, sent the blood pounding through him in great waves.

“Too much clothing,” she panted, grasping the buttons of his waistcoat, and he helped her peel that off him, too. Then it was the heat of their bodies pressed together, her warm beneath her shift, he only in his shirt. Her hands slid everywhere, over his sides and back, shoulders and arms, and a dreamy smile curved her lips as he suckled and she surged against him.

Then she went still, and her eyes flew open. “Take off your boots.”

He laughed. “They’re not as easy to remove.”

“You are not,” she said, “going to have me with your boots on,” and she rolled and pushed until he was sitting, letting go of her breasts with great regret. She climbed across his lap, backside toward him, seating herself directly on his cock, and Joseph fought the urge to nip at the back of her neck where her hair was falling over the back of her shift. Then he gave into the urge and grazed his teeth along her nape.

She gave a throaty chuckle and a shiver. Looking over her shoulder, he could see she’d left her shift pulled down and her breasts swinging free, and just watching them sway while she struggled with his jockey boots was going to make him spill in his breeches.

She sent him a laughing look. “At least this time⁠—”

He didn’t let her finish. With a growl he bore her onto the bed, face first, and she squealed and wriggled as his weight came down atop her. He yanked up her shift and started kissing her bare skin, down the sleek brown slope of her back, dipping his lips into the dimples above her bottom, then biting the round globes, not hard, but enough to make her squeal again. He kissed down her sleek, long legs, to her stockings, then flipped her over started kissing his way back up.

“Joseph.” She lay with her eyes screwed shut, breasts rising with her pants of breath, her small hands fluttering through his hair, over his shoulders, squeezing the muscle in his arms. His name was a chant, a song. “Joseph. Joseph.”

“I haven’t done this before,” he said when he reached the crown of dark curls. “So you must tell me what you like.”

Her eyes were dark pools, trusting, bewildered. “I’ve never—not like this,” she whispered. “So I don’t—I’m not—oh.”

He thrilled at her caught breath, then the long sigh when he licked his way into her woman’s entry. Her entire body shuddered, held taut and still. Jock had been right: this was the key to her pleasure.

Joseph delved and explored, reading her gasps and sighs, grinning despite himself when she dove her hands into his hair to steer him. “There,” she whispered once, and then, “oh, there,” and after a moment, a moan, and a little buck of her hips, she pressed herself against his mouth, matching his rhythm. “There.” Then her entire body shuddered, her legs convulsing around him, and the little bud he was nursing pulsed madly, and Joseph felt such a primal surge of satisfaction that he almost roared with it.

He had pleasured a woman, his woman, and he’d done it right, Jove be praised. When he reached for her she burrowed into his arms, still shuddering in her ecstasy. Then she lifted her lashes to look at him with dazed eyes, and he was the most brilliant man in the world. Her look was hazy, astonished, as she met his gaze.

And then she burst into tears.

“Darling. Darling.” He kissed her cheekbones, her nose, her chin, smoothing his hands through her hair, over her shaking shoulders. “What’s wrong? What did I do?”

She put her hands over her face but did not pull away, instead burrowing closer, hiding her face in his shirt. “I’ve never—I couldn’t—” She sniffled, then tried again. “I thought it would be…with you. But I’ve never—that.”

He smiled at her. He would admit to a trace of smugness. So her husband had never cared to pleasure her thoroughly, or consult men of great expertise, which Henry Jock clearly was.

He traced a finger at the corner of her lip. “I am glad I could share that with you.”