Page 56 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“A little steel in her backbone,” Joseph protested, leaning back on his elbows to hold her weight as she settled against his chest. “All those beliefs and such.”

“She mouthed what other people told her and didn’t know what she wanted for herself.” That shadow between her legs hovered directly above his groin now. His cock brushed the inside of her thigh, and he tightened.

“You need a woman with fire,” Inez said.

“Do I,” he murmured, and met her mouth hungrily when she kissed him. He loved how direct she was. How knowledgeable about what pleased her, and how determined to procure it. He was so hard he ached.

She kissed him leisurely, exploring with her hands, squeezing his arms and shoulders, running her hands down his chest. She skated her palms over his ridges and made little murmurs of appreciation that kept his blood high. Lord in heaven, he was going to be stiff for days. Her admiration went straight into his vessels and plumped him up.

It had never been like this. He wasn’t afraid he would fail or disappoint her. He wasn’t afraid he would mean nothing. Inez showed him at every turn that she wanted and craved him. She’d chased him down in a hired carriage, point of fact, after he told her to go home and forget him.

“Will you let me pleasure you?” She whispered against his neck, and her hand drifted to his breeches. “The way you pleasured me?”

“Do you mean—” His throat strangled shut at the very thought.

He knew of the act. It was something his mates at university had paid women to perform at every opportunity. Young Reuben had bragged how the dairymaid at Penwellen loved to blow his pipe. Joseph suspected Reuben had paid or coerced the girl for the pleasure.

Joseph had never begged for it, himself. Another way he was squeamish, he supposed. He could imagine the distaste a complete stranger would feel at becoming acquainted with this intimate part of himself, and it made it easy to keep his coin in his pocket.

“You can’t want to,” he tried saying, desperately hoping she did.

“I do.” She confirmed this by pushing him down on the bed, hand splayed to his chest, fingers a caress. She added a coy smile. “Tell me if I’m doing it wrong. Or to stop, if you don’t like it.”

He leaned on his elbows and watched with fascination as she pushed her hair over one shoulder. She unfastened his breeches with deft fingers, and his throat closed again, his mind snagging on a fear. “Have you…” How many others, he wanted to ask? And was it something she enjoyed or simply submitted to?

Her gaze rose to meet his. “None,” she said softly. “Never. But I want this. With you.”

And those were the magic words. When she released the flap of his leather breeches, his member sprang easily to her hand, as hard and armed as the Spartoi that sprang from the soil of Thebes when Cadmus sowed the dragon teeth.

She opened her mouth and licked up the length of him, and Joseph couldn’t watch any longer. His eyes rolled back into his head in ecstasy. She closed her lips around him as she had done with the pudding and he surrendered to the caress.

She was tentative at first, then grew bolder as the noises bursting from him conveyed his obvious appreciation. He was caught in a tide of lava. A hot geyser gathering to erupt. This was nothing like when he dealt with himself in the furtive quiet of his bedchamber or study. His balls in her hand grew hot and tight and the pressure built and built in an endless cascade and the sweet heat of her mouth was a delight he wanted never to end and yet knew the end was coming, all too quickly.

He squeezed her arm, the words a hoarse mutter. “Inez…I’m going to…”

He wanted to warn her. The peak had already caught him and he was rushing at its headlong, every fiber in his body pulsing toward one goal.

She planted her hands on either side of his hips and sucked harder, as if she meant to consume him, and her murmurs of encouragement flung him over the precipice as if he’d been tossed by a giant hand. He pulsed and she held him and for a moment he thought his heart might stop beating. His breath tore in ragged bursts from his chest.

He was changed. Alchemized. And she had transformed him.

Awareness returned, slowly. Inez stretched out beside him, all soft heat and woman, a satisfied smile on her glistening lips.

“You liked that,” she said, as smug as he’d felt when she shook apart beneath his mouth. So it was the same. It could be the same for both of them, a shared paradise.

“God. Yes. You.” He drifted hand over her hair, the silken skin of her shoulder. “You,” he said again. “Are so beautiful.”

“You are mine now.” She turned her face into his neck and a note of fierceness accompanied the words.

Yes. He thought he answered. He was drifting out of consciousness, the pleasure so complete it had blotted out his mind. This bed. The scent of spice and woman. Inez lush and warm beside him. The most fulfilling peace he had ever known.

Something was coming—something at the end of the road, something dark he didn’t completely comprehend and didn’t entirely want. Penwellen. But he had this now, and Inez would be with him. All would be well.

He was hers now.

And she was his.

He had to find a way to deserve her.