Page 102 of A Symphony for the Earl

“Richard, how long will it take to get home to Park Lane?”

“Not long, my love. Perhaps three-quarters of an hour.”

“Oh, good. That should be enough time. Will you shut the curtains, please?”

He did so, regarding his wife curiously. “What is it, my dear?”

She carefully removed her hat. “A wedding present. God forbid I fall behind your former amours in catering to my husband’s needs.”

Richard’s heart began to thump.

“Fiona—”

“Shh…” Lifting her skirts, she kneeled on the carriage floor between his legs. More than his heart began to pound.

“Really, darling, I don’t require—”

“Then you shouldn’t have kept that very naughty book I found in your library. I couldn’t understand the language, but the pictures were quite clear.” His hand went to the buttons on his coat. But she stopped him, pressing a kiss to each palm, and put them down by his side. “Richard, a ghrá, stay like this—so elegant and impeccably dressed. I want to see you fall apart.”

The words were enough to bring his cock to stiff attention.

Her hands dropped to the waist of his buff breeches and he stopped breathing altogether.

She slowly unbuttoned the fall. “Mmm…already so hard, mo fhear dathúil.”

“Although I am thrilled at your attention, Acushla, perhaps we should wait…ahhh—”

Her hand closed around him through the thin silk of his small clothes and he jerked convulsively. Not one to question manna from heaven, his head fell back against the cushions.

“Is this right, mo stór?”

“Yes,” he said hoarsely.

She pulled aside his smalls as if unwrapping a delightful package and stared at his engorged shaft as she decided what to do next. Her indecision had him on tenterhooks. She bent and delicately licked the head of his cock twice and he almost came right then.

Panting heavily, he watched her raspberry tongue slide down, then back up, unerringly finding the thick vein along the underside of his erection. He could not say which tore the first groan from his throat—both the vision and the act were equally erotic. But it was the first of many.

“There’s more, isn’t there? Tell me, Acushla,” she coaxed.

“No—Fiona—it’s time to stop.” I will not spill my seed on my wedding clothes and the cushions of this carriage. But his knotted request wasn’t very convincing, even to his ears.

Smiling like she knew he was on the edge of exploding, her fingers encircled him, sliding tightly to the base of his cock. Richard’s hips arched off the carriage seat. He was doomed.

“Take me in your mouth, love.”

Understanding dawned on her face. “Like you did to my breasts.”

And then, even though he braced himself for the sensation of her lips around his rigid flesh, the sensation of her warm, wet mouth nearly undid him.

“Christ—” The matter was settled then and there. First, the bedroom. And then the piano.

*

Much later, Richard sprawled in one of the overstuffed armchairs of his library, looking utterly exhausted and completely content. The candles in the sconces guttered, casting intimate shadows on the walls, and a small fire burned in the grate.

Even as she played the exquisite notes of Bach’s Prelude in C Major on the newest Broadwood, Fiona couldn’t take her eyes off her husband. He wore a thin cambric shirt, unbuttoned to display his rippling upper body. The dusting of light brown hair across his sculpted chest narrowed to the waistband of hastily donned breeches, the fall of which was only partially buttoned. She had slipped on a light chemise, which bared her legs as she sat on the piano bench, fitted with a cushion by her thoughtful husband.

When the prelude ended, she hesitated and started the notes of a dreamy reverie, slipping in and out of E major to a lyrical G major progression. The emotion within the piece ranged from longing to a passionate climax and ended in a lovely adagio. As her fingers settled on the last note, it reverberated sweetly in the quiet room.