Page 8 of Masked Innocence

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Herimaginationhadn’tcome close to reality, and a chest that put Greek gods to shame stole the breath from her lungs.  Hard planes and shadowed grooves defined every muscle, the candlelight driving her eyes to every exposed piece of flesh.

She burned to trace the sprinkling of hair on his lower belly into his breeches, and then farther.

A significant bulge at the base of the trail caught her eye, and she couldn’t shift them away.  The little knowledge she possessed told her that what lay beneath the soft fabric would relieve her of her virginity.  Unfortunately, that knowledge didn’t extend far enough to tell her exactly howit was supposed to manage the job.

The space his fingers barely breached was far too small to accommodate what he hid beneath the buckskin.  She’d scarcely accommodated his finger.

Thatwas ever so much larger.

Moments ago, it was pressed against her, teased her with possibilities of unholy pleasure and roguish debauchery.  She thought she’d seen enough downstairs to have an idea of what lay in wait for her, but the reality was far more frightening up close, and exceedingly personal.  Fear and exhilaration fought for control as she edged ever closer to discovery.

Shifting on her knees, Kitty crept closer, eyes locked on the bulge she was so hungry to uncover.  There’d been a multitude of reasons she attended that masquerade, and one of them was standing right in front of her.

Tall, broad, dangerous to her sensibilities, and gave her body a safe haven to explore her sinful cravings.  That was what she came for, and uncertainty slipped away, leaving only brazen desire and a need to discover every last part of him.

He caught her chin with the crook of his finger, green eyes searching for something he’d have a very difficult time finding. “Are you certain?”

“With every corrupted bit of my body.”

Without a second more of hesitation, he shoved his breeches to the floor, allowing the monster beneath the bulge to spring from its confines.  The appendage was thicker than even her vivid imagination prepared her for.

It commanded attention, the round tip jutting toward her from between powerful thighs.  She bit down on her lower lip, eager to taste him, enjoy him, as he’d enjoyed her. Relished tasting and nibbling at her most private and forbidden parts. An act so wickedly sinful, and so incredibly satisfying for them both.

Desire to experience the same satisfaction drove her to reach out. Only, she hesitated just before touching the ferocious beast, and took a slow, brave look up to shadowed eyes.

He gave a tight nod as his hands fisted at his sides, and she brushed her fingers lightly over the velvet skin sheathing thick steel.

Clear fluid oozed from the tip, and her tongue swiped across her lips involuntarily, as her hand drew back. The drop glistened in the candlelight and lured her attention like a moth to a flame.

Collecting the pearly drop on the pad of his thumb, he offered it up to her. Attention bouncing from luscious drop to scorching eyes, she parted her lips in acquiescence. With her breath calm and her body pulsing, Kitty slipped her lips around him.  Savoring, memorizing, the moment and the taste of him on her tongue.

She closed her eyes as the marquess gently pulled his thumb from her mouth, scraping it against her teeth, and she whimpered as the drop melted away to nothing but a memory.  A memory that would torment with promises of what could be.

An agonized groan rumbled in his chest as he slipped his moist thumb down her chin, before it was gone. “Bloody hell.”

A look down revealed another drop where the first had been.  A bit larger.  Demanding it not be wasted.  With a swipe of her thumb, she scooped it up and slipped it into her mouth as a shiver ran up the marquess’ imposing body. That shiver had her mouth dripping, and the nub between her thighs throbbing.

Painfully.

“When you asked about pleasuring a man with my mouth, had you meant taking you into my mouth as you did me?” The words fumbled as she glanced to his loins and back up, but the lust seeping from his eyes stayed her thrashing heart as surely as she’d been bound.  Though her heart was hammering, and curiosity surged her forward, inexperience held her by the reins.

“That would be exactly what I meant.” He brushed his knuckles over her mask and down her cheek, triggering a tingling sensation over her skin that could only be remedied by the marquess himself.

The prospect of slipping her lips around his tip, filling her mouth completely, had her shifting to edge off the aching need building between her thighs. “Shall I?”

“No, little flower.”  He shook his head and leaned a knee on the edge of the bed, dipping it beneath his weight as he hunted her down. Adrenaline surged her heart, and tightened her stomach, as she edged backward.  “Right now, I want to show you how it’s meant to be.”

She reclined into the plush down as his eyes and hands roved her body, the unexpected soft calluses abraded her skin and burned in a new memory to keep her company at night.  There was a new wildness in his eyes, and rather than Eve in the garden, Kitty was a fox caught in the hunt.

Whatever was about to happen outweighed everything that’d come before, and her heart vaulted into her throat as she slid back.  It was a tipping point.  A precipice she’d been entirely too eager to leap from.

Once the full weight of gravity settled around her, she wasn’t as confident in her willingness to jump.  She needed space, a moment to clear her head.  A second to consider how far she was truly willing to go.

Which was already further than she’d ever intended.

Then, he straightened to his full height and fisted the base of his rigid length, leaving her laid out on the bed beneath him. Every breath he took shifted his entire body.  An eternity he stood there, drinking his fill as he stroked himself.  Every methodical movement melted away her fear and dampened the silk under her bottom.

The sight of his fist sliding over hardened satin, his shuddered breaths, the lust in eyes as he raked them over her, left her dizzy and heady with a power she never imagined possessing.

She was Eve once again, wanting and eager to fall from grace.

And without any regard for her station, fortune, or any other superficial reason other men showed interest in her.  Even her face was still covered, leaving him nothing but her body, her reactions, to spur him on.  The powerful, magnificent man above her was beside himself with lust.

For her.

Lord Claireborne shifted his knee, and the bed dipped lower as he came between her legs, crawling over her body and pressing her further into the mattress. Rugged determination oozed from every pore as she scraped her nails through his hair and dragged a growl from deep within his chest.

The primal sound fed her confidence and compelled her calves around his thighs, the heat of his body nothing to the raging inferno edging her toward combustion. The fires of hell enveloped her as he kissed her shoulder, her neck, all while his feral, needy sounds bored into her soul.

There was nothing but the Marquess of Claireborne, nothing but his bare thighs pressed against hers, eliminating everything but his touch and the heaviness of his presence.

She ran her hands over the taut muscles of his arms, the lines of his torso, every sliver of him she could reach.  For one night, Lady Katherine Mandeville could be no one.  Indulge all she wanted, taste all she wanted, and she intended to make good use of her very precious time.

Like before, his hand slipped between their bodies and he eased a finger inside.  “This will hurt, flower, but the pain will ebb.”

The question of what would hurt sat on her tongue, but he circled his finger, and an uncomfortable burn tempered the exquisite torment and stole every word.  He shifted his thumb to press over that sweet spot he so expertly commanded, and she was lost to everything but him once more. The conflicting sensations coaxed from within the confines of her chaste and sheltered upbringing.

Blood thundered, and she dug her fingers deep into his shoulders as he inserted a second finger.  Pain and pleasure thrashed together until the assault on her senses drifted her toward a place more and more familiar.

The burning dulled when he withdrew his hand, leaving her with an empty ache needing to be filled. Before she could manage a protest about where his fingers belonged, or who they belonged to while in that room, he gripped her chin and tilted, until she met his eyes.  “I need you to be a good girl and stay relaxed for me. Even when it hurts.”

A sharp nod was all she could manage, those words touching her as intimately as his fingers, sending the same warmth flooding through her.  She bit her lip and took a cleansing breath, every muscle from her forehead to her toes going lax at his command.

“That’s my good girl.”  He kissed her softly, biting her bottom lip and tugging gently as he notched at her entrance.  The heat of his mouth against hers, the abrasion of his teeth raking delicate flesh, left a mark on her soul as surely as if he’d drawn blood.

A kiss she’d never forget, and so innocuous amid everything else she’d experienced in one vivid night.

There was a slight pressure in her canal as he released her from the kiss and inexorably pushed forward.  The stretching was far more than it took to accommodate his fingers, but he eased in slowly and steadily.  She clutched him tighter, nails digging into his rippled back, as she pressed her face against his chest.

“Deep breath, flower.” The foreign invader seared through her most sensitive parts, until he thrust his way to the hilt, stilling and allowing her to acclimate, scattering soft kisses over her face. “Never have I discovered a bloom so radiant and delicate.”

The reverent words gave her life, relieved some of the pain as she was assured her discomfort and inexperience didn’t make her any less desirable.  It took only moments for her muscles to adjust around him, the stretch giving way to delicious fullness, a feeling of rightness she couldn’t comprehend.

She couldn’t go the rest of her life never again feeling the way she did in that moment, with the marquess buried inside her, when everything that made her pure was stripped away.  How something so good could be so wicked was beyond her comprehension.

Especially with the marquess seated so inextricably inside her.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?”  He pressed his lips into her neck, setting a hurricane loose in her belly as she arched back to offer him more.  An invitation she needed him to accept, and one he answered with deliberate slowness as fire chased his lips across her breasts.

If they were discovered, her reputation in tatters around her, she wouldn’t regret a single moment.  A thousand days of persecution and exile were a fair trade for the gift Lord Claireborne had given her.  “How once will never be enough.”

Before another word could slip his lips, he pulled back, the sharp burn dragging a gasp as her nails plunged into his flesh.  Once more he paused, giving time to adjust, for her mind to catch up.

The burning dwindled to embers, leaving the fullness she’d come to crave.

Her grip eased, and she drew her fingertips over his shoulders and up his neck, driving them through his hair.  There wasn’t enough of him to touch, to smell, to memorize. The silkiness of his hair amplified every sensation he’d bored into her soul, and she used her newfound power to make him feel as good as he did her. “I know there’s more, I want it.”

A soft groan passed his lips as he dipped his head and scattered light kisses across her shoulder as he plunged forward once more, drawing a harsh exhale as he stole her breath.

“Give it to me.”

A low growl rumbled from his throat, while his thumbs dug hard into her hips, harkening to that same part of her that’d purred like a kitten as he murmured good girl against her skin.  “Bloody hell, you’re going to end me.”

“And you, me.”

He eased out slowly, leaving another empty space in his wake. Just before withdrawing completely, he crept forward once again.  Twice he repeated the motion, and the last of her discomfort fell away, leaving a tightness and friction she craved.

On instinct, Kitty tilted her pelvis to meet his movements, the residual pain urging her on, heightening the fulfillment of every depraved fantasy drifting in her head.  “Faster.”

A chuckle vibrated her chest and filled the candlelit room, just before the marquess nibbled at her ear and sent a jolt through to her toes.  “Are you certain?”

“Exceedingly so.”

Without a second's hesitation, he set to gliding through her slick sheath, each stroke coming faster than the last.  With a push off the mattress, he went to his knees, the V of his hips rolling in a tempo that sent her heart racing.

She was so lost in the motion, she’d not realized he’d grabbed her hand and brought it down between them.  The implication of what he wanted her to do caught her off guard, and her eyes flew to his.

There was an intensity behind them pushing her forward, out of her comfort zone and into the depths of hell. His pelvis crashed against hers, and he fell over her, lips a hair's breadth from hers. “Pleasure yourself, as I did.”

“I can’t—”

“Do it.”  Her protest was cut off with two sharp words, and her hand flitted down until her fingertips landed over the tiny nub he’d brought back to life with little coaxing.  It was slick, and the lightest touch sent a jolt radiating throughout her body.  “Good girl, bring yourself off with me rooted inside you.”

Drawing circles like he’d done, she carried herself closer to that zenith, where the world crashed down around her.  Only this time, he was inside her, giving her even more to experience.  The tightness, the fullness, the ache, the burn.  It was overwhelming, and in the midst of it all she was committing the most perverted of sins.  “This is wrong.”

“No, little flower, it’s beautiful.”  Sliding his hand to her thigh, he hitched her leg up, bringing him closer, deeper.  The fiery fullness the single greatest gift she’d ever been given.

Each breath was met with a soft cry as her heart galloped wildly.  Every part of her slick with sweat, tingling, and yearning, and out of her mind.  Every vibration propelled her to the end she was eager to reach.

All at once the world around her imploded.

Clamping down tight around him, she cried her release, tugging his neck until he was buried in hers once again.  His roar echoed in her ear as he gave one last powerful thrust, joining their bodies so tightly together there was a part of him she’d never lose.

A spasming low in her belly felt unusually right, some hers, some his, all of it the perfect end to a perfect act.  Each of his breaths panted against her ear matched hers, everything deathly and unnaturally silent as she drifted once more from the heavens.

With a last drag of air, he went up on his elbows over her, brushing her hair away from her face.  “Do not ever be ashamed of your body or what it does, little flower.  It was meant for this, and there’s no reason you cannot pursue your own pleasure.”

She laughed weakly through her heavy breaths, his encouragement to touch herself a resolution to a problem she hadn’t considered. It would have been shocking to hear from anyone else, but coming from the marquess it was as natural as every other act they’d committed that night.  “Every single thing I’ve thought about you has been proven true tonight.”

He laughed as he trailed his lips up her neck and behind her ear.  “What sorts of things?”

“You, Lord Claireborne, are a man of debauchery and sin, wholly unfit for polite company.”  She laughed again, stronger, and clasped her hands behind his neck.  “It’s little wonder your mother’s soiree was the only event you attended last season.”

His kisses halted abruptly, and he rocked back, a single brow arched high as his eyes turned dark.  “And how would you know that?”

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