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“How delicious you looked, pink and abashed. That first morning…” Alfred prompted as he slid another pin out of a tress, and a long, luscious curl fell free.
Felicity peeked up at him. “That first morning in Lowell Hall, I wondered what it would be like, did you take down my hair, and, and remove my slippers. I imagined you standing behind me and pulling out my pins, and…well, that is as far as I got.”
“Let us improve upon this scenario, then.” In a trice, all the pins were gone, scattered on the floor, and he ran his fingers through her hair, teasing out the curls, playing with its length, draping it across her breasts, teasing them with it until her breath caught. He massaged her scalp until she let out a little moan.
“You can do better than that, Your Grace,” he teased, increasing the pressure, and pulled her close until she lay across his chest; his mouth skated along the side of her face, across her brow, everywhere but her lips until she growled and gripped his hair and took his mouth with hers. He heard her heart pounding throughout her body, scented her arousal. The grip she had on his hips with her thighs, oh, how he imagined she would ride him when the time came. Speaking of… He set her on the bench, slid down to his knees, and grinned up at her.
* * *
That smile. She had only become accustomed to the way he smiled with his eyes and the devastating crinkles created when he did so, but this was almost too much.
“Whatever do you intend, Duke?”
“I intend to make another of your dreams come true, Duchess.” He slipped a hand under the organza ruffle, and his eyebrows lifted. “What have we here?” He withdrew a spangled shoe that had an adorable little heel. “This is very like the sort of shoe a French lady wears.”
“I am not interested in learning the extent of your knowledge regarding women’s slippers.” She drew back her foot, annoyed and worried. How would she compare to a French lady?
“My own sister had a thousand pairs.” He grabbed her foot back and stroked strong fingers down the arch to the tips of her toes.
“A thousand.” How could this touch on her heel manifest in her most sensitive places?
“Give or take two hundred.” He removed the other shoe and lifted her feet into his lap. Oh, dear. He was experiencing this in his most sensitive place as well. He blinked up at her as she wiggled her toes, trying to investigate his interest. “Such tiny little toes.”
“They are silly, and odd.”
“I adore them.” He leaned down and kissed to the tops of her feet and then tickled them—to no avail.
Felicity shook her head. “I do not suffer from that affliction. Do you?”
A hesitation. “I do not.”
“Don’t you?” As she leaned forward and reached for his ribs, he ran his hands up her ankles, to her calves, to her knees, to her honeypot, knocking her back with desire.
His strong hands slid around her thighs, all the while disturbing her gown not in the least. “So soft,” he whispered.
“Mrs. Birks said—” she gasped, as his hands teased her thighs apart, and his fingers traced little nonsense designs very near her lady parts.
“I absolutely do not wish to speak of Mrs. Birks at this precise moment.” He reached down and raised her hem, exposing her calves, her knees, and the tops of her thighs to his kisses.
“She said the wolf, Alfie, is to take a bite, and I, she didn’t say where, you see, and I wondered…”
“It is not for her to know where the Alpha will bite you.” He nipped her left knee and kissed the place, then nipped her right knee and laved it with his tongue. “It is only between mates that the place be known and ever seen.”
“So it is on a…sensitive place?”
“Notthesensitive place.” He set a hand over her mound, and she moaned like a wanton. He kissed the thigh near that hand and moved his fingers, petting her, stroking her. “It could be very near to it, however.” He nipped her belly, then her hip, then licked her belly, rubbing his face against her thighs until fire streaked through her veins, and her entire body turned to gooseflesh. “Or it might fall on the back,” he said as he ran a hand up her spine. “Or…” His hand squeezed her bottom, and she gasped, “Alfred!” and he squeezed harder, with both hands, and lifted her honeypot to his mouth.
Reason fled as he touched her in a place she had never thought to be teased by a man’s tongue. Her entire body gave itself up to his touch as it explored her, with haste, then with idleness, with a touch as light as feather, then with strength, licking up one side and down the other, his fingers teasing her opening, skating close to the bud and then away. The deeper he lapped, the further she sank against the velvet, the sound of her breathing filling the coach.
He teased, teased around that little bud until she grabbed his hair and held him to it. He laughed, oh, against her, and she writhed against his mouth as he parted her legs as far as they could go. The familiar sensations began to build, but in such an unfamiliar fashion, with a ferocity and focus that Felicity had never known. She heard herself moan, and heard Alfred answer, and as the tension within her gathered, and his mouth feasted upon her, she gave herself up to it, her body writhing against her husband’s mouth, her mate’s tongue, reaching, until the pinnacle exploded within her, and she cried his name, over and over and over.
* * *
Later that evening, she marveled at wearing yet another beautiful gown. Her dress for the pack ceremony seemed little better than a night rail, a diaphanous series of layers that fell from the edges of her shoulders, wrapped around her newly appreciated waist, and fluttered to the ground like a cloud crossing the moon. The cape paired with it was equally translucent and would give no warmth at all. She had protested, but Mary Mossett proved to be rather intransigent for a mouse, and even though Jemima was not present, Mary would not contravene the lady’s vision.
The little maid had run off, but not without strict instructions for her mistress: at the next chime of the parlor’s eight-day clock, she was to go to the window of her bedroom and look out. Then, she was to wait for the very next bell before she left the Hall. Mary refused to depart until Felicity had repeated the directives—twice.
She sat, tiara back on her head, her hair loose around her shoulders and curling down her back. As little as she had known what to expect from the human ceremony, she knew even less what to expect regardingversipelliancustoms, apart from the running after the words had been spoken—and the bite. The thought of seeing everyone unclothed as they Changed from their creatures into their human skins was worse than the thought of being bitten. But she would prevail. She would honor the tradition and carry on. It would pass in a finger snap. She who had thought she’d lost everything had been given more than she’d ever imagined, and if this small thing had to be done to honor her husband’s ways, then do it she would.
