“Why, Lady Blackwell,” he said, bending over her, “one might think you were impatient.”
She pursed her lips, not daring to look at him. “I am impatient. A three-month engagement, and you never once took me to bed.”
“My dear,” he husked in her ear. “Had I taken you to bed it surely would not have been only once.”
She couldn’t help but look up at that, and he took her mouth at once.
This they had done many times in the last months, and yet each time was new and exciting. Her fingers stilled as she opened her lips, sucking in his tongue, feeling thrills thrumming down her body.
He muttered something, and then the room whirled as he picked her up and strode to the bed.
He placed her on it and began to climb in as well, but she placed her hand on his chest, halting him. “I’ve waited too long to see all of you.”
He scowled, but stood obediently and began to throw off his clothes at an alarming pace. Mary thought she could hear seams ripping, and then he was in only his smalls.
She inhaled as he paused. Her husband had broad, muscled shoulders. Black hair curled between his nipples, and below his navel a line of fine hair led into the waistband of his smalls. A heavy weight tented the fine fabric there.
He was gorgeous.
He locked gazes with her and slowly unbuttoned his smallclothes.
She held her breath, dropping her eyes to watch as more and more was revealed. She saw the black thicket of curls and then his penis, big and hard and standing proudly erect.
Oh. Oh, it was bigger than she’d expected, which should alarm her, she knew, but all she felt was a curl of heat low in her belly.
Henry dropped his smalls and kicked them aside. Then he climbed into the bed with her. “All right?”
“Y-yes,” she replied, stuttering not from fear but from something else. His mere presence was making her tremble, it seemed.
His smile had a hard edge as he bent over her on all fours and kissed her gently on the mouth. “May I take off your chemise?”
She could only nod, closing her eyes in sudden and ill-timed shyness.
She raised her arms, sitting up a bit, and felt the delicate cloth brush her arms, her breasts, and her face as it was lifted from her.
There was silence.
Finally she opened her eyes and looked at him.
He was staring at her with a dark look in his eyes, his mouth unsmiling, the chemise still clenched in one fist. “Oh, Lady Blackwell, I am indeed a fortunate man.”
He tossed aside the chemise and knelt down over her, placing his mouth on her nipple.
He sucked and her back arched. She’d never thought that one little point should provide such pleasure.
She took his face between her palms, not knowing if she wanted to draw him closer or push him away, but he lifted his head.
“Your breasts are perfect,” he whispered. “Lush and sweet and beautiful beyond the telling of it.”
Her eyes widened, but before she could respond he’d moved to her other nipple.
It was…
Well, she was certainly glad he seemed to be enjoying this, too.
Her legs moved restlessly as he suckled one nipple and flicked his thumbnail over the other one.
It made her…
Oh, it made her so hot. She yearned.
“Henry,” she groaned. “Please. Please.”
But instead of coming to her, he moved downward, scattering kisses across her belly.
“Open for me, darling,” he murmured when he came to her maiden hair.
She parted her thighs, anxiously anticipating what he would do next.
“You’re wet for me,” he said, touching her there with his finger.
She gasped. His touch was light, but it was so intimate. So blunt.
“Are you ready for me?” he breathed across her wet flesh.
“Yes,” she cried, pulling at his shoulders. “Yes, yes, now.”
He lunged up her, placing one hand beside her shoulder. The other was down there between them.
“Spread your legs,” he whispered. “Wider. Wider.”
She did, exposing herself completely. But that was all right.
This was Henry. She wanted to be as close to him as possible.
She felt him brush against her and then a firm nudge.
She looked up at him, staring into his blue, blue eyes as he widened her impossibly.
“I’m joining with you,” he said softly. “I’m entering you, my wife.”
She’d heard tales of pain. Of blood, even. But aside from a small pinch, she felt no pain.
But the pressure, the weight of him, bearing down on her.
In her.
That, that she hadn’t been prepared for.
It was wonderful, somehow, holding him cradled between her legs, letting him see and feel all of her.
He came to rest finally, thick and lodged within her, and Henry took a breath, sounding a little strained. “All right?”
“Yes,” she said, stroking his side, running her fingers to his bottom, so firm and nice.
He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them. “I love you.”
Her eyes widened.
And then he moved.
Drawing his hard penis out of her before thrusting back in.
It felt…
She watched him as he did it again. His face was solemn, his lips slightly twisted.
He looked as if he might be in pain.
Except he wasn’t.
He shut his eyes again. “God, Mary, your eyes.”
Then he bent and opened his mouth over hers, and she stopped thinking.
He kissed her as if he drew life from her lips.
As if he would die if he ever stopped.
She clutched at him. At his buttocks and his shoulder. Moving her hips up to meet his descent. Spreading her legs even wider.
Feeling the jolt when he rubbed her just there.
Sweat slicked his back, hot and real, and he moved faster now, his hips thumping into hers.
She felt the tension build, felt his penis thrust in and out of her, felt her body coil tight.
He hitched his hips and made a swiveling motion on her and stars exploded behind her eyelids, white and sudden, hot and bright, shattering her.
She gasped into his mouth as he kept kissing her, his tongue claiming her, his lips rough and hard.
Until he jerked his mouth from hers and gasped, his head arching back, his eyes squeezed shut. She could feel heat pulsing into her even as he cried out her name.
She watched him, wanting to remember this moment forever.
She. She had brought him this pleasure.
At last he slumped atop her and his weight seemed to press her into the bed.
Not that she cared. She rather liked holding him, all warm and lax, her husband.
He yawned suddenly and levered himself up and off her, rolling to the side of the bed and rising.
She watched as he walked, splendidly naked, to the chest of drawers, where a plain white pitcher and bowl stood. He poured some water in the bowl, wet a cloth and came back to the bed with it.
He sat on the edge of the bed and regarded her. “Good evening, Lady Blackwell.”
She raised her eyebrows. “And good evening to you as well, Lord Blackwell.”
A smile threatened to disrupt his solemn expression, but he controlled it. “I trust our congress met with your approval?”
She nodded regally. “Oh, indeed. So much so that I hope you’ll repeat it on the morrow.”
His lips quirked at that before he smiled. “Tomorrow and every day thereafter, my darling, if I have my way.”
“Henry,” she whispered, suddenly serious, her hand reaching to cup his cheek.
“Here,” he said, offering the damp cloth. “If you wish to clean yourself before we sleep.”
She took the cloth and he turned back to the washbasin to perform his own ablutions.
Mary supposed she should feel e
mbarrassed at this personal act performed in front of another, but Henry wasn’t just any other person.
He was her love.
And this small, homely intimacy was…nice. She’d never had a confidant so close to her heart. So close to her.
He returned and took her cloth to put away and then blew out the candles before climbing into the bed with her.
He pulled her close, her back to his front, and curled his legs so that her feet rested on top of his. The coverlet was pulled up over their shoulders, and then they were in their own warm world.
“Good night, Lady Blackwell,” she heard him murmur into her ear.
She smiled, catching his hand and pulling it close to her belly. She had her husband, and the coming day was the beginning of all their tomorrows.
Together in love.
About the Author
Elizabeth Hoyt is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty lush historical romances, including the Maiden Lane series. Publishers Weekly has called her writing “mesmerizing.” She also pens deliciously fun contemporary romances under the name Julia Harper. Elizabeth lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with three untrained dogs, a garden in constant need of weeding, and the long-suffering Mr. Hoyt.
The winters in Minnesota have been known to be long and cold, and Elizabeth is always thrilled to receive reader mail. You can write to her at PO Box 19495, Minneapolis, MN 55419, or e-mail her at
[email protected] You can learn more at:
ElizabethHoyt.com
Twitter @elizabethhoyt
Facebook.com/ElizabethHoytBooks
THE SIZZLING MAIDEN LANE SERIES CONTINUES...
An excerpt from
Duke of Desire
follows.
April 1742
Considering how extremely dull her life had been up until this point, Iris Daniels, Lady Jordan had discovered a quite colorful way to die.
Torches flamed around her on tall stakes driven into the ground. Their flickering light in the moonless night made shadows jump and waver over the masked men grouped in a circle around her.
The naked masked men.
Their masks weren’t staid black half masks, either. No. They wore bizarre animal or bird shapes. She saw a crow, a badger, a mouse, and a bear with a hairy belly and a crooked red penis.
She knelt next to a great stone slab, a primitive fallen monolith brought here centuries ago by people long forgotten. Her trembling hands were bound in front of her, her hair was coming down about her face, her dress was in a shocking state, and she suspected that she might smell—a result of having been kidnapped over three days before.
In front of her stood three men, the masters of this horrific farce.
The first wore a fox’s mask. He was slim, pale, and, judging by his body hair, a redhead.
The second wore a mask in the likeness of a young man with grapes in his hair—the god Dionysus if she wasn’t mistaken, which, oddly, was far more terrifying than any of the animal masks. He bore a dolphin tattoo on his upper right arm.
The last wore a wolf’s mask and was taller by a head than the other two. His body hair was black, he stood with a calm air of power, and he, too, bore a dolphin tattoo. Directly on the jut of his left hipbone. Which rather drew the eye to the man’s penis.
The man in the wolf’s mask had nothing to be ashamed of.
Iris shuddered in disgust and glanced away, accidentally meeting the Wolf’s mocking gaze.
She lifted her chin in defiance. She knew who this group of men was. This was the Lords of Chaos, an odious secret society composed of aristocrats who enjoyed two things: power and the rape and destruction of women and children.
These…creatures might kill her—and worse—but they would not take her dignity.
Although right now she rather yearned for her dull life.
“My Lords!” Dionysus called, raising his arms above his head in a theatrical gesture that showed very little taste. But then he was addressing an audience of nude, masked men. “My Lords, I welcome you to our spring revels. Tonight we make a special sacrifice—the new Duchess of Kyle!”
The crowd roared like the slavering beasts they were, but Iris blinked. The Duchess of…
She glanced quickly around.
As far as she could see in the macabre flickering torchlight, she was the only sacrifice in evidence and she was most certainly not the Duchess of Kyle.
The commotion began to die down.
Iris cleared her throat. “No, I’m not.”
“Silence,” the fox hissed.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Over the last three days she’d been kidnapped on her way home from the wedding of the true Duchess of Kyle, had been bound and hooded, and then shoved into a tiny stone hut without any sort of fire. She’d been forced to relieve herself in a bucket, and had been starved and given very little water. All of which had given her far too much time to contemplate her own death and what torture might precede it.
She might be terrified and alone but she wasn’t about to go down without a fight. As far as she could see she had nothing to lose and possibly her life to gain.
So she raised her voice and said clearly and loudly, “You have made a mistake. I am not the Duchess of Kyle.”
The wolf glanced at Dionysus, and for the first time he spoke, his voice smoky, “Your men kidnapped the wrong woman.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Dionysus snapped at him. “We captured her three days after her wedding to Kyle.”
“Yes, returning home to London from the wedding,” Iris said. “The Duke of Kyle married a young woman named Alf, not me. Why would I leave him if I’d just married him?”
The wolf chuckled darkly.
“She lies!” cried the fox and leaped toward her, his arm raised.
The wolf lunged, seizing the fox’s arm, twisting it up behind his back, and forcing the other man to the ground on his knees.
Iris swallowed, staring. She’d never seen a man move so swiftly.
Nor so brutally.
The wolf bent over his prey, the snout of his mask pressed against the man’s vulnerable bent neck. “Don’t. Touch. What. Is. Mine.”
“Let him go,” Dionysus barked.
The wolf didn’t move.
“Obey me,” the Dionysus said.
The wolf finally turned his mask from the fox’s neck. “You have the wrong woman, a corrupt sacrifice, one not worthy of the revel. I have the right to claim her. She is forfeit to me.”
Dionysus tilted his head as if considering. “Only by my leave.”
The wolf abruptly threw wide his arms, releasing the fox and standing up again. “Then by your leave,” he said, his words holding an edge of mockery. The firelight gleamed off his muscled chest and strong arms.
What would make a man with such natural power and grace join this gruesome society?
The other members of the Lords of Chaos didn’t seem as sanguine at the thought of having their principal entertainment for the evening snatched out from under their noses. The men around her were muttering and shifting, a restless miasma of danger hovering in the night air.
Any spark could set them off, Iris suddenly realized.
“Well?” the wolf asked the Dionysus.
“You can’t let her go,” the fox said, getting to his feet. “Why the bloody hell are you listening to him? She’s ours. Let us take our fill of her and—”
The wolf struck him on the side of the head, a terrible blow that made the fox fly backward.
“Mine,” growled the wolf. He looked at the Dionysus. “Do you lead the Lords or not?”
“I think it more than evident that I lead the Lords,” the Dionysus drawled, even as the muttering of the crowd grew louder. “And I think I need not prove my mettle by giving you this woman.”
The wolf was standing between Iris and the Dionysus and she saw the muscles on his legs tense. She wondered if the Dionysus could see that the other man was readying for battle as well.
??
?However,” the Dionysus continued, “I can grant her to you as an act of… charity. Enjoy her in whatever way you see fit, but remember to make sure she can never tell others about us.”
“My word,” the wolf bit out.
He grabbed Iris’s bound wrists and hauled her to her feet, dragging her stumbling behind him, as he strode through the mass of angry masked men. The crowd jostled her, shoving against her from all sides with bare arms and elbows until the wolf finally pulled her free.
She had been brought to this place hooded and for the first time she saw that it must be some sort of ruined abbey. Stones and broken arches loomed in the dark and she tripped more than once over weed-covered rubble. The spring night was chilly away from the fires, but the man in the wolf mask seemed unaffected by the elements. He continued his pace until they reached a dirt road and several waiting carriages. He walked up to one and without preamble opened the door and shoved her inside.
The door closed and Iris was left panting in the dark empty carriage.
Immediately she tried the carriage door, but he’d locked or jammed it somehow. It wouldn’t open.
She could hear men’s voices in the distance. Shouts and cries. Good Lord. She imagined a pack of wild dogs would sound the same.
She needed a weapon. Something—anything—with which to defend herself.
Hurriedly she felt the door—a handle, but she couldn’t wrench it off—a small window, no curtains—the walls of the carriage—nothing. The seats were plush velvet. Expensive. Sometimes in better-made carriages the seats…
She yanked at one.
It lifted up.
Inside was a small space.
She reached in and felt a fur blanket. Nothing else.
Damn.
She could hear the wolf’s voice just outside the carriage.
Desperately she flung herself at the opposite seat and tugged it up. Thrust her hand in.
A pistol.
The door to the carriage opened. The wolf loomed in the doorway, a lantern in one hand. She saw his eyes flick to the pistol she held between her bound hands. He turned his head and said something in a strange incomprehensible language to someone outside.
Then he got in the carriage and closed the door. He hung the lantern on a hook and sat on the seat across from her. “Put that down.”