Lady Beauchamp's Proposal (34 page)

He gently parted both sides, and with fixed
concentration, regarded her trembling naked body. She could feel
his rapt visual ravishment of her, clean through to her very bones.
It made her heart race and her blood pulse heavily, and she pressed
her thighs together trying to the ease the needy pressure. But it
was to no avail. She needed his hands on her. As if in concert with
her thoughts, he placed one large hand at the base of her throat,
then with a light, teasing touch, ran it down the length of her
body, across her breasts, over her belly, all the way to the tight
thatch of curls between her thighs, raising goose bumps. She
shivered and closed her eyes, waiting for him to touch her there,
right where she craved it most.

But he didn’t.
Damn him
. He was going
to make her wait. She made a mew of frustration and heard him
chuckle right before she heard the thud of his boots on the
floor.

“Patience, my love.”

Opening her eyes again, she watched James
steadily, hungrily as he undressed in front of her, his smoldering
black gaze never leaving her face as he tugged at his cravat and
stripped off his coat, waistcoat and shirt. She bit her lip to stop
herself from gaping as her eyes traced over all of the broad
planes, sharp angles and defined ridges of his lean, muscular body.
His breeches quickly joined the heap of discarded clothing on the
floor, and she swallowed, mesmerized at the sight of his rigid,
proudly jutting cock, long and thick, and ready for her.

Her fingers itched to touch him, and she
pulled her arms from the remnants of her nightrail. “Come to bed,
James, before I freeze to death,” she whispered.
Or die of
frustration
.

Before she could blink, James slid his large
body over hers. He was like a furnace, radiating the heat of a
thousand summer suns. “Christ, Beth, you’re like ice.” He enveloped
her shivering body and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders,
and tangled her legs with his, relishing the sensation of his hot,
hard length against her. Especially the impudent jut of his cock
against her belly. She started to squirm beneath him and she felt
him shake with laughter.

“Jesus, it’s like being in bed with a cold,
wriggly jellyfish.”

She humphed into his ear, resisting the
sudden and unfamiliar, yet highly appealing urge to slap him on the
taut cheek of one his buttocks, only because she knew it would hurt
her more than him. “Well you have no one to blame but yourself.
You’re the one who decided to get rid of my warm and completely
sensible nightrail.”

James drew back and rested on his elbows to
study her, wicked amusement glinting in his eyes. “Beth, you’re
just lucky I love and want you so much that I could see past that
hideous thing, to the treasures lying beneath.” He pushed his hips
against her, teasing her with the thrust of his cock. “Besides, all
you need to keep warm, is me.”

She smiled. “I won’t disagree with you
there.” She reached up and stroked his jaw with her bandaged
fingers, and he pressed into her palm, like a large satisfied lion.
She fancied she could almost hear him purr. “I wish I could touch
you, the way I want to,” she whispered.

James kissed her palm. “In time. Your hands
will heal, my love.” Dark mischief sparked in his eyes, and he
grasped her by both wrists, bringing them up above her head and
holding them in place with one hand. His grip was uncompromising.
“I could keep them out of the way though. Tie you up. So I don’t
inadvertently hurt you.” He kissed her, his tongue dancing
suggestively against hers for a moment before he withdrew. “What do
you say?” He nuzzled the sensitive flesh behind her ear before
kissing her mouth again, this time with deep, bone melting languor.
“I’d be nothing but gentle.”

Beth made herself frown. “And I’d be
completely at your mercy.” The idea was shocking yet she couldn’t
deny it was also highly arousing.

“Entirely. Would that be so bad?”

“Very bad. Wicked.”

He gave her a devastatingly rakish grin. “My
thoughts exactly.”

He bent his head and bestowed another deeply
ravishing kiss that soon had her moaning against his mouth, and
arching against him in an agony of unsatisfied need. “James…”

“Mhmm.” He dropped a trail of nipping kisses
along her jawline.

“I want…”

A longer kiss at the juncture of her collar
bones. ‘I know what you want, my love…’ he murmured against her
trembling skin. “Trust me…you’ll enjoy what I have planned.”

If I don’t die first—
She cried out
as James suddenly took one of her aching, tightly furled nipples
into his mouth and suckled hard. A bolt of heat lanced through her
all the way to her wet sex, and she bucked against his firm hold on
her wrists. But he didn’t let go. Instead he mercilessly teased her
breasts with teeth and lips and tongue and fingers, until she was
incoherent and helpless with desire.

“Please, James…” This torture was too
cruel.

He chuckled against the underside of one
breast, his breath teasing her oh-so sensitive flesh before he
raised his head and flashed her a devilish grin. “I’ll make a deal
with you, my love. If you promise to keep your hands above your
head, I’ll touch you here.” At that precise moment, two of his
fingers slid unerringly between her wet folds into her inner sheath
and her whole body bowed upwards as another shaft of sizzling
pleasure seared through her.

“I promise,” she gasped.

“Good girl.”

He released his hold on her wrists, and
whilst continuing to torment her breasts, he began to slide his
long fingers in and out of her, stroking the front wall of her
passage whilst the pad of his thumb circled around and around her
center of pleasure. Such agony, such bliss. She couldn’t hold her
arms straight above her head any longer, and she folded them around
her head, biting her lip to stop herself crying out as James
continued his pleasurable assault on her, the pressure in her sex
spiraling higher and tighter, as tight as the tautened wire on a
bow about to release its arrow, so close to climax it hurt. She
teetered on the quivering edge. Surely she would come soon…She had
to.
Oh, please.

James tugged one last time on her nipple
with his teeth at the same time he pressed into her throbbing core
and on a sobbing cry, she came apart beneath him.

Her womb seemed to convulse endlessly as she
was tossed about on a tumultuous sea of powerful release; the only
thing holding her steady and anchored to reality was James’s warm
embrace, his soft kiss at her temple, her fevered brow, the corner
of her mouth.

“I told you that you’d enjoy it, didn’t I?”
he whispered against her lips before kissing her softly on the
mouth.

Still largely insensible, Beth stretched
languorously beneath James before encircling her arms about his
neck. She opened sleepy eyes and looked up at him. Even though he
was right, she narrowed her eyes and frowned. He looked entirely
too smug for her liking.

“You think you’re clever don’t you?” she
teased, arching her back a little so her belly pressed into his
still ramrod straight cock. She wanted to drive him as wild as he
had driven her. Return pleasure to him ten-fold.

He groaned softly, but then flashed her a
small, lopsided grin. “A little. But it was all for you.”

She didn’t doubt that for a moment. She
softened her expression as she traced the line of his sculptured
upper lip with one finger, then caught his gaze. “I know. And as
usual you have taken care of me first.”

How could she begrudge him feeling pleased
about the fact that he had satisfied her so well? More than well in
fact. Her climax had been sublime. She purposely hooked her legs
around his hips and pushed herself against him again, her wet
aching cleft opening against his rigid length.

He closed his eyes and hissed in a sharp
breath. “Careful, my angel. I might just lose myself all over your
belly like a randy youth.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” she
whispered and then kissed the column of his throat where his pulse
throbbed just beneath the skin. She inhaled, the spicy scent of him
and his hot arousal making her head spin like she had just consumed
a glass of whisky all at once.

“Take me, James,” she breathed. “I’m
yours.”

* * * *

Beth’s naked, blatant demand set Rothsburgh
trembling with need. Confounded woman. He
would
come all
over her if she kept this up.

He growled deeply in his throat as Beth’s
lips made hot contact with his neck again, and he ruthlessly
positioned himself between her thighs, the head of his cock
brushing her slick sex. God, how he loved how wet she was. For him.
He couldn’t wait to be inside her, to at last make the connection
between them complete. To make them one in the most basic, primal
of ways.

He slid in, to the hilt in one long smooth
movement, relishing her gasp against his neck, and the hot
welcoming clench of her inner passage around him. He gritted his
teeth and prayed for the strength to make this experience last, to
make it memorable for both of them. He loved this woman with every
shuddering breath that he took, with every beat of his pounding
heart, and now that he knew Beth loved him too, the sensation of
joining with her was profound. He felt like he was communing with
her very soul.

He rested on his forearms, holding still
within her for a long moment and looked down at her beautiful
face—the tousled halo of ash blonde hair, her flushed cheeks and
her slightly parted lips, swollen and slick from his earlier
kisses. Her eyes were closed, but as he continued to remain still,
watching her, her eyelids fluttered open and she looked at him.

“What is it?” she whispered, the soft grey
of her eyes darkening a little as she reached up to brush a lock of
his hair away from his brow.

He locked eyes with her, wanting her to
understand how much she meant to him. “I love you, Beth. With
everything that I am. Now and always. Don’t ever doubt that.”

He wanted to say more, but all at once, he
couldn’t fight the overwhelmingly powerful urge to move within her.
He slowly began to withdraw, prolonging the delicious agonizing
friction.

Beth moaned and the greedy grasp of inner
passage grew tighter around his shaft as if she couldn’t bear him
to leave her body.

He hovered for one brief, breathless moment
at her entrance, and then plunged into her satiny heat again,
reveling in the hot gasp of her breath against his chest. Drew out
again with lingering slowness, then swiftly thrust into her again,
deeper, harder. Claiming her as his.

“You’re mine,” he groaned.

“Yes,” Beth hissed and angled her hips
upwards to take more of him. “Yours.”

His heart surged and he dipped his head,
plundering her mouth with lips and tongue, feasting on the dark
honeyed recess of her mouth as again he slid out before slamming
back into her.

My Beth. My love. My life’s blood.

She moaned into his mouth and seized his
buttocks with her hands. “Again. Harder.”

He couldn’t resist. He clenched his jaw
tightly, willing himself not to come too soon as he began to
increase the exquisite rhythmic pace of thrust and withdrawal. He
would give anything to do this all morning, all day, hell forever
if he could, to sustain this deep connection as he plunged in and
out of Beth, to gaze down on her flushed face, her eyes unfocused
and heavy-lidded with deep arousal; to hear her short panting
breaths and rhythmic moans as he steadily drove her higher and
higher toward climax. He could feel her sheath beginning to quiver
and clench. His balls were agony, his head dizzy with need as he
continued to pound into her.

Selfish brute that he was though, he wanted
her with him as they both reached their peak. “Look at me,” he
demanded on a ragged, hoarse breath.

Her eyes immediately focused on him, the
grey becoming as clear and bright as moonlight on water, despite
her frantic, agitated state. Her hands slid to his sweat-slick
shoulders and her fingers dug into him, seeking purchase against
the relentless rhythm he’d set as she strove to keep her gaze
fastened with his.

He thrust harder, faster, hurtling them both
toward the edge of the storm. “Tell me…” Another merciless thrust.
“You’re mine.”

“Yes, James,” she gasped her eyes flashing
like silver. She arched beneath him. “Yours”’

And then she came, clamping around him so
hard, he couldn’t hold back any longer. He cried out in fierce
elation, his voice merging with her own exultant cry as together
they soared through the passionate tempest of their own making,
before descending into the waiting arms of pure, unadulterated
release.

He collapsed on top of her, flesh to flesh,
heart to heart, soul to soul. Inhaled Beth’s heady essence deep
into his lungs as he felt the gentle quakes within her womb
subside. He’d found heaven with Beth. And he would never let her go
again.

And then she moved a little beneath him and
his mind jolted with shock at the realization that he was still
inside her. He’d forgotten himself and had pumped her womb full of
his seed
.

God, no.

When they’d started this affair, he’d
promised Beth that he would take care, that he wouldn’t get her
with child. But just now, he’d been so caught up in the moment, he
hadn’t been able to see past his own selfish need. And he’d failed
her.

But underneath the self-recrimination, he
also detected the emergence of a quiet wonder as he suddenly
imagined Beth growing ripe and luscious with a swollen, pregnant
belly. He could think of no greater gift than Beth bearing his
child.

But would she see it that way?

He couldn’t marry Beth. That meant he
wouldn’t be able to give their child his name. And he instinctively
knew that Beth wouldn’t want their baby to suffer the ignominy of
bastardy.