The Countess (11 page)

He was actually disappointed when his shoe slid off, until she resettled his now unshod foot against her chest again to set to work on his stockings. Richard stayed completely still, hardly breathing as he stared at the way the curves of her breasts cuddled his stockinged foot. He was hard-pressed not to wiggle his toes to feel the flesh surrounding them, but then his attention was drawn to his legs as she slid both his cotton under-stockings and the top silk ones down at the same time, her fingers gliding over his skin in an unintentional caress.

Richard sighed as she raised his foot to remove the stockings entirely, and then she let the foot drop back to the floor. In the next moment, she’d claimed his other foot, however, and rested it where the first had been. Christiana was equally quick about unbuckling and removing this shoe, and then he again suffered through the innocent caress of her breasts around his stockinged foot and the glide of her fingertips down his leg. It was over much too soon for his liking.

Sighing once she was done, Richard straightened, thinking surely Christiana would consider her duty done now, but apparently not. He was barely upright before she was reaching for the covered buttons on the front of his breeches.

“Christia—” Her name died on a choked gasp as her hands brushed against his groin through the cloth of his breeches as she worked and Richard simply stood there, feeling himself growing beneath this latest unintentional caress and incapable of doing a damned thing about it. Well, Richard supposed he could grab her hands and force her to stop, but frankly, he didn’t want to.

Damn. How could such an innocent touch have such an enervating effect on him? He certainly wouldn’t be growing were it a valet helping him undress. The thought died as she got his breeches undone and the proof of her effect on him sprang from his opening breeches to nearly slap her in the face.

“Oh my, Dicky, what a big—” Her words died on a startled gasp as Richard grabbed her by the upper arms and yanked her to her feet. The moment he could reach her mouth he covered it with his own.

Chapter Eight

C
hristiana gasped with surprise when her husband jerked her upright, and then gasped again when his mouth covered hers. This was definitely an unexpected turn of events. The very last thing she would have expected. Dicky hadn’t kissed her since the wedding ceremony, not even on their wedding night during the supposed consummation. And he certainly hadn’t kissed her like this. This was . . . her toes curled against the wooden floorboards and a small moan slid unbidden from her lips as his tongue slipped into her mouth and stirred up a wealth of sensation within her.

Who would have imagined a simple kiss could be so arousing? Why had no one told her this? And why the devil hadn’t he kissed her like this before? Christiana was sure the last year would have been much less miserable had she had this to look forward to every night.

That was as much thinking as Christiana’s poor passion-stunned mind could handle, and those thoughts drifted away to float in the far reaches of her mind as she was consumed by the different points of pleasure suddenly springing to life inside her. This was like their earlier dance times a hundred when it came to excitement level. Her lips were tingling where they met his, her breasts were tingling where they pressed against him, and there was a strange hunger that seemed to be yawning inside her, urging her to stretch and arch her back in his arms. She was so distracted by these things that she hardly noticed when his hands began to move over her. They were simply an extension of the kiss, shivering up and then down her arms. When he moved one hand to press against her bottom through the lace of her gown, urging her tighter against the hardness nestled between them, she went with it, pressing herself as close as she could get and moaning again at the wellspring of reaction it caused in her nether regions. The feeling was so intense that she nearly rubbed herself against the hardness prodding her, but then was distracted by his other hand traveling to and squeezing one of her breasts.

Christiana clutched at his bare shoulders as Richard kneaded the tender flesh, a long drawn-out groan sliding from deep in her throat that ended in a gasp as he suddenly wrenched the fragile bodice of her nightgown aside to touch her without its encumbrance.

“Oh, Dicky,” she cried when he suddenly broke their kiss, and was surprised at how breathless she was.

“Call me Richard,” he muttered, dragging his mouth along her neck as he gently pinched the nipple he’d revealed.

“Oh Richard!” she cried dutifully, fingernails digging into his shoulders. “Oh please.”

“Yes,” he muttered and suddenly his mouth was replacing his hand at her breast. His lips closed around the nipple, tongue swirling across it briefly before he began suckling, drawing on it and pulling little mewls of pleasure from her.

Christiana was vaguely aware of his hand moving on her bottom, squeezing it and using his hold to rub her against his hardness as she’d wanted to do, but she was so overwhelmed with all the sensations attacking her that they were all melting into one raging storm of desire and a million wants. She wanted him to kiss her again, but didn’t want him to stop the lovely things he was doing to her breast to do it, and she wanted him to do the same to her other breast at the same time, and she wanted free of her nightgown so that she could feel him against her more fully, and she wanted . . . she didn’t know what, but she wanted something to end this sweet torture and yet didn’t want it ever to end at the same time.

Desperate to ease one of the wants raging inside her, Christiana raised one leg, half wrapping it around his hip in an effort to get closer to the hardness rubbing so excitingly against her. She then groaned with pleasure at the increased pressure. He was rubbing against the very center of her now, the cloth of her nightgown the only barrier and it only added to the pleasant friction.

Richard groaned in response, the sound vibrating across the flesh of her breast. He then raised his mouth to claim her lips once more. Christiana closed her eyes and kissed him back the best she could, opening for him and then instinctively sucking on his tongue as it invaded her. She felt his hands shifting their position on her, but grunted in surprise when he suddenly grasped her by the waist and lifted her. She instinctively wrapped her other leg around him then, holding on by hooking her ankles together behind his back as the room suddenly spun around them, a whirl of color, light and shadow.

Christiana was vaguely aware that he was carrying her across the room, but this new position opened her to the caress of his hardness and had her hard-pressed to compose much in the way of thought. She was very disappointed when he paused after only two steps and set her carefully back on her feet.

“What—?” she began uncertainly, but paused when Richard bent to untangle the knee breeches that she hadn’t fully removed and had gathered about his ankles. Understanding struck her then, and her next thought was the strawberry. Leaning forward, she managed a quick peek before he shifted position and started to rise. Christiana straightened at once, but she was pretty sure she’d seen a red mark on his behind. She had married Richard Fairgrave, the Earl of Radnor, not his brother. He wasn’t an imposter, which was a good thing since she was quite positive the marriage was about to be properly consummated. Now she just had to worry that it would be a bearable marriage bed she’d somehow made for herself in trying to spot the birthmark. Or she could flee the house right now, head to Robert to arrange for a doctor’s exam and have the marriage annulled, Christiana reminded herself.

She was nibbling away at her lip, trying to decide what to do, when Richard finished with his task and straightened. A slow smile spread his lips when he saw what she was doing, and he suddenly cupped her face, his voice a husky growl as he said, “Every time I see you do that, it makes me want to nibble your lips too.”

“It does?” she asked faintly.

“Mmm hmm,” he murmured, proceeding to do just that.

Christiana’s eyes drifted closed as he nipped and licked at the swollen flesh of her mouth, and then his lips moved to her ear and he nipped playfully at her lobe as he added, “Your lips and everything else.”

“Everything?” she asked in a breathy voice.

“Everything,” he assured her, one hand sliding down to press her nightgown between her thighs.

Christiana moaned and trembled as he found the core of her through the cloth. When his mouth suddenly covered hers again, she opened willingly to him, her kiss almost desperate as the tempo of his tongue thrusts matched the caress between her legs, both building an unbearable heat and pressure within her.

“I’ll make this up to you,” he gasped, suddenly breaking their kiss and removing his hand to lift her by the waist again. “I’ll make everything up to you.”

“Yes,” Christiana breathed. Giving up any thought of annulling the marriage and giving up this heat and passion, she wrapped her legs around him again. Her eyes closed and she dug her nails into his shoulders as he walked forward again and his hardness took up where his fingers had left off.

“I’ll be a good husband. I’ll make you happy,” he assured her, his mouth trailing over her cheek to her ear.

“Oh, yes please,” Christiana sighed and it was almost a prayer that it would be so, that her marriage would no longer be the misery it had been, and then he was suddenly easing her onto her back and coming down on top of her. Richard’s hips settled in the cradle of her thighs and then he ground himself against her again, this time with all his weight behind it as he rotated his hips, pressed forward and rotated them again, rubbing himself from side to side atop her.

When he suddenly broke their kiss, Christiana opened her eyes, recognizing her room and that it was her bed they lay on, and then Richard distracted her by suddenly latching on to one breast again. Her gown had somehow slid back into place as they’d moved from one room to the other, but he didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps he didn’t care because he was licking and suckling through the lace and then blowing on the damp cloth and flesh, making her shiver as wave after wave of pleasure slid through her.

“Richard,” she moaned, her legs moving restlessly against his in a sort of frustration. While he was still lying on top of her, he was no longer grinding himself against the center of her and she wanted that building pressure again. But then Christiana felt a tickle along her knee and glanced down past his head to see that he had snaked one hand beneath the hem of her gown and was urging it up her legs, his fingers skating along her flesh as he went.

She shivered and wiggled beneath him as his fingers ran along the inside of her thigh, moving higher and higher in a teasing caress. When his hand stopped just short of the core of her, which seemed to her to be screaming for his touch, she dug her fingernails into his back and shifted with frustration, a low groan rumbling in her throat.

Richard nipped lightly at the nipple he was ministering to then, but finally allowed his hand to move again, the rough pads of his fingers gliding across her skin.

“Oh God!” Christiana cried out when he finally brushed lightly over the center of her.

“Not God, Richard,” he said in a teasing voice from her breast, surprising a laugh from her that ended in a gasp as he touched the core of her again, this time more firmly. Her hips bucked instinctively in invitation and reaction, and then Christiana became aware of his other hand tugging at the bodice of her gown.

Eager to help, she pulled the gown off her shoulders and then shimmied a little to get the bodice off and push it down out of the way around her waist. Even as she did it, her hips were moving to a different rhythm, dancing under the caress of his fingers, but she stiffened in surprised confusion as she felt something pressing into her even as he continued to caress her.

“Richard?” she said uncertainly, not sure what he was doing.

His response was a soothing murmur as he raised his head to claim her lips once more and then his tongue was thrusting into her mouth in time with the invasion taking place below. The combination didn’t so much soothe her worry as overwhelm it and she soon found herself responding to both caresses, kissing and sucking on his tongue as her heels dug into the bed and raised her hips into the other touch.

Under this onslaught it was only a matter of moments before Christiana was a trembling mass of need, her body demanding more as she strained toward something she couldn’t quite define or understand. And then in the next heartbeat she understood as her world rocked under an explosion of pleasure so intense her whole body vibrated with it.

Tearing her mouth from his, Christiana cried out and then turned her face into Richard’s shoulder and bit down, holding on to him with everything she had for fear he’d leave her to drown in this swell of sensation. However, Richard held her as she rode the waves, and only once the worst of her trembling passed, eased from her embrace.

Spent and lethargic, she opened her eyes to see what he was doing and then gasped in surprise when he reached for her nightgown and quickly tugged it gently from where it had pooled around her waist and hips, removing it from her completely.

Christiana felt herself blush, but raised her hips to allow the material to be removed. He tossed the material aside and then rejoined her in the bed, climbing between her legs and urging them wider apart as he crawled up her body.

Richard stopped to press a kiss to the curve of one hip along the way and Christiana sighed as the gentle caress caused a tingling to erupt there and spread outward. He then moved further up, pausing to press a kiss to her belly that sent it jumping and rippling with growing excitement. He next took first one nipple into his mouth for a quick suckle and swirl with his tongue before turning his attention to the other to do the same.

By this time Christiana was breathing heavily again, the relaxed satiation of moments ago forgotten and she curled her fingers in his dark, silky hair and tugged lightly. As delightful as what he was doing was, she suddenly wanted Richard’s mouth on hers again. He answered the silent demand, shifting further up her body until his hips rested between her thighs and he could reach her mouth with his.

She felt his hips shift and his hardness rub across her core as he claimed her lips in a kiss, and responded by groaning into his mouth and raising her knees again to tilt herself into the caress. Richard chuckled at her eager response, and then nipped her lower lip lightly as he rubbed against her again. Christiana sucked almost desperately at his tongue to keep him from withdrawing it again, however he did, easing it out, only to thrust it back in, this time plunging his manhood into her at the same time.

At least Christiana thought that was what he’d done. She was now full to bursting, her body straining around something much larger than what had invaded her earlier and the only thing she could think was that the very large appendage that had fallen out of his breeches when she’d opened them was now planted firmly inside her.

While Christiana had been ignorant of what exactly the consummation was, she was smart enough to figure out this was it. And she wasn’t at all sure she liked it. However, while his tongue withdrew from her mouth, he stayed planted firmly inside her and merely lifted his head to get out in a choked gasp, “You’re a virgin.”

Christiana peered up at him blankly, wondering at his surprise since they definitely hadn’t done this on their wedding night. But then she recalled that he’d had a good deal to drink at the wedding celebrations and it suddenly occurred to her that he might not even be aware that he had never properly consummated the marriage.