The Earl's Mistress (11 page)

Isabella was wet, but only a little. And perhaps a little too frightened. There were many women, he knew, who had no natural inclination for this sort of business. Some could be taught. Others not.

He reached out and dipped his fingers into the jar he’d taken from the table. But when his hand brushed her inner thigh, Isabella yelped.

“Shush, sweet,” he crooned, slipping his slickened fingers into the softness. “Just relax, my dear, and urge yourself against my hand.”

She made some feeble effort at compliance. Pressing his erection firmly along the cleft of her hips, Hepplewood forced her against his hand. Gently he stroked, running one finger round her swelling nub until a pearl of her own wetness leached out.

“Good girl,” he whispered.

Again and again he circled, sliding the other hand up to stroke and pluck her nipple. Isabella made a sound; the faintest sigh, and at once he felt the need begin to bubble up inside her, awakening to his touch. He stopped, stepped away, and took the crop to her arse again.

She gasped, her breath seizing and her buttocks jiggling.

It was his turn to swallow hard.

“God Almighty, Isabella,” he rasped, “but I am hard-pressed here.”

“Hard-pressed to what?” She began to turn, then, thinking better of it, froze.

“You don’t want to know,” he managed. “Turn back to the bed. Give in to me, Isabella.”

“Y-yes,” she answered, but the word was feeble.

He resumed his position, trapping her between his cock and his fingers, rubbing and circling, this time probing her with one finger and then a second. But Isabella was as tight as a virgin, and for an instant, he wondered. . . .

But it did not matter. She was his now for the taking—and he burned for her in a way that felt altogether too dangerous. But he’d be damned if he’d turn back now.

This time as he stroked she began to breathe more rapidly, and he could feel the confusion stirring inside. He brought her a little nearer the edge, then stepped back and whipped her again. Just a smart snap across the cheeks.

“
Ohh,
” she moaned.

Again and again he repeated the process, edging her nearer pleasure’s abyss, then steeling her to the rod with one swift stroke until she trembled. Until, on the twelfth blow, he surrendered to sheer weakness, his cock throbbing impatiently.

Turning Isabella, he pushed her back onto the bed. Still standing between her legs, he ripped free his buttons to release himself, shoving roughly at the tangle of fabric. Then, wisdom overcoming lust, he slicked one hand down his rigid cock, desperately glad he’d frigged himself.

Isabella was watching him beneath her fringe of black lashes, her eyes somnolent and glassy, her mouth slightly parted, one knee drawn up and tipped outward. It was a position of carnal surrender; the need to be taken. Her fear had faded, and the hunger was coming upon her in earnest.

Taking himself firmly in hand, Hepplewood pressed the head of his cock inside her. Despite the sweetness that flowed from her, it was no easy job. Hepplewood might whip a woman—into a sexual frenzy, or perhaps just as a reminder—but never had he willingly drawn blood. But Isabella was so tight, so
damned
tight, that he began to fear he might tear something.

“Good Lord,” he rasped, “are you a virgin?”

“N-no,” she whispered. “Just . . . not good at this.”

“Oh, you are very good at this.” Reassured, he pushed inside another fraction and felt her silken passage give, but only slightly.

“Isabella,” he said, sliding one finger between her slick folds, “have you ever reached orgasm?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him blankly. Her inky hair was like a dark, silken waterfall across the white of the bedding, her breasts puckered into tiny knots.

She had answered his question, he realized.

He should not have been surprised; it was a common failing of husbands. But Isabella should have engendered a near-slavish devotion in any ordinary man. Indeed, he could feel a stirring of it himself—and he did not like it.

Drawing in his breath, he pushed himself deeper but did not drag himself fully over her. Instead, he stroked her sweet folds, then began to lightly circle her nub again, this time with the ball of his thumb, pushing his cock deeper only when she relaxed enough to permit it.

After a time, the pace of her breath shifted. Her tongue darted out, lightly touching the corner of her mouth. Over and over he stroked, until her hands went flat against the counterpane and her head tipped back. He began to thrust inside her slowly, ratcheting up her need as he kept up his delicate ministrations.

Suddenly Isabella’s eyes closed and her hands clawed into the bedcovering, fisting up great knots of it as her belly went taut.
“Ah—ah—ah—”

Her cries were more breath than sound, and he knew she hung on that sweet, precarious edge. He thrust and thrust again, then watched as she collapsed into sensual bliss and slid down into a blinding release.

When he withdrew to shuck his remaining clothes and climb over her, Isabella was still shaking. So was he, truth be told.

Turning her onto her side, he cupped his body around hers and reached for the jar of unguent. She heaved a little sob; a sort of sigh, really—and out of gratitude, he prayed.

He kissed her lightly on the shoulder. “There, Isabella,” he murmured, rubbing the soothing oils into her buttocks, “it’s done, love.”

Another rough sigh went shuddering through her.

“So beautiful,” he murmured. “Such a good girl.”

She had drawn her knees up a little and did not look at him. The pink marks were no longer visible across her bottom, and her breath had returned to normal. Still, he felt a little uneasy—but not enough to wilt his raging cockstand.

“Roll onto your belly, love,” he whispered. “I’m not finished with you.”

She nodded, her hair scrubbing the pillow. The morning sun was slanting through the window now, and as she turned, he caught something like a diamond glistening in her lashes. Not a tear, he thought—for was a tear truly a tear if it had not been shed?—and in the urgency of the moment, he did not question it.

Gently, he pushed a pillow under her hips, urged her legs apart, then knelt behind her.

“Up on your knees a little, love,” he whispered.

Isabella rose, bracing herself on her hands, sensing instinctively what he wanted.

She was utterly open to him now as he pushed his throbbing cock back into her passage. He thrust hard and fast on that first stroke, intent upon finishing his business with what should have been practiced efficiency.

But it was not.

It was exquisite, and he did not want it to stop.

He felt himself slide deep on another long, perfect stroke, her womanly scent washing over him, and suddenly something altered. His pace hitched, then slowed. He looked down at her—not the woman who’d slapped him and tormented his dreams but Isabella, his lover.

He knew it was a romantic and silly notion even as he felt himself being drawn into her, drawn into that moment, melting into her. And strangely, he let the moment go. He watched her sweetly familiar profile and felt no need to hasten it. On and on it stretched as he slowly pumped himself into her, as though for him only Isabella existed, her head bowed in supplication, her body warm and purifying.

After a time he felt the quickening inside him, the unmistakable instant when release edged near. Then Isabella made a sound; a soft exhalation in the rain-washed light, and suddenly reality hung suspended. His vision seemed to blur and warm, as if those exquisite strokes had pushed him into a different sort of light, into a place where his past twirled like an ornament in the sunlight, throwing off glimpses of a memory resurrected.

Glimpses of her, a woman he hardly knew.

And yet he did know her. He knew Isabella in his bones.

He drew a deep, wracking breath and thrust harder and deeper. Then she
became
the light, surrounding him in a haze of joy as he convulsed, pumping his seed inside her. And when at last the ecstasy surged through him, it shifted and became something more, bringing with it a sense of completeness that melted through muscle and sinew, down to his bone, the pleasure so intense that his breath stopped.

So intense that the world as he knew it stopped.

Time and light ceased to exist, the moment spinning away. He could hear a distant heartbeat, dropping slower and slower, and knew it was his own.

Suddenly, his entire body seized. On a harsh cry, he collapsed, his face buried against Isabella’s neck. He gasped for breath, then gasped again. He drank in air in deep gulps, even as he wished to return to that place of light and joy.

But the oxygen was flowing into his brain once more, bringing him back to life.

La petite mort.

This time, it had damn near killed him.

And for the first time, he understood what it meant.

He stirred long moments later to the sound of rain spattering on Isabella’s windows. Water was gurgling down the drainpipes, edged with the sound of ice, but within it was as if the room cocooned them in warmth. Dimly, he realized he lay on his side again, spooned about her fragile body, one hand cupping her belly, awash in a sense of well-being that, had he been fully awake, would have worried him.

But he was not quite ready to wake yet; not quite ready to let go of the ephemeral pleasure. Burying his face between Isabella’s shoulder blades, he kissed her, drawing in the scent of his own sweat mingled with the smell of her soap and her skin. The scent of purity and perfection. Then, through the sensual languor, he felt her stir a little, the stark flatness of her belly shifting beneath his hand.

She was rail thin, he mused, for all that she was beautiful. Perhaps later they might do something foolish—like toast cheese over the fire in their wrappers. And tomorrow—yes, tomorrow he would put extra butter on her bread, or feed her on strawberries and cream. Yes, tomorrow he would have Yardley see if hothouse berries might be had.

Still, he thought on a drowsy chuckle, he hoped it was not a telling gesture, the way he’d spread his fingers almost protectively over the flat of her belly.

Over her womb.

Then, on his next breath, he remembered what he had
not
done.

The haze of well-being lifted like a veil, and his blood ran cold.

“Isabella,” he rasped. “Isabella, when did you last bleed?”

She lay silent for a moment. “Five days past?”

It was a question, not a statement. He cursed beneath his breath.

Damn it, what had he been thinking?

Was he so selfish—so caught up in his own depravity—he simply didn’t care for her? He drew a deep breath and looked at her again, impassive and quiet beside him. Good God, she was innocent—or nearly so.

With a hand that shook a little, he tucked a loose curl behind her ear.

He had learned the hard way to be excruciatingly careful. To find ways of taking his pleasure that didn’t involve such a risk.

Still, if she was right, they should—
should
—be safe. And yet, for all his experience in pleasuring women, their bodies were still a physiological mystery to him. He stroked one finger around the pink shell of her ear, still shaken.

“Next time I won’t spill myself inside you.” His voice was far steadier than he felt. “Please. Forgive me. I won’t take that risk again. I swear it, Isabella.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice distant. “Are we . . . finished?”

Something inside him froze; something uglier, even, than cold terror.

“For now, yes,” he said, levering up onto his elbow.

She did not move, but he had the overarching sense she wished him to leave.

Women
never
wished him to leave. They always begged him to stay, sometimes literally on their knees. Of course, most of it was just artifice. Hepplewood did not delude himself; he knew what such women were.

But did he know what Isabella was?

Did she just not know how the game was played?

Clearly the woman had no real sexual experience. Clearly she wanted teaching. Indeed, he had begun it this morning; begun the process of hardening a new lover who would be able to take all that he could give, and who would perhaps tempt, at least for a little while, his jaded palate.

In that, however, would he be making of her what she was not?

It was a novel thought—particularly for a man who had long ago vowed to stop thinking.

But the chill was still stealing over him and deepening to something a little like fear. Isabella’s face was still emotionless, her gaze fixed on the distant wall.

He had the most frightful sense of having misjudged. Of having pushed too far, too fast. Of having lost all capacity for true tenderness. He’d never had a virgin. Never had a woman who wasn’t well experienced. Never had a woman he’d wanted with such . . . wrath and desperation.

Yes, that was a part of it. He wanted Isabella so desperately that it made him angry.

At himself.

The sick chill deepened. He shoved it away ruthlessly.

It would not do. He was what he was.

Isabella was still curled around the pillow he’d placed under her hips. He lowered his mouth and kissed her cheek. “Isabella,” he murmured, “how long have you been without a lover?”

She drew a shuddering breath. “Eight—no, nine years.”

“Good Lord,” he said. “Were you married from the cradle?”

“At seventeen,” she said.

“Ah, a marriage of short duration, you’d said.”

“Yes,” she said. “A few months. Weeks, really.”

Hepplewood waited, accustomed to more talkative females—females that ordinarily would never stop nattering at him, even when a man yearned for silence. But this was not, he sensed, a good sort of silence.

Damn it all, he did not mollycoddle women. He did not coax or cajole. He rolled onto his back and dragged an arm over his eyes. He had fucked himself blue and ought now be grateful for the opportunity to skulk off and go to sleep in his own bed.

That was another thing he did not do, he remembered as he drifted off again. He did not sleep with women. That could turn to intimacy, and in a damned quick hurry, too.