She moved against him, tying to accustom herself to the new position, trying to take more of him inside her. But he thwarted her, continued to tease her by offering her only a mere taste of him. “Take me,” she ordered. “I want you.”
“Josie.” His mouth was behind her ear, his lips on the soft sensitive spot just behind her lobe. She shivered with pleasure and then bucked with it when he plunged inside her.
He was hot and hard and full, and the sensation was so different and yet so pleasurable that she cried out. He readjusted her body, arching her more so that when he drove into her the feeling was heightened and even more exquisite. His hands caressed the curve of her hip then meandered to her breasts. He cupped them, fingering the nipples until they were hard, and when his hands clutched her hips again, those sensitive nipples ached as they rubbed on the soft coverlet. Back and forth. Back and forth.
The pressure in her built, tightened, rose with his every thrust. “Faster,” she begged. “Stephen, faster.”
He obliged her, his hand dipping between her legs to stroke her. And that was all she needed to send her over the edge. She spiraled up and up, her body singing, her mind full of nothing but Stephen.
When she came down, he was beside her on the bed, propped on one elbow, looking down at her. He kissed her nose, her eyelids, her swollen lips.
Josie reached out to him, pulled him into her embrace, opened so that he could slip back inside her. He looked down at her, and his eyes were so beautiful, so full of love.
For her.
She reached up and joined her hands to his, their fingers interlocking even as their bodies did, even as their gazes united and held.
He moved inside her, and she could feel him swell, feel his manhood expand and engorge, and her own pleasure swelled with it. He rocked again, and she felt him dive over the precipice. “Stephen,” she whispered, lifting her lips to him.
With a kiss, he brought her with him.
STEPHEN WAS CONTENT to forget about the outside world, and for three weeks, he and Josie did just that. They created their own inner world, exploring each other’s bodies and spirits, uniting their hearts and minds.
He could not have imagined a life more perfect. Every time he looked at his new wife, his heart clenched with happiness. He could hardly believe his good fortune. He could hardly believe she was his.
They had love, they had the treasure, they had heaven.
And then her cousins knocked on his door.
He supposed he should be grateful there were only three, but somehow the three seemed more like thirty. There was Lady Valentine—Catie—as Josie called her. She was tall and curvy, her dark hair glossy and thick. She had honey hazel eyes and a reluctance to look at him directly. And yet, despite her modesty, she was willful and stubborn. Stephen came to think of her as formidable.
Then there was Lady Madeleine, Lord Castleigh’s daughter. She was beautiful, short with ample breasts and hips, huge blue eyes and glossy hair like her cousin. She was kind, polite, sophisticated. And determined to have her way.
The third was Miss Brittany. Josie called her Ashley, and she was the most classically beautiful. Her wheat-gold hair seemed to shimmer about her face and shoulders. Her skin was porcelain, and her sea green eyes were so large that a man might imagine himself drowning in them. Stephen imagined many men had. She was always laughing, always talking, and inevitably said what was on her mind.
Lastly, there was his Josie. She was something of a mixture of the best traits of all her cousins. She had Catie’s height, Ashley’s green eyes—though her color was darker and more intense—and Maddie’s graceful deportment. And of course, she had her own mischievous smile and crop of auburn curls. She fascinated him, bewitched him.
Frustrated him.
“So, you see, darling,” Josie told him. “We must have a breakfast.” They were in the dining room, he having come down for the morning meal, expecting a cup of tea and toast and having found, instead, Josie and her three cousins. He would have retreated, forgone breakfast altogether, but her cousins were too quick. They surrounded him, closing in, and trapping him.
“Sorry, old chap,” Lord Valentine said. Stephen hadn’t seen the man at first, being as he was huddled at the far end of the room, probably out of the women’s way. Tall with dark hair and dark eyes, he looked every bit the part of the nation’s next prime minister. “I tried to sneak you a message,” he was saying. “Warn you of the ambush so you could get out while escape was possible.”
Lady Valentine turned a scowl on him. “My lord, please. Must you be so dramatic? This is not an ambush. We simply want to talk to Lord Westman.”
Valentine threw him a look full of sympathy.
Stephen glanced back at Josie. “What were you saying? A breakfast?”
She nodded, poured him a cup of tea. Lady Madeleine handed him a plate with a scone, and Lady Valentine offered him cream and sugar. These women definitely wanted something.
“With both of our families. It would be a way to mend some of the broken fences between us.”
“We could bring the two families together again,” Lady Valentine said. “Just like it was in the time of your grandfathers.”
Westman raised a brow, took the tea, and set it down. “A breakfast with both our families?”
“We never had one, darling,” Josie added. “It will be our wedding breakfast.”
