He hissed. His shaft throbbed between them. “God, yes, Beatrice. I do like it. I likeyou.”
“Never say so, Mr. Clark. I shall never believe it.”
“Shall I show you, then? Prove it to you?”
She exhaled, an overly dramatic sigh. “Finally.”
He grasped one of her legs and lifted it, hooked her knee over his shoulder. Then he undid a button of his fall. Another. And another. The strained fabric gave way, released his shaft.
Que bruto. What a beautiful beast. She supposed the size of the man correlated to the size of his manhood, but she’d not been prepared. Perhaps because she’d never truly thought she’d see it.
He was falling back onto her, kicking his trousers to the floor so that not a single stitch of anything came between them. “You look shy suddenly, hellcat. Tell me.”
The size of him… But no. Not that truly. More what he could do with it were they not careful. “Do… do you have aletter? I brought one with me, but I… I did not intend to use it today. Here. It is at Slopevale.”
His brows pulled together. “A letter? Oh! No, Bea. I do not. I do not make a habit of bringing women into my home or lovers into my bed.”
“You… go to your lovers’, then?” She felt a pang of jealousy, and she shoved it down. He may have had other lovers, but he was hers now. She’d demanded it. He’d promised. Yet she pressed her palm into the mattress to keep from rubbing at that little scoop in her chest that suddenly felt rather hollow.
“I have, yes. There have not been many. One woman in London I’ve visited from time to time. I haven’t had need of one in months. If I’d known you were coming, I might have secured one, hopeless though I would have considered it.”
She bit her lip, a bit disappointed. Yet somehow more aroused than before. The way he spoke with her, frankly and sensibly, not shying away from details but trusting her to understand. This man treated her like an equal. Always had. In his barbs and now in his bed.
“I’ll not spend inside you, sweetheart,” he said. “I will not risk a pregnancy.”
Of course he wouldn’t. She nodded, opened her arms to him.
And he jumped off the bed.
“Richard!” She propped herself up on her elbows.
“One second!” He threw open a drawer on a nearby wardrobe and rummaged around, then grabbed something and slammed the drawer shut. “Found it.” He returned to her, straddling her, taking her leg like he owned it and slinging it over his shoulder again as if it belonged there.
It might. She should feel mortified by the position, by how open and vulnerable it left her. It only made her a bit shy. And a lot excited. “What have you found?”
He shook a small glass bottle at her, then undid the cork stopper. “Oil. Hold out your hand.” Not even an inch of space in the command for disobedience.
She raised an eyebrow but did so. She’d promised to trust him.
He poured a thin line of the oil into her hand, then stoppered the bottle and tossed it aside. “Now rub it on my cock, love.”
Her eyes must be saucers. Her jaw most certainly slack. He laughed and guided her hand to the appendage hard and long between them.
She shook off his help and did the rest herself, wrapping her hand around his length, spreading the oil all over him, rubbing her thumb over the silken head of his shaft as he hissed and moaned. “Brazen Beatrice. Christ.”
When he was well covered, she asked, “Why?”
He dropped to his palms so their foreheads almost touched. “You’re wet for me, sweetheart, but I don’t want this to hurt you. It might. But the oil will help.”
It might hurt. She’d heard that before. Oil would help. A new bit of information. She’d better test it out. “Not so dull after all, are you, Mr. Clark? In fact, you are quite beautifully cunning.”
He winked. “At your service, Miss Bell. In every way you can imagine.” His voice, growly and rough, ripped shivers down her spine.
Gripping her courage to her heart, she used the leg still slung over his shoulder to squeeze him closer.
He paused one full moment of heavy breaths as his gaze roamed all over her, wide-eyed and wondering, and then he broke through and was everywhere all at once—lips on lips and neck and breasts, hands kneading and cupping and squeezing, sliding up her thigh, then down it to swat her bottom again as he rolled his hips against her. Each touch drove her pleasure higher, drove every thought but for him andmoreandmineout of her mind.
He slipped a finger inside her, then another, curling and stroking until she was squirming again.