A Wild Night's Bride (The Devil DeVere #1)(32)

“I can’t,” she whimpered.

He paused there at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “Very well.” With both wrists still in one hand, he spun her around to face the door. His free hand promptly went to work on her laces. He stepped closer until she could feel the thickness of his staff pressing against her bottom. “We will pass on that one...for the moment. You said you were a nursery maid. How did that come about?”

When she hesitated, his mouth and tongue began a tantalizing exploration from her nape to the hollow behind her ear.

“My aunt Margaret, the one who owns Scottshall, was wet nurse to the Prince of Wales.”

“So your aunt was part of the Royal Household?”

“Yes.” She breathed out, tilting her head to the side to ease his access.

He pulled back again. “Am I to presume your aunt helped you to secure a position as well?”

“Please, don’t stop,” she begged.

“Answer the question.”

“Yes. When my father was killed in the war with the colonies six years ago, there was little money for our needs and no dowry for me or my sisters. As the eldest, I sought work to ease my mother’s burden.”

“How old were you?” He licked the shell of her ear. She quivered from the inside out.

“Sixteen.”

His arm wrapped around her waist. His hand found a breast and freed it from her loosened bodice. “That now makes you?”

She hesitated until he thumbed her nipple. “Two and twenty.”

“You’re but a child,” he said quietly, as though half to himself as he toyed with her breast.

“On the contrary,” she said. “I am quite a woman grown.” She arched her back and pressed her bottom against him.

“Don’t think to distract me from this interrogation.” He growled and gathered the folds of her petticoat. The cool air brushed her calves, and his warm fingers skirted the skin he had just exposed. She shivered.

“You implied that you were dismissed from your position.”

“Yes. I was.” He stroked the inside of her leg from knee to thigh. He palmed her bottom and gave a squeeze that stole her breath.

“Elaborate.”

“Please. You said we needn’t discuss it.”

“I said we would pass for the moment.” His finger traced the cleft of her buttocks. “The moment is gone.” He slid his hand between her thighs. Her channel clenched as instinctively, she clamped her thighs together. She felt the rumble of satisfaction in his chest.

“Tell me why you were dismissed.” He breathed the question into her hair. His clever fingers went to work circling and teasing her outer passage. “You won’t win,” he said. “You will be begging for mercy in mere minutes. Surrender, Phoebe. Tell me all. Tell me about you and our feckless Prince of Wales.”

“No, please. Don’t stop,” she cried.

“Tell me more, and I won’t stop. Tell me all, and I’ll give you sweet release.”

“I was nursery maid to the princesses and took them to the queen at Buckingham House every morning. Prince George had recently rebelled against the tight strictures of his governor and tutors. He made friends the king and queen disapproved of and began carousing.” Her voice was breathless, her heart hammering, her hips undulating in rhythm with his fingers. “To keep him under their watchful eyes, they moved him into the queen’s house.” She paused for breath.

He delved his index finger into her passage and swirled the middle one around her clitoris. “Go on,” he urged.

She shuddered with pleasure. “We met by accident. In the library. I was returning a volume of Shakespeare. He was kind. Charming. But terribly unhappy. I was lonely too. We spoke. We began meeting secretly at first to talk, to read plays. My head was turned.”

His lips skimmed the side of her face. “You were young and impressionable. He is the heir to the throne. What girl’s head would not be turned?”

“One thing led to another.” The tension low in her belly was mounting to a fevered pitch. She found it laborious now to either breathe or speak. He withdrew his hand from her, and she thought she would crumple against the wall in her need for release.

He turned her to face him, his gaze burning into her. “Like us?”

“No,” she said. She leaned into him for balance. She couldn’t meet his intense gaze, so she closed her eyes. “I was seduced by his attention and by the idea of love, but it was the weakest of infatuations. He took, and I gave. I sacrificed my only valuable possession for nothing in return. He cared nothing for my pleasure. I never felt like I would die of rapture in his arms...as I do with you.” She had also never experienced the invisible connection of souls as she felt with this man, but that was too much to confess. “It was nothing like us,” she cried. “Never like this!”

***

Ned didn’t know how much longer he could have withstood the torment of his supposed torture when all he could think about was the throbbing ache of his straining cock and the need to have the tight clasp of her wet sex around it. But her passion-filled confession appealed to something much stronger than mere lust. It touched a deep place inside, one that he’d thought had long become barren ground, and it was simply too much for his heart to stand.