Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(102)

She edged back, her lips turned up in an inviting smile. “Were you?” And peered at him through thick, sooty lashes. He kissed the skin just under her earlobe. She giggled. “Th-that tickles.”

“Does it?” he breathed against her neck.

She swatted at him, her shoulders shaking. “D-do behave. I’m trying to seduce you.”

He hardened as those deliciously bold words blended with her sweetly innocent tone that roused all manners of wicked acts he would ask to do with her.

Standing…

Her legs wrapped about him…

“Sebastian, are you listening to me?”

“Er, yes,” he lied.

She gave him a pointed look. He caught her in his arms. “Oh,” she said on a breathless squeak.

Sebastian carried her over to the leather sofa and it groaned in protest as he laid her down and came up above her. Her legs hung awkwardly over the arm. She wrinkled her brow and peered over his shoulder and then back at him.

“Sebastian?”

“Yes,” he murmured, inching up her skirts.

“I do believe this sofa is too small for…that.”

He caressed her lean calf and then trailed his fingers higher, ever higher. “And what exactly do you refer to, wife?” he asked hoarsely as he found the thatch of curls that concealed her center.

“Oh,” she cried out. “Er, that is…I was saying.” Her words ended on a shuddery moan as he slid a finger deep inside her slick, hot passage.

“Yes?” he pressed. He lowered his mouth to the top of her modest décolletage and caressed her with his lips.

“Nothing,” she cried out once more. “I wasn’t saying anything.”

Sebastian ceased his gentle stroking and she grappled with his shoulders, but he sat back on his knees. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it aside, and then released his shaft from the strict confines of his breeches.

Hermione troubled the flesh of her lower lip between her teeth, and God help him he imagined all manner of things for her to do with those splendid red lips and—

She rose in a flutter of bright, yellow skirts and he reached for her. Hermione danced out of his reach. She sank to her knees before the sofa.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice harsh with desire.

She stroked the tip of her index finger around the crown of his shaft. It throbbed and pulsed with a desire for more of her touch. Wordlessly, Hermione wrapped her fingers about him and lightly squeezed. “Ahh.” His head fell back. “You are a temptress,” he groaned.

A smile played about her lips. She continued to run her fingers up and down his shaft, first in a slow, tentative manner and then with an increasing boldness. Then she dipped her head and the tip of her pink tongue shot out. She licked the single bead from the tip of his manhood. “Hmm,” she murmured, in that contemplative manner he’d come to expect from his always inquisitive, bluestocking wife.

He held his breath in agonized anticipation. And then she closed her mouth over him. Sebastian slid his eyes closed on a hiss, incapable of words, or the hint of coherent thought.

“Hmm” she murmured around his length and the reverberations of her throaty question nearly undid him.

He yanked her up and tore the tiny row of buttons down the back of her gown. “I said no more damned buttons,” he said between great, gasping breaths. He rolled her under his frame.

“Did you?” she asked, and then a moan slipped from her lips as he touched his mouth to her breast.

“I thought I did,” he whispered against the swollen, pink tip. Then he drew the bud between his lips and suckled.

Hermione’s legs fell open in invitation and he settled himself between her creamy, white thighs. “What should I wear, husband?”

He studied her; devoid of her gown, with her chemise rucked about her waist, modest garters exposed. “I find I rather prefer you exactly like this, Hermione.”

A little laugh escaped her as he slid inch by agonizing inch inside of her. “I would be quite the scandalous duchess if I were to—” He plunged deep and her words ended on a grateful cry. She wrapped her legs about his waist and urged him on. Sebastian moved within her in deep, languid strokes. She took him inside her, matching him. “I love you,” she whispered and then he swallowed her scream of surrender.

He joined her over the precipice and filled her body with his seed then collapsed atop her, their chests heaving from the force of their release.

Hermione touched a finger to his lips. “Oh, Sebastian, I do love you.”

His heart tightened. She’d loved him enough that she’d buried the secret of Mr. Michaelmas and surrendered years’ worth of work…and dreams. He didn’t deserve that sacrifice.

“Generally, if a husband loves his wife, he would usually respond with ‘I love you too, goddess of my heart, mistress of my soul,’ but Hermione will suffice,” she teased bringing him back to the moment.

Sebastian placed a lingering kiss upon her lips. “I love you, goddess of my heart. Mistress of my soul. Lady of my everything…” He wagged an eyebrow. “I daresay I’m not capable of the same romantic words as you, wife.”

She patted him almost pityingly on his sweat-drenched back. “You’re doing quite well with your words.”

“Most of those words which were borrowed from you.”