The Baronet's Bride (Midnight Quill #1.5)(9)

Gareth flushed. “No, not that. I mean show as in, uh, demonstrate.” He forced himself to put his humiliation to one side. Tonight is about Cecily, not me. And that was liberating in its way. To not worry about whether he could fire his shot and give her pleasure at the same time, to take himself out of the equation entirely and focus only on Cecily.

He rearranged the pillows behind him with awkward one-handedness and leaned back against them. “Turn around,” he said. “So that you’re facing away from me.”

This request made Cecily frown slightly. “Away?”

“It will be easier for me to touch you the way I want to.”

She eyed him for a moment, her expression faintly dubious, and then did as he’d asked, turning around on his lap, facing away from him, her legs on either side of his.

Gareth gently slid his right arm around her waist. “Lean back against me.”

Cecily obeyed. She was warm and slender and so much smaller than him. Gareth’s heart seemed to swell with love for her. Tenderly, he gathered her even closer, his arm around her waist. Her golden hair tickled his jaw. “Relax,” he whispered, stroking her hip through the nightgown, following the soft curve with his hand. “I’m going to do something that I think you’ll enjoy.”

Cecily’s nightgown had hiked up to her knees. Gareth slid his hand beneath the hem and touched her knee, stroking, tracing a little circle with his fingertips, light and tickling.

Cecily shivered.

Gareth traced another circle. Her skin was smooth, warm, silky. “Is that all right?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she whispered back.

Gareth spent long minutes becoming better acquainted with his wife’s legs, her knees first, then her inner thighs, stroking, stroking, making her tremble and squirm in his lap, making her breath catch. He pushed her nightgown upwards inch by slow inch, his hand sliding higher, higher . . . until a soft thatch of hair tickled his questing fingertips.

Cecily tensed slightly.

“Relax,” he breathed in her ear, and after a moment she did. Gareth took that to mean that she trusted him, and his heart swelled even further. He pressed a kiss to her temple.

He teased the uppermost reaches of her thighs for several minutes with his fingertips, while Cecily’s breath became shallower and more ragged. Tension gathered in her. Anticipation, he thought, not nervousness—and when he finally let his fingers wend their way through that soft nest of hair he was proven correct: she caught her breath in a gasp that was almost a moan.

Gareth smiled to himself, and pressed another kiss to her temple, and gently cupped her quim in his hand, barely touching her. She was warm and soft and plump. “Still all right?” he whispered.

Cecily seemed to struggle to find her voice. “Yes,” she said, after several seconds, and the word held a little, breathless quaver.

Gareth smiled again . . . and set himself to the task of introducing his wife to sexual pleasure, cupping her quim, moving his hand in leisurely circles, kneading gently and rhythmically. No rush. Taking it slowly.

Cecily grew warmer . . . and warmer . . . and warmer. She squirmed slightly on his lap. Her breathing was ragged. A tiny whimper escaped her. Her legs fell more widely open.

Gareth parted her plump outer lips with his fingers and delved gently inside, tracing her folds. Cecily gasped, and then whimpered again.

His own breathing became a little ragged. “Do you like that?” he whispered.

“Mmm.”

Gareth explored slowly. She was hot and deliciously damp. He learned the shape of her inner lips—and then dared to dip one finger inside her.

Cecily stopped breathing for a moment.

“Do you like that?” he asked again.

“Mmm.”

He slid his finger deeper, flexed it slightly—and her whole body trembled.

Gareth withdrew . . . and then did it again: sliding his finger inside, flexing it, hearing her breath catch, feeling her shudder. He wished, quite desperately, that he had two hands. No, three hands. One to delve inside her, one to play with her quim, and one to caress her breasts.

And then he realized that he did have three hands.

Gareth withdrew his finger. “Cecy,” he said. “Put your hand on mine.”

Their bodies were nestled so closely together that he felt her incomprehension—and then her understanding . . . and her embarrassment.

“Put your right hand on mine,” he whispered again.

After a moment, Cecily did.

He cupped her warm, plump mound and squeezed gently and rhythmically. “Do what I’m doing.”

Cecily hesitated, and then obeyed him, her hand on top of his, moving in time with him.

“Good,” Gareth said, after a minute had passed. “Keep doing that.” He slid his hand out from under hers, and now it was she who was pleasuring herself, and he whose hand rested on top.

After another minute, he lifted his hand from hers, and burrowed gently beneath her nightgown, climbing up over her hip, her belly, until he found one of her breasts—smooth, round, taut, perfect.

Gareth stifled a groan. Cecily’s hand faltered on herself. “No, don’t stop,” he said, and when she’d picked up the rhythm again, he skimmed his hand over her breast, teasing and caressing, pinching the nipple lightly, feeling her tremble. Heat began to gather in his loins. “Your left hand,” he said. “Do what I’m doing.”