Page 40 of A Desperate Proposal

“Even if that means a life often separated? Or forever on the move?” He looked into her brilliant summer-sky eyes, his chest aching with questions he knew his beautiful bride was too unworldly to anticipate. Elinor was sheltered, shy, and sweet as the Turkish Delights she loved. She had not learned fear and deception from her earliest moments, nor turned the latter into a trade. As often as he had fought in the battles, he had just as often snuck past enemy lines, lied his way in fluent Spanish and Portuguese through back alleys and ruined palaces, wearing one uniform after another, accompanied by guerrillas and fellow spies as much as by his redcoats and riflemen.

Her silence dragged on again, but he could see she was thinking, her expression severe as he’d ever seen it. Releasing his hands, she moved closer to the edge of the chair, gently cupping his cheeks as he’d done to her minutes earlier. Her soft lips touched his forehead. “I will hate every moment we are apart, Tristan. And I have so rarely been on the move that I hardly know how well I would or would not like it. But I do know that when you first kissed me, my heart became yours. I would follow you into Hell so long as I knew … knew that you…” She hesitated, her hands dropping to his shoulders. “Do you love me, Tristan?”

Tristan’s brows rose, the quip speaking itself before his head caught up to her speech, “Did you get the impression I married you for your fortune, my lady?”

Her eyes brightened, and though she appeared to fight it for the barest second, she grinned. “That and my beauty.”

“Oh, without a doubt, your beauty was a chief consideration.” He brought her wrist to his lips before touching her cheek with the back of his right hand. “As was my ardent desire to ruin you utterly for all other men. But I had thought the fact you’d stolen my heart was well known to you weeks ago.”

“I spent so much time thinking I could never be worthy of you. And then so much more thinking I was a fool because you’d never have me.” He snorted at that.

“I’d have had you in sackcloth and ashes, darling.”

“I’ll remind you of that someday.” She tilted her face toward his hand. “But the fact is, I don’t care what shape our lives take, so long as I’m your wife. You have ruined me for all men, Tristan.”

“Good.” His hand moved back into her half-bound hair and pulled her head forward as he straightened up to seal her announcement with a kiss. “Unfortunately you aren’t nearly ruined enough, love. There’s a slight matter of consummation to be entirely certain you can’t escape. So if you want an annulment, speak now.”

“Note my silence, dearest husband.”

He nipped her lower lip. “I should have dragged you upstairs before we left Merfield, but I didn’t want to shock your aunt.”

“My aunt has seen what you look like, my lord. I’m certain she was more shocked that I didn’t drag you upstairs. It was a close thing.” They both chuckled, and Elinor kissed him again. “Sitting so close to you in the carriage was enough to inspire all kinds of dreams. Waking up without you by my side has been torture, my lord.”

“It’s been torturing me as well.” He grabbed her lavender skirts, dragging the dress up while he tasted and teased her throat. “But I will make it up to you, my love.” His fingers skimmed along her thighs before he grasped her hips, pulling her to the edge of the seat and abandoning her neckline to put his lips on her exposed leg, following his fingertips with his mouth, pushing her legs apart. “I recall I told you of a particular activity you might enjoy.”

“Y-yes. But… I wasn’t… Oh.”

“Shh. Let me show you what I meant.” Tristan nuzzled her trembling flesh, breathing his words against her pale, secret curls. He looked up, ensuring Elinor was not about to protest or faint before he parted her folds and tasted her. She was salty-sweet, and so hot … he groaned, tightening his hold on her hip to keep her in place as he swirled and licked from her opening to her clit, and sealed his lips around the swelling bud.

Her hips jerked forward, and she cried out as one of her hands grabbed his hair. He cast his gaze up to watch as her back arched, her breasts jutting upward, her throat exposed. “God,” she moaned, her hand pressing against his head while the other raked against the chair’s upholstered back. “That feels… Don’t stop!”

He had no intention of stopping. He circled his thumb against her clit, moving down to lap at her opening, using his tongue to tease her until she was gasping. Only once she was soaked and twitching at every touch, did his finger breach her tight channel. His mouth returned to her swollen clit. He knew the first time would be hard for her—petite as she was, he feared it might be too hard if she wasn’t half-dead of pleasure before he took her. And he was infinitely content to ensure she reached that state.

He watched her reactions, easing her through an orgasm that damn near had him coming in his breeches as her untried body gripped his finger. He eased a second digit into her as she moaned with aftershocks, and then a third as she twisted and whimpered with a second climax.

He kept his attentions on her clit and folds until she fell back against the chair, gasping for breath. She whimpered and clawed at his shoulders, finally getting a hold of his collar to try to pull him up. He lifted his head as she fell forward, her forehead touching his, her breaths heavy and warm against his cheek. “Tris… I—I need… Breath. I n-need, a-a moment,” she begged, her eyes closing.

“You have from here to the bed,” he answered, already gathering her shuddering form into his arms. “But I’m afraid I’m not in a merciful mood, love.” He rose, Elinor tightly clasped in his arms for the three paces to the massive bed—an Elizabethan monstrosity some ancestor had built for a royal visit, and whose existence Tristan hadn’t cared about until he considered having that much room for interesting positions. Granted, he’d originally thought to be exploring the positions with a mistress, but having uncovered Elinor’s passionate nature the bed was about to be a matrimonial temple. Who needed a mistress when one desperately loved one’s wife?

He settled her on the mattress and paused only long enough to strip off his waistcoat and cravat, then loosen her laces while he ravaged her throat and shoved the unfortunate dress down her shoulders enough to reach her stays. He then untied those as well, leaving her in a scandalously disheveled state before he pushed her back and resumed his leisurely exploration of her decolletage.

“Tristan, please, I can’t bear it…”

He got one hand between her legs again, stroking her drenched sex. “Really? You’re doing very well.” He circled her clit and stifled her resulting cry with his mouth.

Her thighs tightened around his hips, her hands pressed against his chest and then stroked down his side and around to his back where she took a handful of his shirt and pulled to lift it high enough to touch his bare skin. Her touch was firm and bold as she explored, moaning into the kiss. Her tongue darted past his lips. She really did learn fast.

Tristan groaned her name, powerless as his cock throbbed with need for her. He thrust his fingers into her, curling them to find the angle that made her channel tighten. He buried his head against her hair. “The first time … did they warn you it will hurt?”

He felt rather than saw her nod. “My aunt and your sister might have mentioned something about that,” she said, her voice ragged. Her hands brushed back down toward his hips, her hold tight as she planted her feet on the bed, shifting her body beneath his. She gasped, the friction obviously catching her off guard, and after a moment, she lifted her hips again. Experimenting.

He lifted his torso, pushing her hips back down before getting to his knees. “Lay still for me, my love. I need all my powers of concentration this time.” He unfastened the fall of his trousers and sighed as his cock sprung free of the restrictions.

“All of them?”

“If you could see how beautiful you are, you’d understand.” Tristan stared down at Elinor’s splayed legs, her rumpled dress and skewed stays, her nipples peaked and rosy with her arousal. And her thighs… Damn it. He couldn’t come from looking at her. Not tonight, at least.

Tristan all but fell upon her, starving for another taste of her skin, her honeyed lips. He wanted her writhing and out of her mind with need and used her hardened nipples and kiss-swollen lips to accomplish it, as well as his fingers kindling the wet heat of her sex. Only then did he press his erection to her entrance, stopping at just the point of entry, though his entire body shuddered with the need to claim her, to feel her taut entrance stretch and cling to him…