The Widow Wager (12 page)

“I don’t think it’s fair that I’m the only one in my undergarments,” she whispered as he broke their kiss to drag his lips down her throat.

He chuckled. “You may divest me of whatever you like, Gemma, but be warned…I do not wear undergarments.”

Her eyes went wide. “You mean beneath your clothes you are…are…naked? Entirely naked?”

“Entirely,” he said, holding his arms out as if in offering. “Do you still wish to undress me?”

She nodded swiftly and unhooked his jacket first. She shoved it from his body and tossed it aside without seeming to care where it landed. He smiled as she went to work on his shirt, pulling and tugging at his cravat and eventually the buttons that kept her from bare skin. When she managed to wrestle the garment free of his trousers and open it, she gasped and stared at his chest beneath.

“What?” he asked, enjoying how her hands trembled as she reached out to smooth her fingers across his flesh. The touch was like electric heat and his cock throbbed with it.

“When you slept last night…was it only last night?” She shook her head. “I-I watched you and I wondered, I wondered what you looked like under your clothes.”

His mouth dropped open at her unexpected admission. “You did? I thought you hated me.”

“I did, a little,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “But I also couldn’t help but be fully aware of how handsome you were. How…desirable.”

He frowned. “When I woke, I feared I might have done something to you…forced you.”

She met his gaze. “If you had climbed into bed with me, I don’t think you would have had to force anything. I think I would have been as wanton then as I am being now, despite my hesitations and misgivings.”

“You are not being wanton,” he murmured as he pushed his shirt away and gave her a full view of his chest and bare arms. “You are being wicked and wonderful. I hope you will never be anything less when it comes to me and my bed.”

She didn’t respond, but pressed her hand flat against his chest. “So beautiful,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. She moved closer, dragging her fingers against him. “I want more.”

He nodded, barely able to maintain his composure with her looking at him like he was a cake she wanted to devour.

“You’ll get it, but once we remove these trousers, I shall be naked and I will have a very hard time not plunging inside of you right away, so why don’t we focus on you for a moment?”

She let her gaze hold his again. “Should I remove my chemise?”

He held back a strangled moan and managed to squeak out, “Yes, I think that would be best.”

Slowly, she grasped the edge of the last scrap of her clothing and tugged it up, up, over her thighs, over her hips, over her breasts and finally up and over her head to toss away. She stood before him, naked, blushing slightly but not making a move to cover herself.

Of that fact, he was eternally grateful because all he wanted to do was stare at her. She was perfection, utterly beautiful in every way. Her breasts were full with dusky, hard nipples. They swelled over a trim waist and slightly flared hips. It was the kind of body men had been sketching and waxing poetic about for all time. The kind of body men dreamed of when they pleasured themselves. The kind of body men had killed for.

His hands shook as he reached for her. He caught her hips and moved her closer, close enough that he could explore without effort. Then he began to touch her, sliding his hands over her hips, cupping her backside until she hissed out a surprised gasp of pleasure. He kneaded the soft flesh there, exploring her reaction of bliss and filing it away for later use.

He slid his hands upward now, across the smooth line of her spine, around her ribcage, and finally he cupped each breast. Her head tilted back in surrender. When she did so, her back arched and the unintended offering she made was just too much. He leaned down and sucked one tight nipple between his lips. She moaned as he swirled his tongue around her, over and over.

She quaked in his arms, her soft moans growing louder with every suckle, every hot sweep.

“Oh God, Crispin,” she finally managed on a strangled gasp. “I can’t—I want—”

He pulled back reluctantly to look up at her. She still had that desperation on her face and perhaps he was beginning to realize why. She was a sensual creature, one who liked sex even if the world told her that was wrong. And she had been without for a very long time.

He gently steadied her, then released her. “Lay down,” he said softly.

She blinked as if coming back to reality, then nodded, taking her spot lying across the settee a second time. She stared up at him, watching every movement as he found the waist of his trousers and freed what seemed like far too many buttons. Finally, he pushed them away and stood before her, erection curling against his belly.

She sat up on her elbows, and he was nearly undone when she licked her pink lips.

“That is…impressive,” she murmured.

He couldn’t help it—he tilted his head back and laughed at her compliment and the shaky way she delivered it. How long had it been since he laughed like that with a woman…hell, with anyone? It seemed like forever. But his humor didn’t stop him from bracing an arm on either side of her head and lowering himself against her.

“It’s what a man does with what he has, my dear,” he said softly, his mouth a fraction of an inch from hers. “But I thank you for the compliment.”

“You’re welcome,” she choked out, her voice trembling.

He smiled. “Are you ready?”

She nodded, but he still snaked his hand between them and found the soft outer folds of her pussy. He opened her delicately, never tearing his eyes away from hers, and stroked his index finger across her entrance. She was not lying when she said she was ready. She was wet and hot and as he touched her, she arched for more with another of those beautifully needy moans that seemed to directly tug his cock.

“Good,” he panted. “Because I’m more than ready to be inside of you.”

“Please,” she whimpered, her arms coming around his shoulders. “Please hurry.”

It was all she needed to say. He pressed the head of his cock to her slit and pushed. There was no resistance as he glided inside, except for the inner muscles of her body, made tight by months of being unused. They relaxed swiftly enough, though, when he flexed his hips against her and she welcomed him inside fully with a sigh of pleasure.

“My God, you are perfect,” he grunted, trying very hard to control himself so he wouldn’t just fuck her like an animal. It hadn’t been
that
long since he had a woman, but he felt as if it had been forever when he was inside of her.

“Then take me,” she pleaded, lifting to force his movement. “Please take me. I need you to.”

That was all. Those words stole all his control, all his good intentions to take his time. His hips began to move, almost without his permission, and he took her with long, hard strokes. She gasped, arching with every one, meeting him and squeezing him both as he entered and withdrew. She mewled with pleasure, her fingernails digging into his shoulders, her cheeks darkening with a blush and finally she let out a keening cry and her body spasmed around his in one of the most powerful orgasms he had ever seen a woman experience.

He pounded harder through her crisis, hoping to drag out her pleasure longer, but all the while her body milked his release to the surface. As she thrashed beneath him, he had little choice—with a roar he came deep within her. The pleasure was so intense that his vision went dark and his arms shook as he lowered himself on top of her to allow for a moment of respite.

“I think our argument is over,” Gemma said from beneath him, her voice slightly muffled by his shoulder.

Crispin shifted to look down at her. “Was that an argument? Because if it was, I shall pick fights with you twice a day.”

He smiled as she blushed, her eyes bright with her recent release. She seemed much more at ease in that moment, and how could she not be? The tension she’d been carrying for a year must have been heavy indeed.

“Perhaps an argument is not the best word,” she conceded. “The
discussion
, about whether we would stay married.”

“It is over,” he admitted, a bit of solemnity returning to the situation as he slid from her body with a soft groan of displeasure. “We have consummated the union, which would negate any argument I would have thought to make about the fraud that brought us here.”

She watched as he stood and searched around for his trousers on the floor. Propping herself up on one elbow, seemingly unaffected by her state of nudity, she said, “And are you sorry, then? That you took away your out?”

He looked down at her, beautiful and tousled by lovemaking. Normally he was bored of a woman the moment he found release, but Gemma did not bore him. Not yet. He wanted to explore her a bit more, not just her lush body…but everything else.

“I’m not sorry.”

She shifted and for the first time doubt returned to her face. “And you…you didn’t find it difficult to want me?”

His brow knitted with confusion. “You couldn’t tell by my ardor?” he laughed. She didn’t join him with even a smile, so he perched himself on the edge of the settee and looked down into her face. “Gemma, there is no difficulty whatsoever for me in wanting you. There may be difficulty in stopping so that we can do mundane things like eat and drink and get dressed.”

Her lips parted slightly in surprise, but then she turned her face with a bashful smile. “Good, I’m glad that at least for now this is not a…a chore for you.”

He frowned, for he wasn’t certain that it wouldn’t someday become a chore. There had only been one woman in his life he had pictured spending more than a few nights with. That had not worked out. The others…well, they were in and out of his mind and his bed swiftly.

But then, Gemma didn’t want him beyond sex any more than he did. They could work this out.

“I think we need to discuss the parameters of this marriage,” he said.

She sat up, the relaxation that had been on her face now fading and returning to anxiety. He hated to do that to her, but there was little other choice now.

“Very well,” she said, grabbing for her chemise. She didn’t put it on, but laid it over herself like a blanket. He was almost happy for it—her naked body was a fair distraction when discussing something so serious.

“What do you expect from a husband, Gemma?”

She bit her lip. “I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before.”

“Well, you’ve never had a choice in seemingly anything before,” he replied with a shrug.

“Including this, to be fair to both of us,” she said with a faint laugh.

“Yes, but with us the difference is that we were both forced into this circumstance, but now we can decide our fate together.” He smiled to reassure her. “So be honest. What would you like from a husband?”

She shifted. “When I was a girl, I would have said a man who loved me.”

Crispin tensed. Great God, she couldn’t ask him for that. He couldn’t give it to her. He wasn’t certain he was even capable of such a thing ever again.

“But,” she continued, “I think I am more practical now, with time and experience. And in this situation, I think it would be expecting too much from both of us. So instead, I think I would like respect from my husband.”

“And what does respect mean to you?” he asked, tilting his head.

“Exactly what you are doing right now, Crispin,” she admitted. “You ask me my opinion and it seems you care about it.”

“I do,” he said softly.

She smiled. “I would like a little freedom, since I have been in what amounts to a gilded…and sometimes far less gilded…cage for the past five years.”

“Freedom to do…” he began, wondering if she meant she wanted to go off and pursue other lovers. His stomach began to knot.

“Not to look at every penny spent of my pin money, should I receive any,” she said with a frown that told him that was exactly what her so-called husband had done. “The freedom to spend time with my sister or my friends. The freedom to run some elements of the household without being watched and judged.”

“Great God, you
were
in a prison,” Crispin muttered.

She shrugged. “But can you do those things?”

“You will have pin money, of course,” he said, trying not to think about his depleted resources. He would have to talk to Rafe about that, he supposed, his brother was doing very well now, as was Marcus. “And you may spend it as you please, because it is yours. I want you to spend time with your friends and your family and hopefully my family. I would never count your hours. As for running the household, take it all. I care very little for such things and I know poor Fletcher is often frustrated by my unwillingness to participate in conversations about silver or menus.”

“And you will introduce me to the household, then?” she asked.

He jolted. “Damn, I suppose I should have done that today.”

“Well, we weren’t certain of our future, were we? But now that we are to remain married, it would be a courtesy to them to do so.” She tried to smile, but it wavered. “And hopefully it will reduce a bit of the humiliation I feel when they enter a room and look at me.”