When he felt the last of her resistance melt away, he moved his kiss to her ear, nibbling softly on her lobe. “Do you like this?” he whispered, squeezing gently with his hand.
She nodded jerkily.
“Mmmm, good,” he murmured, letting his tongue do a slow sweep of her ear. “It would make things very difficult if you did not.”
“H-how?”
He fought the bubble of mirth that was rising in his throat. This absolutely wasn’t the time to laugh, but she was so damned innocent. He’d never made love to a woman like her before; he was finding it surprisingly delightful. “Let’s just say,” he said, “that I like it very much.”
“Oh.” She offered him the most tentative of smiles.
“There’s more, you know,” he whispered, letting his breath caress her ear.
“I’m sure there must be,” she replied, her voice mere breath.
“You are?” he asked teasingly, squeezing her again.
“I’m not so green that I think one can make a baby from what we’ve been doing.”
“I’d be happy to show you the rest,” he murmured.
“Not—Oh!”
He’d squeezed again, this time allowing his fingers to tickle her skin. He loved that she couldn’t think when he touched her breasts. “You were saying?” he prompted, nibbling on her neck.
“I—I was?”
He nodded, the faint stubble of his beard brushing her throat. “I’m sure you were. But then again, perhaps I’d rather not hear. You’d begun with the word ‘not.’ Surely,” he added with a flick of his tongue against the underside of her chin, “not a word that belongs between us at a time like this. But”—his tongue moved down the line of her throat to the hollow above her collarbone—“I digress.”
“You—you do?”
He nodded. “I believe I was trying to determine what pleases you, as all good husbands should do.”
She said nothing, but her breathing quickened.
He smiled against her skin. “What, for example, about this?” He flattened his hand so that he was no longer cupping her, instead just letting his palm graze lightly over her nipple.
“Anthony!” she choked out.
“Good,” he said, moving to her neck, nudging her chin up so that she was more open to him. “I’m glad we’re back to Anthony. ‘My lord’ is so formal, don’t you think? Far too formal for this.”
And then he did what he’d been fantasizing about for weeks. He lowered his head to her breast and took her into his mouth, tasting, suckling, teasing, reveling in each gasp he heard spill forth from her lips, each spasm of desire he felt shivering across her body.
He loved that she reacted this way, thrilled that he did this to her. “So good,” he murmured, his breath hot and moist against her skin. “You taste so damn good.”
“Anthony,” she said, her voice hoarse, “Are you sure—”
He put a finger to her lips without even lifting his face to look at her. “I have no idea what you’re asking, but whatever it is”—he moved his attention to her other breast—“I’m sure.”
She made a soft little moaning sound, the sort that came from the very bottom of one’s throat. Her body arched under his ministrations, and with renewed fervor, he teased her nipple, grazing it gently between her teeth.
“Oh, my—oh, Anthony!”
He ran his tongue around the aureole. She was perfect, simply perfect. He loved the sound of her voice, hoarse and broken with desire, and his body tingled at the thought of their wedding night, of her cries of passion and need. She’d be an inferno beneath him, and he relished the prospect of making her explode.
He pulled away so that he could see her face. She was flushed and her eyes were dazed and dilated. Her hair was starting to come undone from that hideous cap.
“This,” he said, plucking it from her head, “has got to go.”
“My lord!”
“Promise me you’ll never wear it again.”
She twisted in her seat—on his lap, actually, which did little to help the rather urgent state of his groin—to look over the edge of the chair. “I’ll do no such thing,” she retorted. “I quite like that cap.”
“You can’t possibly,” he said in all seriousness.
“I can and—Newton!”
Anthony followed her line of vision and broke out into loud laughter, shaking the both of them in their seats. Newton was happily munching away on Kate’s cap. “Good dog!” he said on a laugh.