“But I want you to.” Gently he pulled the hood of her sex back to expose the throbbing bud and blew cool air over it.

“Oh please . . . West, I can’t . . . please, please . . .”

His silky, remarkably agile tongue slid right where she needed it, circling and prodding, then flicking in a steady rhythm. He slid a finger inside her, giving the frantic muscles something to clench against. Heat flooded her, sensation wrenching every cell of her body. She was lost in him, feeling what he wanted her to feel, yielding every last part of herself.

The aftermath was like losing consciousness, her limbs too weak to move, her head giddy with sensation. Her face was wet with perspiration and perhaps tears, and she felt him wipe it gently with a corner of the sheet. She was gathered against a hard, furry chest, comforted by his soothing murmurs. He stroked her hair and traced aimless patterns over her back, and held her until her trembling eased.

He left the bed briefly and she rolled to her stomach, stretching like a cat and sighing. She had never felt so sated, so replete.

When West returned, he was completely naked. Phoebe began to turn over, but he straddled her hips and pressed her back lightly to keep her facedown. She lay quietly, aware of the textures of him, the muscles and coarse hair of his thighs, and the silky weight of an erection that felt as long and hard as a raffling pole. There was the sound of a glass stopper in a flask. His warm, strong hands descended to her back, rubbing and massaging, while the scent of almond oil drifted to her nostrils.

He squeezed the muscles of her shoulders and worked his way down along on either side of her spine, releasing tension and sending ripples of pleasure through her. Phoebe moaned softly. No one had ever done this to her before; she would never have guessed it would feel so lovely. As his palms glided up to her shoulders, the length of his aroused flesh slid along the cleft of her bottom and partly up her back. Clearly he also took pleasure in the massage, making no effort to hide it. He kneaded her lower back and the full curves of her buttocks with increasing pressure until the clenched muscles relaxed.

One hand reached down between her thighs to cup the soft pleats of flesh, his fingertips riding tenderly on either side of the swollen, half-hidden nub. A few exquisitely light and indirect strokes, back and forth, caused her breath to catch. He touched the opening of her body, circling into the wetness before one of his fingers—no, two—entered in a gradual but insistent thrust.

Her body tried to close against the intrusion, but he was so gentle, his fingers undulating like the sway of water reeds in a slow current. Her legs spread a little, and soon she felt the need to push upward, to take more of him in. As she raised her hips, something inside her loosened and stretched to enclose him. He breathed her name raggedly, seeming to luxuriate in the feel of her, his fingers twisting and curling with almost protean grace. Keeping her crimson face pressed against the cool linen sheets, she squirmed and gasped and arched tightly.

As his fingers slid from her body, the opening felt oddly open and liquid, muscles clenching on emptiness. His weight lowered over her back, the hair of his chest tickling pleasantly as he bent to kiss and lick her shoulders and the nape of her neck. His lungs were expanding and contracting with full, heavy breaths. Her eyes opened wide as she felt an intimate nudge between her thighs, the shape of him broad and hard. He pushed, but despite her willingness and arousal, her flesh resisted.

“Wait,” she gasped, flinching at a sharp ache. He stopped at once, lodged solidly but not quite penetrating. Panting with effort, she tried pressing back onto him, but hesitated as it began to hurt. “I can’t, oh, I’m sorry, it’s no use, I’m—”

“Darling,” West interrupted, having the effrontery to smile against her ear, “before we admit defeat, let’s try it another way.” He rolled off her and coaxed her to leave the bed with him. After retrieving the small flask of oil, he led her to the upholstered wing chair.

Phoebe shook her head in bewilderment. “Surely you don’t mean to . . . on a chair? . . .”

He sat and patted his knee.

She regarded him with amazement. “You great immodest creature,” she exclaimed with a nervous giggle, “sitting there with a flagrant erection and showing not one hint of concern about it . . .”

“On the contrary, I’m very concerned about it. And since you’re the cause, you should take some responsibility.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said doubtfully, glancing at the upthrust length of him. “Although it’s a bit more responsibility than one would wish for.”

“Be grateful you don’t have to live with it,” he advised, pulling her onto his lap so she was facing him.

Seeming to enjoy her blushing discomfiture, West opened the almond oil, shook a few drops into one of her hands, and set the flask on the floor beside the chair. “Will you?” he asked softly.

“You . . . wish me to apply it?” she asked, thoroughly flustered to find herself sitting naked on a man’s thighs in such an outlandish posture.

“Please.”

Tentatively she rubbed the oil between her hands and reached for his face.

West caught her slim wrists, his blue eyes laughing at her. “Not there, sweetheart.” Slowly he drew her hands down to the thick shaft straining between them.

“Oh.” Mortified and amused, Phoebe stroked the length of him, covering the satiny, ruddy skin with a thin sheen of oil. His male part was large and well shaped, the rigid flesh alive with pulses and deep-secreted quivers. His breath became unsteady as she caressed him from base to tip and let her fingers slide back down to the heavy sack below.

“You’re handsome even here,” Phoebe murmured, gently grasping him with both hands.

“Thank you. I’m rather partial to it. However, I don’t agree. Women’s bodies are works of grace and form. Men’s bodies are strictly for function.”

“Women’s bodies serve some rather important functions as well.”

“Yes, but they’re always beautiful.” His fingertips went to her stomach, tracing the delicate crescent of a stretch mark gleaming silver in the daylight. “What was it like?” he asked quietly.

“Giving birth?” Phoebe glanced down ruefully at the faint lines low on her belly. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was grateful to have the benefit of modern medicine.” Her lips quirked as she watched his fingertips move from one mark to another. “They’re not pretty, are they?”

His gaze met hers with surprise. “Everything about you is pretty. These are marks of a life well lived, and risks taken, and miracles you brought into the world. They’re signs of having loved and been loved.” He brought her closer, lifting her to her knees so he could kiss her throat and the upper curves of her breasts. “I’m sorry to say,” he continued, his voice muffled in her cleavage, “my respect for the institution of motherhood doesn’t affect in the least my desire to debauch you thoroughly.”

Phoebe curled her arms around his neck and rubbed her cheek against the black-brown locks of his hair. Bringing her mouth close to his ear, she whispered, “I’m not sorry about that.”

To her surprise, she felt a fine tremor go through him, like the vibrations of a piano wire. Drawing back, she stared into his flushed face, and smiled with a hint of triumph. “That’s the sound, isn’t it? . . . the one that gives you tingles. It’s a woman’s whisper.”

Chapter 26

“I admit nothing of the kind,” West said, resuming his attentions to her breasts, cupping them together and kissing her nipples. Fastening his mouth on a stiff peak, he drew it deep and suckled. Gradually one of his hands smoothed over her stomach, down to her groin, idly fluffing the red curls. Despite his physical strength, he handled her with stunning gentleness, his caresses skillful and indirect, building anticipation.

His touch skimmed through delicately layered flesh, pressing her open like petals. The tip of his middle finger eased around the half-hidden nub, playing lightly. At the same time, his mouth moved to her other breast. Still straddling him on her knees, Phoebe felt her thighs quiver dangerously. She sank lower and jerked as she felt the taut head of his sex press against her.

“Don’t stop,” he said against her breast, one of his palms sliding over her bottom to guide her. At her hesitation, he lifted his head and read the uncertainty in her expression. “You’ve never done it this way?”

“Henry and I were both virgins. We only knew how to do it the one way.”

West gave her a skeptical glance. “You never looked at erotic postcards together? You would have discovered no end of ideas.”

“Never,” Phoebe exclaimed, more than a little shocked by the idea. “For one thing, Henry wouldn’t have known where to find such materials—”

“The booksellers on Holywell Street and Drury Lane keep them behind the counters,” he said helpfully.

“—and for another, he would never have shown anything like that to me.”

West’s eyes sparkled wickedly. “What would you have done if he had?”

Taken aback by the question, Phoebe opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suppose . . . I might have looked at one.”

He laughed. “Only one?”

“Or two,” Phoebe said, so embarrassed she half-expected to burst into flames. She leaned forward to hide her face on his shoulder. “Let’s not talk about dirty postcards.”

“You’re having fun, you naughty girl,” he said, one of his arms sliding around her, “Admit it.”

Phoebe smiled against his shoulder. She loved how he teased her, the way no man would ever tease a duke’s daughter or a respectable widow. “A little,” she said.

The fragrance of his skin mingled with shaving soap and almond oil and a hint of some salty essence that she realized with a little shock might have come from her. Aroused by the thought of the intimacies she had already shared with this man, she turned her head and kissed his neck. She dragged her parted lips up to his cheek, and his mouth sought hers, kisses blooming within kisses like a field of poppies in endless summer. Those clever, inventive fingers played between the open bracket of her thighs, occasionally slipping into the snug sheath of her body and teasing the inner muscles into squeezing around them. His thumb brushed over her clitoris in flirting touches, drawing quivers from her and making it impossible to sit still. Reaching down to grip his shaft in her hand, she guided him into place, determined to take him inside.

“Easy,” West said softly, cupping her bottom to control her descent.

Phoebe sank lower in his lap, and felt him adjust his position in the chair, altering the angle between them. Gasping with effort, she worked herself on him, easing farther each time. He held her carefully, watching her with rapt concentration, his breath turning choppy.

He was deep inside her now, impaling her to the point of discomfort, and yet she hadn’t quite taken all of him. She paused, and he groaned softly, caressing her back and sides, muttering words of fervent approval and praise. Obeying the coaxing pressure of his hands, she eased downward, lifted and slid down again, enthralled by the sensation of being filled and caressed within.