The Heir

He lasted only a moment, suspended above her, before she slipped a hand around his nape and urged him back down against her. He capitulated to her silent request and was soon breathing in counterpoint with her, as naturally as if they’d made love every night for years. She traced patterns on his back, sifted her hands through his hair, and took his earlobe in her mouth for the occasional nip.

“One of us,” the earl said, “is going to have to get up. I nominate you.”

“Happy to serve,” A

“Suppose that leaves me.” The earl sighed and heaved up, first onto straight arms then to his feet. His stood above her, brooding down at her half-naked, utterly relaxed sprawl so long she self-consciously moved to close her legs.

“Don’t,” he said, but it was a request, for all he didn’t state it as such. “Please. You are lovely.” But he moved away, sensing her defenses were weak, and she needed a moment. When he turned back to her, he’d pulled up his breeches but not buttoned them. To his shamelessly primitive delight, she’d not covered herself, not sat up, nor in any way disturbed the wanton pose in which he’d left her.

“Let me.” The earl sat down at her hip and began to dab gently at her with his dampened handkerchief. He made a sensual game out of it, stroking the cool cloth over her stomach, up under her breasts, and down to her sex. When she shifted her dressing gown, likely thinking to afford herself some small modesty, he applied a gentle pressure to the inside of her thigh.

“Let me,” he repeated. He held the cloth against her, and A

“A

He wasn’t ready to bounce up and take himself upstairs to bed, wasn’t ready to dive back into the last few pieces of correspondence, wasn’t ready to pour himself a brandy and take it up to his balcony. Completely out of character for him, all he wanted to do was stay here with A

The feeling was mutual, he guessed, as A

This situation with A

And he would most assuredly not have asked it of her, not in a million years.

You shouldn’t have had to ask. He could hear A

A

“Love?” He raised up on his forearms and brushed her hair off her forehead. “How are you? You’re too quiet, and you leave a fellow to fret.”

“I am… beyond words.” A

He kissed her forehead. “I hope you’re beyond words in a positive sense.”

“I am.” She sighed and stretched, bringing her pelvis up against his.

“None of that.” He smiled and nuzzled at her neck, then slipped lower, going up on his knees to take a nipple into his mouth. A

“Next time,” he murmured, resting against her sternum, “I will know where to start. You have sensitive breasts, my dear. Inspiringly so.”

“None of that.”

“None of what?” He raised his face to regard her in puzzlement.

“None of that next-time talk,” A

Westhaven hung above her, considering, even as he ignored the considering being done by his cock. “We need to discuss this, and for that, you will have to be decently covered.”

“I will?”

His took his weight and warmth away from her and fortified himself with the disappointment in her voice.

“You will.” He sat at her hip and began to straighten her clothing, but paused to brush his thumb over her pubic curls. “When this next time comes around, that we are not going talk about, I will put my mouth on you here.” He closed his fingers over her sex. “You will enjoy it, but not half so much as I.”

She looked surprised then intrigued as he closed her buttons and bows, and the earl concluded she was a virgin to oral sex as well as orgasms. Mr. Seaton, God rest his lazy, inconsiderate, bumbling, unimaginative, selfish soul, had much to answer for.

“Up you go.” He tugged A

He yawned sleepily. “I should put on a shirt if we’re to have a meaningful discussion.”

“You needn’t,” A

“Going back on your word, A

“I agreed not to seek another position until the end of summer,” she reminded him. The glow in Westhaven’s body faded a tad with each clipped syllable. “I did not agree to become your light-skirt.”

“Were you a virgin, you would still be considered chaste.”

“But I wouldn’t be for much longer if this keeps up.”

Westhaven knew some genuine puzzlement. “I will not force you, A

“You won’t have to,” she bit back. “I will spread my legs for you just as eagerly as I did tonight.”

“With results just as pleasurable, one hopes, but we’re talking past each other, A

“Keep your lips off me, please.” A

“In truth,” the earl said, urging her head back down to his shoulder, “I do. You would be astonished, A

“Well, then,” A

“Can’t say I agree with you.” His lips grazed her temple again, completely without conscious thought on his part. “And you have yet to name me a single reason why you could not wed me. Have you taken holy orders?”

“I have not.”

“Have you a mortal fear of copulating with me?”

She buried her nose against his shoulder and mumbled something.

“I will take that for a no. Are you married?”