In Compromise with the Earl by Ava MacAdams

Chapter Seventeen

Bracing one hand on the small of her back, Oswald slid a hand under the bunched-up skirts on his lap to find her smooth thigh. He took his time to watch the melee of emotions crossing her face as he took his time to touch her.

His fingertips were as fleeting as spider legs over the soft skin of her thigh and he felt himself harden at the sight of her biting her lip, lashes fluttering and the quickening of her breath. The moment he touched her, a shudder gripped her body.

“Ah!” she gasped as he slipped a finger between her silky curls and touched her.

“So ready for me,” he intoned, while watching her keenly. With how she reacted, so naturally and passionately, miles away from the practiced arts of the trained doxies he had wasted so much time with, he knew that when they did couple, Aphrodite would be sensational.

More than anything, he looked forward to awakening her passion and seeing how she could keep up with him. Gently at first, his thumb stroked circles around her nub while his long fingers found the folds of her silky flesh. With just whispers of a touch, so light and fleeting, she was starting to unravel around him.

She swallowed the moan that rose in her throat but could not keep her body from responding when he pressed the heel of his hand to her mound as it rose to meet him.

“Shh, Sweetling,” he whispered into her ear. “You wouldn’t want Robins in on our fun, would you? I want your pleasure to myself.”

Continuing to stroke near her nub, he slid his finger over her entrance. Leaning in, he kissed her, lingeringly, his tongue swiping across her bottom lip. Her soft folds were wet and slick, making Oswald’s breath come harshly as her honey dripped over his fingers.

When her hips arched into his touch, her head moving where it was tucked under his chin, he took one finger and slipped it inside of her passage and instantly, her hips jerked upward, and she began throbbing around him.

“Devil and damnation, you’re small, so tight around me,” he said hoarsely. “Am I hurting you?

“No,” she moaned. “M…more.” Kissing her ear, he obliged. His finger thrust deeper but not too deep and Aphrodite panted as the tension inside her belly coiled tighter and tighter.

In an instant, she was riding his hand and crying out her pleasure. Soon she was moaning, her dew coating his fingers. Aphrodite’s hips rocked demandingly into his touch, and he rubbed her slick nub harder.

“Oh, God.” He did it again, loving how hard she was trembling under his touch.

“Oh…h—” Aphrodite groaned in his chest, the heat from her mouth making gooseflesh dot his skin.

He loved this. Her hands were in his hair, urging him deeper. She came suddenly, beautifully. Her moisture gushed into his palm, and his turgid manhood stiffened in response.

When a guttural sound of appreciation rumbled from him, something inside her broke. “What are you doing to me?”

“I think I should be asking that of you,” he replied, while gently shifted her to sit comfortably on his lap. “It will be at least four hours before we arrive at the first posting inn,” he told her.

Her lashes fluttered up, those bewitching blue eyes of hers meeting his from beneath her long lashes. “Does anyone know this side of you?”

Quirking a brow, Oswald asked, “Do I sense some jealousy in your tone?”

She smacked his chest a little. “You know what I mean, you’re a smart man.”

Stroking her back he replied, “No, no one does. I couldn’t show any passion with Claire. She was so prim and proper that an impulsive touch would sent her running. You must guess the irony when I heard from her lovers how much of a wildcat she was in bed.”

Aphrodite’s eyes closed tightly. “You deserved so much more.”

Suddenly exasperated with the topic of his late wife, Oswald ended the topic. “Being young, in love and naïve at the same time makes you trust what you shouldn’t. I wasted too many days blaming myself for her faults. I am not interested in wallowing in misplaced grief anymore.”

“And I don’t want you to.” Aphrodite touched his cheek. “It’s not fair.”

Kissing her palm, Oswald asked, “When you were told to marry, what sort of man did you imagine would fit? I hardly think you imagined a surly, love-scarred curmudgeon.”

“Oddly, someone the very opposite of you,” Aphrodite replied. “Jovial but brilliant, warm, easy to talk with, straightforward…somehow I prefer you to that naïve expectation.”

He stared at her amused, “You would prefer my complications to an easier life?”

“With what my father has done, my whole life is a complication,” Aphrodite snorted. “I’ve grown so familiar with complications in my life that it is almost a familiar friend to me.”

“But being paired with a man who is a much as outcast as you are, as a point of interest, might be more of a difficulty than you ever imagined,” Oswald pointed out. “Not to mention the opposition you are getting from my family.”

“You are getting the same from mine,” Aphrodite replied. “Not to mention I am sure Strathmore is out there slandering your name as well.”

“That cad?” Oswald snorted. “I don’t care if he took out a newspaper column and wrote every defaming word he could, it does not matter to me. My worst secret is public knowledge, and I’ve been dipped in the River Styx, Sprite. I could probably walk through the fires of Hell unscathed.”

She laughed. “I fear the day they find your Achilles Heel.”

“There isn’t one,” he promised. With her head resting his chest, Oswald took the liberty to play with her hair. “And you, what is your deepest secret?”

“I stole a kiss from my neighbor once,” Aphrodite replied. “Well, I should not say stole, I asked him to kiss me. I was thirteen and he was seventeen. As he was older, he gave me all the smoldering half-lidded eyes, and tingling from expectation. When his lips touched mine, it was a refined kiss, very smooth, and skilled. I have no doubt he made other ladies swoon, but to me, it was exciting as tepid tea.”

“Whoever he was did not know how to kiss properly,” Oswald said. “Even if you were young and did not know how to respond, he should have made sure you enjoyed it.”

“Maybe I was not supposed to enjoy it,” she murmured. “Maybe I needed to wait for the true kiss.”

Realization struck through Oswald, sliding a hand under her hair, he asked, “That day at the lake, was that your first true kiss?”

“Yes,” she tilted her head up to rest right under his chin. “And I do not regret it for a moment.”

Savage pride at knowing he had given her such pleasure had the corner of his lips ticking up, “No need to stroke my pride.”

“Take a compliment when it’s due,” she replied sleepily. “False modesty isn’t becoming on you.”

Chuckling, Oswald said, “I’ll remember that in a few days’ time.”

After a few muttered words, Aphrodite fell asleep and Oswald felt the pleasure of holding her. He knew there were so many things they had to talk about, including how she would take to the role of Countess and be able to immediately handle her duties.

He knew his mother held a firm hand on running the Hall, but with Aphrodite’s arrival, there were bound to be some changes and, inevitably, clashes. He had to be there to negotiate and possibly diffuse the tension that would be between them. Aphrodite would not have an issue appearing with him at society events, but what about children?

One thing at a time.

* * *

Enjoying a pleasant dream in which she was dancing in an open balcony under the moonlight with a glittering ball a few steps away, Aphrodite did not appreciate being shaken awake.

“No,” she murmured, trying to retreat from the hand squeezing her shoulder. “Go away.”

“No,” Oswald’s baritone made her eyes slit open to meet a face within inches of her own. “We’re at the posting inn. It’s getting to dusk and we have our chamber waiting for us. I can carry you if you want.”

“What? No, no. Just let me…” Scrambling a bit, she shifted and rubbed her eyes, “get my faculties in order.”

Oswald shifted and a rich waft of his drugging smell of musk and spice gave her definite proof of her connection with Oswald, as if the ring on her finger was not enough.

The arousal effect it had on her was one she could not consider at the moment as it was not the time or the place to do so. She fixed her dress and found her shoes and donned her coat.

Ready, she gave him a nod, waited for him to exit the carriage, then allowed him to help her down. After Oswald went in, she waited while he had a word with the man at the front desk, then footmen were directed to get their bags and carry them upstairs and down a narrow corridor to their chamber.

Trailing on their heels, the two followed behind and took a corridor to the chamber. “Get comfortable,” Oswald said. “I’ll arrange for dinner to be sent up.”

Once alone, Aphrodite removed her coat, then took a moment to look around the decent chamber with, as Oswald had said, a narrow bed, barely enough for two. There was a bathing chamber with a copper tub, and a washbasin with a stack of clean towels sitting beside it.

“We’ll have our meals soon,” he said while removing his jacket with a grunt of relief. “Would you like to wash up first?”

“I would, actually,” she stood and, after rifling through a valise for her dressing gown and robe, went to the bathing chamber. After closing the door, Aphrodite let out the nervous inner breath she had held since the wedding.

They wouldn’t be consummating that night and it was a secret relief. She wanted to lead up to that point, she wanted to know Oswald, know how to please him as he had done her so many times. A host of brazen, seductive, ideas crowded her brain, but she did not know how to make them come about.

What if I just ask?

Going back to the chamber, she saw that dinner had been delivered but felt her throat close off—if she ate anything it would be a miracle. Oswald was down to his trousers with a robe thrown over, but he hardly touched his food and drank the wine instead.

Valiantly, she tried to eat but his warm stare—sometimes burning—had her stomach in knots. Finally she gave up. “I cannot eat now.”

“Why?”

The sultry red and gold from the fire turned his olive skin a rich tan and darkened his blue eyes. “Because I want to get into bed with you.”

His mouth ticked. “Bold tonight, aren’t you?”

“I want to see you,” she blurted, “without the dressing gown.”

Oswald’s eyes pinned her where she sat for a long, heated moment before he swirled his wine one last time, took a drink, put it down and stood. With bated breath she watched as he undid the tie of his gown and removed it, showing the granite chest, dusted with springy hair. Her eyes trailed down the ridged stomach to the prominent vee of his hips that led down to his trousers.

He reached out and tugged her from her chair. She stood still while he undid her robe and let it slip to the floor before stroking her face with his hand and giving her a blistering kiss. Arching into his body, she let every care drift away.

“I won’t take you tonight,” he husked. “But we can still enjoy each other.”

“I’m glad you said that, because I want to know how to pleasure you, like you have done to me so many times,” Aphrodite said. “It’s only fair, don’t you think? Will you show me what to do? How to please you?” Aphrodite’s earnest plea undid him.

He claimed her mouth in a long kiss and explored the inside of her mouth with his tongue, meeting hers with his, twisting and twining them, until he felt as if he was spinning. The tip of his tongue met the sensitive roof of her mouth and she shivered.

His hands cupped her breasts which seemed to have taken on lives of their own, the turgid tips begging shamelessly for attention.

“It’s not hard to please a man without coupling,” he said, his gaze hooded and dark. His hand lifted to her mouth, and his thumb coasted across her bottom lip. “I’d love your mouth on me.”

“Show me how,” she whispered.

Dropping his hand to his trousers, he shed the garment. At the sight of him, all slabs of muscle rippling on his big frame, his brawny virility stopped her breath. And there, hanging between his muscular thighs, his manhood jutted out like a heavy branch.

His hands slid into her hair, and his gaze compelling, “You can touch me, you know.”

Lightly, she rested her palms on his chest and felt the firm warm skin under her hands, the curled hair and the powerful thud of his heart. Her hand skimmed to his shoulders and arms that were so thick, she could barely circle her fingers around them. His forearms were as malleable as forged steel and she smiled at the memory of how easily he picked her up.

“You’re magnificent,” she replied.

Pulling away, he cupped her face with a long, warm, drugging kiss. “In the bed.”

Lips parted, eyes heavy-lidded, she slipped into the bed, and he joined her. Without premise, he kissed her mouth and Aphrodite felt her nipples bud under the thin cloth of her chemise. Her hands sunk into his hair while he fitted his hands over the curves of her body. Biting the plump lobe of her ear, he murmured, “I’ll lie back, kneel between my legs.”

As he sat against the headboard, he took her hand and fitted it around him. A wicked gleam was in her eyes as she touched him, wrapping her fingers around his girth. He smiled a little she realized her fingers scarcely fit around him. Cupping her cheek he kissed her. “Slowly, Sweetling.”

Her grip firmed and she moved quicker, while pleasure seared up his spine. Oswald had made countless trips to bawdy houses and had been pleasured by trained paramours, but not one of them had managed to light this inferno in his body. “You’re doing very well.”

Aphrodite looked amazed at him, her eyes wide and the oh-so-subtle lick of her lips. “You used more than your hands on me,” she whispered. “I want to do the same.

Then she leaned closer, her lips just inches from his length, and his breath held. Her golden tresses spilled like liquid silk into his palms and across his thighs as she gave the tiniest lick…that soft pink mouth worshipping the hardest part of him.

Her gentle licks punched harsh breaths from his lungs but her inexperienced ministrations kept him on the razor’s edge, providing enough sensation to drive him wild. It was the naughtiest of acts that had once or twice passed through his imagination but never thought he would experience with her.

The feel of her lapping him, the sight of her between his legs, her pink tongue circling his engorged crown, tore a groan from his chest when her lips closed over him. She drew on him timidly at first, then with increasing confidence, grew bolder.

With his head tipped back, eyes slitted to half mast, Oswald braced a thumb under her cheek as she made lust sing through his blood. He swelled further as her lips stretched over him and her tongue came into play. She made eager little sounds that stirred him.

“God's teeth, I'm close—”

Instead of pulling away, her head bobbed up and down, fallen strands of hair brushing against his thighs as she as sucked him deeply inside. As her hand touched his stones, he let out a roar. “Enough.”

In the next instant, he dragged her up so that she straddled his lap. “I’m too close to spending,” he explained. “I won’t finish in your mouth but don’t worry, you were spectacular.”

Her lips slanted. “I was getting good at it too.”

Laughing, Oswald hiked her chemise up and found her middle wet and ready for him. “Two can play the same game, Sprite.”

He thrust his middle finger into her snug sheath, and she grabbed at his shoulder. He stroked, curling his finger, probing deep inside. Aphrodite’s head fell back, her mouth going slack, and he watched with pleasure as bliss marked her face.

She braced her hands and began to lift herself, craving the sensual capitulation just a few breaths away. When she rose, he eased two fingers into her tight, humid heat on the next pass and found her nub with his thumb.

Her lips were swollen and wet, and with a free hand he cupped her nape, tilting her head back so he could take her mouth as he wished. Their kiss was as feral and desperate as the tension between them. She ripped her lips away and gasped for air.

Pulling away, he kissed her slowly, loving the sight of her lethargic gaze and rested her on the bed. “Oswald?” Her voice was drowsy.

Brushing a hair from her eyes, he said, “Yes, Sweetling?”

“I’m falling in love with you,” she replied.

Someone could have shot Oswald between the eyes, and he would been none the wiser. Out of everything he could have expected her to say, those words had not been a part of it. He couldn’t put it into words, but he knew, knew deep in his bones she was right, that everything had changed.

“Good, I’m starting to feel it too.”