Once everyone had eaten their fill and not even a crumb of Amy’s decadent cake remained, they took their leave and Hannah and Lucien were finally alone.
Fully and completely alone.
The dowager countess departed to visit with Lady Arksford for a week, and even the staff had been given the day off to celebrate the wedding. After all, she and Lucien could fare for themselves with the leftover food from the wedding breakfast.
He reached for her in the drawing room where they’d bid their servants a good day, but she shook her head. “Not here.”
“No one is here but us.” He leaned forward, bringing with him the scent of shaving soap and books and that sensual masculine spice of his.
But she leaned away, breathless with anticipation. “If I kiss you now, I don’t think I’ll ever stop.”
“Then why are we standing here?” He swept her into his arms and carried her up the flight of stairs as if she weighed almost nothing.
“Aren’t I heavy?” she asked, laughing.
“Not at all.” He wasn’t even out of breath.
He nudged open the door to a massive room with polished mahogany furnishings and heavy blue velvet. There was a familiar scent to the room that made it smell completely and intimately like her husband.
“I hope it was all right to bring you to my room.” He set her gently to the ground and looked around with a sheepish grin. “I thought perhaps we might share the chamber, rather than have separate beds.” With a small half-shrug, he added, “since we are doing what we want rather than abiding by tradition.”
“I love that idea.” She stared up at him, her handsome husband with blond waves slightly too long to be fashionable. With poignance, she reached up and swept his hair from his eyes, reveling in the silky feel.
Finally, she could kiss him, touch him, experience him in the entirety that her body had ached for in the last few months. Memories of how he had touched her at Vauxhall Gardens seared her mind and played out in her thoughts constantly.
A low pulse of hot temptation thudded to life between her thighs. In an eye-opening and confidential chat with Lucy, Hannah had been told how she could slake such desires. The way Lucien had done that one night amid the popping fireworks. But Hannah had held off, wanting to share the experience of her releases with Lucien.
“I have waited so long for his moment,” he said, his ragged voice snagged at a primal part of her. One that desired him as desperately as he so obviously desired her.
His hands skimmed down her dress, brushing the sides of her breasts and resting at her narrow waist. With a groan, he drew her body against the length of him. Already the hardness of what her mother had called “his manness” nudged low at her belly.
Lucy had called it a “prick” and a “cock” interchangeably. Those words appealed to Hannah far more. They felt more mature. More desirable. Something she wanted to take into her hand, as Lucy had mentioned.
Hannah’s heart thundered in her ears as her mother’s advice tangled with Lucy’s whispered giggles. It would hurt the first time. It would be the most divine sensation in the world. One mustn’t completely disrobe if one did not desire to. If he were a true lover, he would lick her like a treat.
Heat scorched through her body on that last bit, as Lucy had pointed to the excerpt in a well-handled pamphlet with a satisfied smirk.
“I don’t know what to do,” Hannah whispered.
“Whatever you wish.” Lucien smiled patiently at her and caressed her cheek, then her throat and over the swell of her breasts where her skin was suddenly exquisitely sensitive.
“Whatever feels good.” His eyes followed the path of his hand. “There is no wrong way unless it is something you do not wish.”
A shuddering exhale escaped her. There was nothing she wanted omitted. She wanted all of what loving entailed in that instant. Starting with a kiss she knew would ignite into so much more.
She rose onto her toes as she closed her eyes, her chin tilting toward him. He caught the back of her head in his large hands and kissed her, his lips whispering over hers, his tongue sweeping into her mouth.
Her moan was quiet at first in the recesses of her throat, but when he cupped her bottom and angled her pelvis against his, so his prick pressed more firmly against her, the sounds coming from her did not remain quiet.
With no one about in the massive house, there was no need to stifle their enjoyment. If it felt good, she would openly moan and scream as she so chose. The idea was liberating.
She gasped in delight and met his tongue with her own, eager to fulfill the yearning that burned through her for what felt like an eternity.
He rested his forehead against hers, panting. “I’ve wanted you for so long, Hannah. From that first moment that I saw you in the field last January.”
“Was it my grace?” she laughed.
“It was your beauty, your heart and the goodness to save a cat.” He grinned. “And it might have had something to do with a bare, shapely leg with a fallen stocking.”
“You are wicked,” she accused with a mock look of outrage. “You were not supposed to look.”
“I am wicked,” he said raggedly. “And I want you as I have never wanted anything.”
“Then you may have me.” She put her hands to his chest, her fingers trembling. “All of me.”
With a tentative glance up at him, she undid the buttons of his jacket, so it gaped open, then pushed it from his shoulders. He’d returned to wearing his looser garments, but for their wedding, he wore a fitted suit that displayed his fine body.
He reached for her, carefully plucking the pins from her hair and letting them drop in muted plops against the carpet until her red tresses tumbled around her. “Beautiful.” He studied her. “So beautiful.”
Then, without another word, he lowered his mouth to hers again and kissed her with the passion she had been craving. Their lips slanted against one another in desperation, their tongues mating. He nudged his knee between her legs, so his strong thigh rested exactly where the pulse of her desire flared brightest.
She moaned as pleasure coursed through her in a way that eased and encouraged her lust at the same time.
His fingers moved behind her, unbuttoning the row of small buttons down her back. It must have been a maddening process, but he never grew irritated. Instead, for every button he popped free, he paused to caress the newly exposed skin with his fingertip, savoring the undressing of her.
At that moment, she knew she wanted to fully disrobe for him, for him to lovingly stroke every part of her in such a reverent manner. And she wanted the same of him. As luxurious as it was to experience their hands on one another’s skin, she could only imagine the touch of their naked bodies, hot and delightfully sensitive together.
The bodice of her gown widened and slid from Hannah’s shoulders before pooling in a stiff pile on the ground. She stepped from it even as he reached for the bow at her chemise. Her nipples thrust out from the shapeless garment, hard-tipped and rosy-pink beneath the thin fabric.
He groaned and bent over her, drawing one bud into his mouth through the thin cloth, the heat of his tongue flicking against it.
If he were a true lover, he would lick her like a treat.
Hannah cried out and cradled his head to her bosom, understanding now what the pamphlet meant. At some point, he managed to lift away her chemise, though, for the life of her, she could not recall precisely when that had happened. Somewhere between the time he cupped her other breast and loved it with his mouth, the fabric miraculously slipped away.