Page 83 of An Innocent Bride for the Duke

“You say the right thing at the right time,” he replied.

“You do the right thing at the right time,” Louisa countered.

Benedict smiled again before kissing her gently and lovingly on the mouth and rolling them both to the edge of the bed.

“Let’s light all the candles and that fire in the living room before it gets too dark, and then we can consider how we want to spend our evening.”

A few minutes later Louisa watched as Benedict discarded his jacket and waistcoat and knelt before the fireplace.

“Pass me those tongs, would you?” he asked, striking a spark onto the kindling and then another, blowing them carefully into a small conflagration below the carefully stacked wood chips and logs of various sizes.

Louisa took the tongs from the other side of the fireplace and joined him on the soft, sheepskin rug, noting its familiarity as she did so.

“It’s the rug from the library, isn’t it?” she asked, running her hands over its surface.

“Yes, it certainly is,” Benedict replied, stoking up the fire a little and then replacing the grate. “Did you know that I lay on this rug in the library when I first read your book about Sir Benedict Palmer and his daring exploits? A rose fell out of the book that night and I put it in my pocket. It has been there ever since.”

Louisa laughed and blushed.

“I remember all kinds of things about that night in the library,” she sighed, thinking of how they had both almost been swept away by the force of their longing. “I almost ended up on this rug with you, I believe.”

Benedict was facing her now, both of them seated on the sheepskin as the fire took hold in the grate.

“Yes, you did,” he answered honestly. “I remembered that too when I decided to bring it here for us. You ran away, for very good reasons, even though, I think, you wanted to be naked on this rug with me that night…”

Benedict’s gaze held Louisa’s like a physical embrace and she nodded.

“I was afraid,” she admitted. “I also wanted you so badly that it terrified me even more. You made me feel things I’d never felt before.”

Reaching out a hand, Benedict began to remove the pins from Louisa’s hair and lay them on a tile beside the hearth, each small touch a sensuous shiver.

“Desire is a very powerful sensation,” he remarked, now running his fingers through her freed honey-golden curls. “It can feel overwhelming.”

Louisa pressed her head into his caressing fingers like a cat, wanting to be touched and stroked.

“With trust, overwhelming desire can become overwhelming pleasure,” he added, pushing one side of Louisa’s dress from her shoulder and bending his head to kiss her there. “Do you think you could be naked on this rug with me tonight, and not want to run away?”

Now he had pushed the other side of Louisa’s dress from her other shoulder and kissed her there too, pausing then with a smile as her breathing quickened.

“I want us both naked, Benedict,” Louisa whispered. “I’m not running anywhere.”

Grinning, Benedict unfastened his shirt and threw it onto a chair so that he sat before Louisa bare chested, his well-muscled and dark-haired torso and strong arms fascinating her.

“Your turn,” he said and gently pulled down the neckline of her dress, spilling her full breasts from the fabric and light summer stays she wore beneath.

Pulled against Benedict for a hungry kiss, Louisa’s nipples brushed and pressed against Benedict’s chest and she cried out at the unfamiliar but searingly pleasurable feeling. Somehow half sitting in his lap now while he kissed her and played with her sensitive breasts, Louisa could feel the hardness growing at his groin and a corresponding throbbing between her own thighs.

A few minutes ago, her mind had been nervously contemplating mattresses, furnishings and fire-lighting. Now somehow, she was writhing with desire and more than ready to follow Benedict’s lead into passion. His mouth was at Louisa’s lips, her neck, her arms, her breasts while his skillful hands unfastened the sash and buttons at the back of her dress.

None of Louisa’s garments seemed to present any difficulty to Benedict’s expertise in removing women’s clothing and she could not quite say how she came to be naked to her stockings, kneeling on the rug with him.

“I wanted you so much that night in the library, Louisa,” Benedict told her between kisses, his hands skimming the bare curves of her hips and bottom before he eased her onto her back. “My lust was likely too great to remember that you ought to be kissed everywhere before you are mounted, especially the first time. You were right to run from me then.”

Louisa sighed as her breasts received further kisses and then her belly and even her thighs. Then Benedict pressed a bewildering kiss into the dark golden hair that covered her mount of Venus and a strong erotic jolt shuddered through her. When he said “everywhere” it had never occurred to Louisa that he might kiss her there too.

“Benedict?” she moaned, feeling him caressing her thighs with warm and gentle hands, urging them further apart.

“Does that feel good?” he asked in response, kissing her a second time on that patch of warm golden fur, his tongue flickering there this time and causing Louisa’s breath to catch in her throat.