EPILOGUE
“Ihave never been more relieved in my life.”
With a sigh of contentment, Pen arranged her skirts beside her new husband in the carriage that was conveying them from Dryden House, where they had married before a small group of family and friends, to Garrick’s town house. This time, she would not be secreted within via a dark corridor designed by viscounts past to hide their illicit affairs. Instead, she would be entering through the front door, and not as a guest disguised in trousers, either.
No indeed, she would be introduced as the new Lady Lindsey.
Or as she preferred to think of her title, Lady Lordly.
It never failed to make her smile. But then, so did Lord Lordly himself.
“Nor have I.” Garrick lowered his head and took her lips in a possessive kiss that was far too brief for her liking. “I thought the wedding and the damnable breakfast afterward would never end.”
Both formalities had indeed seemed endless, particularly when Pen’s siblings and Garrick’s family had rendered it impossible for them to spend time alone together during their betrothal. The freedom to be alone with him, to touch him, was a much-appreciated wonder.
“I could not wait to be alone with you,” she confessed. “I have missed you, my love.”
“Surely not more than I have missed you, darling.” He caught her cheek in one gloved hand and caressed her jaw. “The wait to become your husband has been bleeding interminable.”
She chuckled. “You have been spending too much time in the company of my brothers. You have taken on their manner of speech.”
“I had to spend time with them if I was to be near you,” he said wryly, kissing her again, more slowly this time, his lips brushing back and forth over hers with painstaking care.
“You were not near enough,” she pointed out, breathless when the kiss was done. “My brothers never took note when I was going about London dressed as a cove, but the moment I was betrothed to a lord, they decided to play chaperone like a set of maiden aunts.”
Of her brothers, Hart and Wolf had been the most dedicated to their brotherly duties. Jasper and Rafe were both far too preoccupied with their new wives to care whether or not she was alone with Garrick in the parlor at The Sinner’s Palace. Hart and Wolf, however, had proved merciless. She had quite lost count of the number of kisses they had interrupted during her betrothal.
Fortunately, Garrick had secured a special license, which meant they had not been required to wait nearly as long as they otherwise would have to be man and wife.
“You are right. It was never near enough, was it?” His hand snaked around her waist, and in a trice, he had hauled her onto his lap. “Let us make up for lost opportunities, shall we?”
She found herself astride him, the position bringing her aching intimate flesh into contact with his trousers in delightful, wicked fashion. “I thought the trip to your town house would not be long.”
He buried his face in her throat and inhaled as if she were a life-granting breath of air. “I’ve instructed Neave to take three tours of Mayfair. I cannot introduce you to the servants and then haul you over my shoulder to bed you senseless as I would like, so this shall have to suffice in the interim.”
She clasped his broad shoulders and undulated against him as the carriage rolled over a particularly facilitating set of bumps. That felt positively divine. But not as divine as he would feel inside her.
“What a wicked man you are, Lord Lordly,” she said with mock indignation. “The most proper lord in London certainly has fallen from grace.”
“I would not have it any other way.” He cupped her breast through the bodice of her gown.
She was not wearing stays, and the warmth of his hand burned through the layers of fabric separating them in tempting fashion. When he rolled her aching nipple between his thumb and forefinger, she gasped in pleasure.
“Nor would I,” she admitted.
His bright gaze dipped to her décolletage, his stare as heady as a caress. “During the entirety of the ceremony, I was watching your breasts in this gown, wondering what would happen if I gave the bodice a stern tug.”
She was breathless in truth now, her heart pounding, her sex pulsing and wet. “Perhaps you should find out.”
He caught her bodice in both hands and pulled it down. Her breasts popped free of the diaphanous fabric, still trapped within her chemise. That undergarment was lowered with hasty motions until her breasts were cupped beneath by both her gown and chemise, held high like offerings for his delectation.
On a growl, he took one of her nipples into his mouth. She rocked over his already rigid cock. The carriage swayed, and she hoped Neave could not hear the sounds they made. But she was also too shameless to care if he could. She had waited far too long to be bedded by her husband, and like him, she was feverish with need.
Sucking on the peak of her other breast, he began lifting the skirt of her gown until it and the petticoats beneath reached her waist. He raised his head from her breast, before catching the forefinger of his glove in his teeth and tugging. First one hand, then the other until his hands were bare.
And then, those knowing fingers were upon her, caressing a path of fire up the insides of her thighs, one reaching to massage a cheek of her bottom while the other dipped between her folds to play.
“My lady is wet,” he said, his voice low and soft as velvet.
His proclamation made her wetter still, and so did his fingers as they unerringly discovered her pearl. He swirled over the sensitive bud, sending pure pleasure rippling through her. He alternated his touches, making her frenzied. Faster and harder, then slow and soft, then fast once again. She was so desperate for him that he had scarcely pleasured her for any time when she came on a cry, thrusting herself shamelessly into his hand, grinding down on his straining cock as she did so.
He caught her nipple between his teeth and gently nipped, still working her, draining every last bit of pleasure from her and then demanding more. When his middle finger slid inside her to the knuckle, she moaned, arching her back and rolling her hips to bring him deeper.
It was good, but not good enough.
“I want your cock,” she told him, nearly mindless. “I want you inside me.”
He made a strangled sound, and then he was furiously unbuttoning the fall of his trousers. His cock sprang free. She rode it, his hot hardness sliding along her cunny in the promise of more.
He angled himself to her entrance, and then he released her nipple. “Come up onto your knees.”
She obeyed his instruction, rising over him on the smooth squab. One of his hands settled on her waist. “Now sit on me. Take my cock.”
Tentatively, she lowered herself on him. As before, she was unprepared for the initial stretch, the unusual invasion of him, thick and long and hard. But then he guided her down all the way, and he was buried deep, and there had never been a more glorious sensation in the world.