A Regency Duo Read online

  This was not the way she had envisaged their next meeting after her father informed her of Hawkwood’s offer. In her imaginings, Emma had graciously agreed to consider the duke’s offer of marriage and then kept him waiting several weeks before accepting.

  Her faux pas this evening had put her at a severe disadvantage.

  “You may bring your maid with you,” Hawkwood added at her continued silence. “But be aware she will not be allowed into the same room with us.”

  Emma’s wariness deepened. “Why not?”

  “That is for you to learn tomorrow,” he assured her. “I advise you not to be late,” he added in a hard voice as he threw the mask that matched her own onto a chair, then turned abruptly on his heel and left the room.

  Emma was in a state of even more confusion and nervousness by the time Hawkwood’s butler showed her into the duke’s private sitting room the following afternoon.

  As Hawkwood had predicted, her father had made no objection to her plans to visit the duke’s home this afternoon. Mainly because her parent had received a note from that gentleman this morning, explaining that Emma would be visiting Hawkwood House this afternoon so that she might have time to consider any changes she might wish to make to the house or household before they were married.

  Her maid, as the duke had told her would be the case, had been taken off by a footman upon their arrival, no doubt to join the rest of the household staff below stairs, while the butler was helping Emma remove her bonnet and cloak.

  If anything, the duke looked even more imposing today as he stood with his back toward one of the long windows that faced out into the garden. His shoulders appeared wider than ever in a dark gray superfine and snowy-white shirt and neckcloth, his waistcoat a silver brocade, worn with pale gray pantaloons that emphasized the musculature of his thighs above brown-topped, knee-high Hessians.

  Emma kept her gaze lowered as she said the words she had practiced over and over since the two of them parted the previous evening. “I sincerely apologize for having offended you—”

  “That is not the type of apology I require from you.”

  A frown creased her brow as she looked at him. “Then in what way do you wish me to apologize, Your Grace?”

  “On your knees.”

  Emma gasped. “On my knees…?”

  Adam had been in a state of arousal since the moment he arrived at the Wainwrights’ ball the previous evening, easily recognizing Emma beneath the mask that matched his own as she stood across the ballroom. She had looked utterly beautiful in a magenta-and-cream satin-and-lace evening gown, her hair a gleaming halo of gold about her head.

  Except he had not realized at the time the becoming blush on Emma’s cheeks and the slightly feverish glitter in her eyes had been caused by watching his brother’s cock disappear repeatedly down Juanita Millbrook’s throat!

  An intimacy which, despite Emma’s condemnation when she had believed that gentleman to be him, had obviously aroused her.

  It displeased Adam to an equal degree for Emma to have seen and been aroused by his own brother’s cock. “Having now witnessed how it is done, I believe a demonstration of what you learned from your spying yesterday evening to be appropriate.”

  The color quickly left and then blossomed in Emma’s cheeks. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Completely.”

  “But—”

  “It is nothing more than I shall expect once you are my wife. If you become my wife,” he added in warning.

  Emma continued to stare at him.

  “Now, Emma.” Adam continued to hold her gaze as he slowly unfastened the buttons on his gray pantaloons, allowing the flap to fall forward. As he was wearing no drawers beneath, he breathed a sigh of relief as his rigid and aroused cock was allowed to spring free, jutting up almost to his navel.

  Emma’s gaze became riveted on the thick length of Hawkwood’s bared cock the moment it was released from its confines.

  A cock she instantly realized was not the same one she had seen entering Lady Millbrook’s mouth yesterday evening. Hawkwood’s cock was even thicker and slightly longer than his brother’s, the bulbous top a deeper shade of red.

  “I will not wait indefinitely, Emma.”

  Her gaze flickered doubtfully to the duke’s face and then quickly to the side as she saw the unrelenting resolve in his expression and those pale glittering eyes. Once they were married… If they married, Hawkwood had warned her to expect to perform this intimacy with him in the bedchamber. But they were not married yet, and this was not the privacy of a bedchamber.

  “Get on your knees,” he instructed harshly.

  Her frown was pained. “What if someone should come in whilst we are—I am…”

  His answer was to cross the room and lock the door, his lengthy and exposed cock bobbing in front him. One dark eyebrow was arched expectantly when he turned back to face her.

  Emma gave a shake of her head. “I have never done anything so scandalous—”

  “I should damn well hope you have never done this before,” the duke said coldly. “Nor will you perform this act with any other gentleman but me once—if we are married.”

  She eyed him uncertainly. “There is still the possibility of marriage between us?”

  Emma had believed, despite the letter of explanation Hawkwood had sent to her father this morning, that the duke’s real reason for bringing her here was so that he might humiliate her in private before also humiliating her in public by withdrawing his offer of marriage. Nothing had been announced as yet, but as Emma knew only too well, the ton had a way of finding out these things.

  But if there was the least possibility of a marriage still taking place…

  Hawkwood’s eyes narrowed. “I will let you know that at the end of the week.”

  “The end of the week?” Emma squeaked.

  He nodded. “I have decided that you will call upon me every day at this time until I decide otherwise.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “For the purpose of my deciding whether or not a marriage between the two of us would at least be physically compatible,” he taunted.

  Implying he had already decided the immaturity she had demonstrated last night, when she accused him so unfairly, to be irredeemable? “Surely that is something we should decide together.”

  He raised a scornful brow. “Is it?”

  Emma managed to restrain another protest. Just. Because Hawkwood was as aware as she that as a wealthy and eligible duke, and she being only the daughter of an impoverished lord, he was the one who held all the power between them.

  “If you are unwilling, perhaps we should put an end to this now.” His long and slender fingers moved to adjust the open flap of his pantaloons.

  “No!” Emma drew in several steadying breaths in the hope of levelling her voice to something resembling normality. “I am merely… I did not expect this when you deman—asked me, to come here today.”

  Hawkwood gave a humorless smile as he released that flap on his pantaloons, once again fully exposing his straining cock, the tip damp from a release of juices. “Any more than I expected to be accused of being unfaithful before we have even walked down the aisle together.”

  She drew in a shaky breath. “I have apologized for that. Numerous times,” she added ruefully.

  Adam liked the spark of rebellion he could see in Emma’s eyes. The last thing he wanted in a wife was someone who always bowed to his dictates. Indeed, he had fully expected Emma to refuse his demand for intimacy.

  The fact that she had not had left him curious as to whether that lack of refusal was because she was bowing to his command or if she was curious to indulge in the intimacy she had witnessed yesterday evening.

  Admittedly, Adam’s initial intention had been to bare his cock to shock and punish Emma for daring to question his moral code—which included refraining from affairs with married ladies. But having now released his cock, Adam found himself held in the same grip of curiosity as
to whether or not Emma wanted his cock. Wanted him.

  Whether she would get down on her knees for him, as he asked, or turn tail and run.

  Adam watched through narrowed lids as Emma slowly approached where he stood, his breath catching in his throat as she then lowered her gaze and sank gracefully to her knees in front of him.

  Dear God…

  Adam had enjoyed receiving fellatio from ladies of the demimonde and the occasional mistress, often reciprocating if it was the exclusivity of the latter. But none of those other encounters had ever affected him the same way as having Emma on her knees in front of him did, her golden head bowed in submission. He now craved pushing his cock into the heat of her receptive mouth.

  It was something Adam knew he could very easily become addicted to.

  Emma swayed slightly as she realized her kneeling position meant her face was now on the same level as Hawkwood’s bared and fully erect cock. It was so engorged, Emma doubted her fingers would meet about that thickness, the blood visibly pulsing in the thick vein that ran along its length, a clear liquid leaking from its tip. All of which filled her with a longing to lick up and taste that release.

  Would it be sweet or bitter? Creamy or viscous?

  Oh God, was she really going to do this?

  Was she going to take Hawkwood’s cock into her mouth, lick and taste him, and then take him deeper still, as she had witnessed Juanita Millbrook doing to his brother the previous evening?

  Chapter 3

  “Remove your gloves first,” Hawkwood instructed as Emma tentatively raised her hands with the intention of encircling his throbbing member with gloved fingers. “I wish to feel your bare skin against mine.”

  Emma instinctively snatched her hands back and curled them into fists. She had thought she would at least have the barrier of her gloves between her own flesh and his, and that by doing so, she might have achieved keeping a distance between them. Which, in retrospect, seemed highly ridiculous of her when Hawkwood had the obvious intention of eventually pushing his cock deep into her mouth in the same manner she had seen his brother do with Juanita Millbrook.

  Emma kept her gaze lowered as she slowly removed her gloves, conscious the whole time of the swollen and erect shaft bobbing just inches away from her face. She was also breathing in his male essence, an earthy muskiness that invaded her senses and caused her breasts and between her thighs to swell in anticipation.

  Unfortunately, once Emma had removed her gloves and put them aside, she was again at a loss as to how to proceed.

  “Did you learn nothing from watching my brother and his mistress together?” Hawkwood demanded harshly as she continued to hesitate.

  Her cheeks bloomed with heat. “I was too… I was upset. Angry, when I believed that man was you.”

  “I am well aware of your misplaced anger,” he bit out. “Unfortunately for you, I am still angry, at you, for having believed me capable of such licentious behavior on the same day I called upon your father and made you an offer of marriage.”

  Emma could hear that anger in Hawkwood’s voice. And something else. Something that had sounded a little like disappointment at her continued skittishness. “I really am so very sorry—”

  “And I am suggesting a way in which your forgiveness might be earned.”

  She shook her head. “But this… What you are asking me to do is—is indecent.”

  “You seem to like saying that word,” he murmured speculatively. “Does it excite you to do so?”

  It did, Emma realized dazedly. Just saying indecent in these circumstances caused the blood to pulse hotly through her veins and made her breasts ache.

  “Answer me!”

  She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Whether it does or does not is not important.”

  “Everything we do and say together is important. Does it excite you to use certain words when you are speaking to me?”

  “Yes.” She closed her lids, aware of the pulse beating erratically in her throat.

  “Words such as cock and pussy?”

  Emma felt a clenching between her thighs. “Yes.”

  “Say them.”

  She flicked a glance up at him, quickly looking away again to quietly repeat, “Cock and pussy.”

  “Louder.”

  “Cock and pussy!”

  “Ass and tits.”

  She swallowed as her mouth was instantly infused with saliva. “Ass and tits.”

  “Would you like to feel my cock sliding between your breasts and then inside your pussy and ass?”

  Emma felt a gush of fluid between her swollen nether lips merely thinking about those intimacies.

  “Answer me.”

  “I did not know… Is it really possible for your cock to—to go there?” she gasped.

  “Fucking you in your ass?” Adam deliberately said the words that were causing her the most embarrassment.

  And something else. Something that sounded distinctly like excitement.

  It had only been his intention to make Emma squirm today. To make her suffer in the same way he had suffered the previous week and during the previous night and this morning as he waited to see her again. As soon as she entered his private sitting room, wearing a day dress the same sunny yellow as the daffodils in his garden, he had been beset with a need to strip her naked and bend her over the back of the couch before ploughing into her from behind.

  Even so, he had not intended to take this any further than punishing her by shocking her for having wrongly accused him of infidelity.

  Had he?

  No matter what his initial intention might have been, the moment Emma sank to her knees in front of him, Adam had been lost to all else but the thought of the pleasure of having the heat of her mouth on him, around him, sucking him.

  “Say the words, Emma.”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Is it possible for a man to—to put his cock in a lady’s ass?”

  “Yes, it is definitely possible,” he answered evenly, allowing her a little leeway. Emma was a lady, not a mistress or whore. “Do you think you might enjoy doing that?” It was something Adam particularly enjoyed. The tightness, the taboo pleasure, of taking a woman in her most intimate hole.

  “I… Perhaps. Does it hurt?” She frowned up at him.

  “Not if the gentleman prepares you properly and thoroughly.” The explanation that preparation involved his lubricated fingers going into and stretching that orifice could perhaps wait until another time. His cock was demanding her full attention for now. “Curl the fingers of one hand tightly about the base of my cock, and use the other hand to cup my balls.”

  Emma had been lost in the imagery of the lovemaking Hawkwood described. It sounded debauched, forbidden, indecent. And was now something she felt curious to try. But first…

  She followed the duke’s instruction, gasping softly at how silky soft the skin was on his cock, in direct contrast to the hairy roughness of the sac beneath.

  “Part your lips. Good girl,” he praised as Emma obediently opened her mouth, his hands coming to rest lightly on her shoulders to watch as the top of his cock press upon and then enter Emma’s moist and parted lips.

  He held her in place as he slowly began to pull back and then thrust forward. He repeated the movement, going deeper into the heat of her mouth each time he did so.

  “Relax the muscles in your throat,” Adam encouraged when Emma gagged and tried to pull back. He had been kept waiting too long to feel in the least patient. “Perfect,” he purred as he felt the immediate softening of her throat, allowing his cock to go deeper still. “I can actually feel myself moving deep inside you,” he murmured with satisfaction, his hand caressing the length of her throat allowing him to enjoy the continued slow and deep thrusts of his cock.

  It was, as Emma had accused last night, utterly debauched to indulge in such intimacy as this, and yet she could feel her own body responding to it. Her nipples were hard and aching inside her gown, her core heating, her n
ether lips becoming slick, the tiny nubbin above that a needy throb.

  “Dear God…” Hawkwood suddenly growled above her as she tensed the muscles of her throat to squeeze the long and throbbing length thrusting to the back of her mouth.

  One of Emma’s hands moved to grasp his thigh in an effort to keep her balance as his hips immediately began to piston faster, pushing deeper. Her other hand tightly gripped the base of his cock.

  “Release your fingers and let me come, Emma,” he said harshly. “Dear God, release my cum,” he groaned achingly.

  That pleading told Emma she had been wrong in her earlier assumption regarding power.

  The power was now all in her hands and mouth as Hawkwood’s thigh muscles tensed and trembled. She could hear his ragged breathing above her, feel his long fingers digging painfully into her shoulders as he pleaded with her to allow his release.

  She sucked his cock harder and deeper at the same time as she released the grip of her fingers, instantly feeling his flesh swell and grow even harder and longer inside her mouth, and seconds later his cock began to jerk and pulse and hot jets of his sweet and delicious release exploded down her waiting throat.

  “Tomorrow afternoon, it will be your turn to choose an intimacy you would enjoy.” Hawkwood held Emma against his chest as she sat on his thighs, the two of them lounging in an armchair after he had adjusted and refastened his pantaloons.

  “Surely we shall see each other again tomorrow evening at the Harpers’ musical soiree, if you are to attend?”

  “Unlike my brother, I do not care to enjoy clandestine assignations in other people’s houses,” he dismissed scathingly.

  Emma hid the heat of her face against his chest. “Did you enjoy our assignation today?”

  “Very much,” he answered honestly.

  “I enjoyed it too.”

  It pleased Adam to hear that.

  Her shyness after the intimacy they had shared also pleased him.