Gripping her hips with both hands to steady her, he tasted and nipped and licked, running his long, rasping tongue up and then down her swollen folds, stroking the engorged bud of her femininity. Intense pleasure shot darkly through her like spears of flame, its white heat searing her.
Brynn gasped, writhing restlessly against the unrelenting caress of his tongue. She was hot and feverish… and suddenly she could no longer remain still. She arched and exploded in a shuddering climax, grinding her pubis against his blazing, eager mouth.
She was still moaning helplessly as the savage ripples died away, but no sooner had she started to sag limply in Lucian’s arms than he shifted her bodily, lowering her onto his swollen shaft. Gritting his teeth, he thrust urgently into her, forcing her to yet another fierce climb toward brutal, exquisite sensation. In only moments she was writhing again. She bucked against him as he plunged even more deeply, almost sobbing. Soon wave after wave of rapture racked her quivering body, until finally he relented and sought his own shattering explosion.
Brynn collapsed bonelessly on his chest. She lay dazed, her hair tumbled and wild around them, Lucian’s ragged breathing harsh in her ear, the taste of him lingering on her lips.
“That was adequate enough for your first effort, wife,” he murmured wryly, “but you will have to do better than that in future.”
The barest hint of laughter edged his passion-weary voice, making her realize he was deliberately provoking her. Yet Brynn could barely find the energy to retort. “Perhaps it was your tutelage at fault, rather than my efforts.”
“Perhaps. I see I should teach you other ways to arouse me.”
She lifted her head from his bare shoulder. “There are other ways?”
His mouth curved in a rakish smile. “Indeed. There are any number of methods.”
“What is wrong with what I just did?”
“Nothing was wrong-in fact, it was very right. But you don’t want me to grow bored, do you? If you learn to keep me satisfied, it stands to reason I will be more willing to accommodate your sexual needs, and that you will be more likely to conceive. Isn’t that what you want? To conceive a child so you can be done with me?”
Brynn gazed down into his blue, blue eyes. She could feel him swelling again inside her, huge and hot and potent. “Yes,” she lied. “That is what I want.”
“Well then, wife,” he said huskily, drawing her mouth down to his. “We had best move on to the next lesson.”
Lucian proved quite serious about requiring Brynn to initiate their lovemaking. He insisted that she come to his bed and wouldn’t allow her to confine their frequent sessions to merely the dark hours of night.
He also made good on his pledge to teach her to arouse him, showing her how to move, how to caress, how to pleasure. Brynn was sometimes shocked by the intimacies he suggested, but he had only to coax her with his tantalizing brand of charm, and her body melted to his touch. She was helpless against such overwhelming sensuality and raw magnetism. Thus it relieved her greatly to develop defensive weapons of her own to use in their erotic battles.
She had always possessed the power to incite masculine desire, but under his tutelage, Brynn developed the skills to purposely drive a man wild. Her newfound mastery worked even on Lucian, whose legendary tastes had become jaded and acutely discriminating.
Within a few days of commencing her lessons, she was able to demonstrate the extent of her expanded powers. They lay in his bed, with Brynn draped over her husband, lazily pressing kisses along his naked chest, his hard, flat belly, his swelling erection. When she eventually took him in her mouth, Lucian quivered like a stallion. Moments later, he clenched his teeth and drew away with a groan.
“What is wrong?” she asked curiously, though not with any real concern.
“You know very well what is wrong, wife. Enduring your torment is an agony.”
Brynn smiled, triumphant to know this man trembled for her. Deliberately she smoothed her hands up his torso and drew her tongue along his throbbing sex, teasing the sensitive ridge. “Pray tell, how do I torment you?”
Taking her by surprise, Lucian rolled over her, pinning her lightly beneath his weight. His eyes dark with desire, he gazed down at her with unexpected seriousness. “Your very remoteness, love. Even when you are provoking me to savage hunger, you remain distant.” His frown deepened as he brushed a flaming tendril from her forehead. “You hide your passion behind a deliberate coolness, which only makes a man burn for you all the more.”
Brynn forced a smile, not at all convinced that her attempt at coolness was succeeding. “Is that not what I am supposed to be learning? How to make you burn for me?”
“Devil it is. And it’s damned effective,” he murmured against her lips.
Drawing him down, she surrendered to his kiss, eager to distract him from his probing scrutiny. She was indeed desperately struggling to repress any emotion, any feeling for Lucian, yet maintaining a strict detachment was proving lamentably arduous.
Making love to him was no longer a duty she resented. No longer merely a means to achieve her goal of conceiving his child. She wanted Lucian. She wanted to arouse his hunger. Wanted to feel the hot rise of his desire, the hot tremor of his flesh between her thighs, moving inside her. She had begun to crave his touch with a dismaying intensity.
If she managed to hide her response, it was only due to years of practice, presenting a chill facade to her admirers. But he had only to caress her to send blood rushing through her veins, filling her with hot yearning. She had only to glimpse the passion flaming in his eyes to feel an answering passion burning deep within her own body. She could feel his enchantment, drawing her ever closer, tugging on her heartstrings, pushing her toward the dark inferno of an impossible dilemma.
The magnitude of the danger became even clearer a fortnight later when her dearest friend, Meredith, finally arrived in London with her husband, Viscount Audley, and their new infant son. Meredith had retired from society when her pregnancy became obvious but had returned in time for the Little Season.
For a duke’s daughter, Meredith was not at all arrogant or highbrowed. In both disposition and looks, she resembled a cheerful, pretty Cupid, with her pleasantly plump figure and laughing mouth and short blond curls. Brynn called on her at the first opportunity and received a fervent welcome. After catching up on Meredith’s account of her pregnancy, they went upstairs to admire the napping baby Rupert, who promptly woke and began fussing.
“May I hold him?” Brynn asked.
“Of course. Although don’t be upset if he spits on your gown. I cannot tell you how many bodices he has ruined.”
“I won’t mind. Theo regularly spit up on me when he was a baby.”
Brynn took the mewling infant in her arms and immediately began rocking him, reminded of the countless hours she had soothed her baby brother after their mother’s untimely death in childbirth. To Brynn’s delight, Rupert shortly stopped his fretting and gave her a gurgling smile.
She winced, unprepared for the sweet, responsive pangs in her breast as she cradled the darling child or the powerful maternal instincts he stirred. Perhaps her reaction was because she missed her youngest brother so dreadfully. Or perhaps because the thought of conceiving Lucian’s child had been so much on her mind of late…
“You should see yourself, Brynn,” her friend observed quietly. “You are positively glowing.”
Pressing a tender kiss on Rupert’s silken forehead, Brynn smiled. “I have always wanted a child of my own.”
“But not a husband?”
“No, not a husband.”
“Well, marriage obviously agrees with you.”
Brynn didn’t reply.
“So do you ever mean to satisfy my curiosity? I was never so shocked in my life as when I received your letter informing me you had wed Wycliff. I gather he proposed because of the curse, but I thought you meant never to marry. I am simply dying to know how it came about. Especially since he was considered such a profoundly elusive prize.”