The Duchess and the Highwayman (Hearts in Hiding 1)

“Do I please you?” he whispered.

“You please me,” she responded softly, “but I am afraid…” She wasn’t sure how to phrase this. A married woman was only good for producing children, so voicing concerns that regarded procreation hardly had its place.

His eyes kindled with a softness she’d not seen before. She could almost believe he cared for her concerns, and maybe he did. What did she know of men, after all? This wild romp with Hugh transcended the boundaries of her experience. She’d played the whore, and now suddenly she’d changed her mind. How could she put that into words? Yet the way he was looking at her now suggested he might care.

She cleared her throat. “I know we’ve been very…abandoned,” she began. “And this has all taken me quite by surprise. I fled in fear, and I was rescued.” She ran her forefinger the length of his finely chiseled nose while her heart flooded with gratitude and some other emotion she couldn’t define. It couldn’t be love. What did that feel like anyway?

“But I’m afraid of bearing a child and facing those consequences on my own.” She squeezed shut her eyes, not sure what she’d see when she opened them. To her surprise: understanding and tenderness.

“You won’t be alone, Phoebe. I promise you that. I love you too much. But you’re right; it would not be fair either to you or a resulting child. I should know that, of course, in view of what Ada has gone through.”

“Then what can be done?” she cried despairingly. “I must leave you—”

“Good Lord, there’s everything to be done. Has no one ever spoken to you about such matters?” He frowned. “To be honest, I thought you had that side well under control, knowing I’m not your first.”

Phoebe twisted her head to look at the wall and sighed. “I don’t know a thing about it,” she admitted miserably. “Just that I’ve never conceived. Perhaps I’m barren. But perhaps not, for contrary to what you might think, I’m not in the habit of throwing myself at men. My experience, I assure you, is limited. It’s just…I would not bring a child into the world to bear such shame if we were not married.”

“That’s a conversation for another time. If I find you as sweet in a year as you are to me right now, perhaps a child would not be such a tragedy. Our royal family has dozens of bastards happily romping around, and no one seems to think any worse of them.”

“What if you found a wife?”

A shadow of discomfort crossed his face. “I’m not looking for a wife, Phoebe. I’ve got you.”

Very unsatisfactory. But not so his gentle stroking of her breasts.

“No need to look so concerned, my precious. I hear what you say, and I know what I need to do. Now, does that satisfy you?”

She was dubious. “I’m sure whatever it is, it won’t satisfy you, sir.”

“Ah, there are plenty of other ways you can satisfy me, although I’d like to add that seeing you take your own pleasure is immensely satisfying to me.”

He rolled onto his back and pulled her on top of him so he could suckle her nipples. He was hard beneath her, and she wriggled down and without warning took him deeply into her mouth while gently playing with his balls.

“Oh my Lord, where did you learn that, Phoebe?”

She was hardly about to tell him: Wentworth. Wentworth was debauched. She’d not try half the things Wentworth would have her do to him—or that he liked to do to her. Then she shuddered with fear at the thought of what he might do to her now if he got the chance. It wouldn’t be nice.

Mistaking her response for anticipation, Hugh gently rolled her over once more.

“I’m so close, but I’m desperate to taste all your charms, Phoebe dearest, before I bury myself in you.”

Burrowing deeper into the bed, he parted her legs and gently touched his lips to her most intimate parts. “Like it?” he whispered before he ran his tongue the length of her cleft.

She gripped the sheets and tensed. “Oh, I didn’t know…” She could feel the tension within her building with an intensity she’d never experienced. “Stop, Hugh. Stop!”

But he didn’t. He kept kissing her, until she could bear it no longer, and with a great thrashing and moaning, she took her pleasure before she could stop him.

“So you did like that?” he asked with a wicked leer as he climbed back on top of her, entering her swiftly with a grunt of unadulterated pleasure.

Phoebe merely smiled her satisfaction. She might be sated, but not for long, as Hugh clearly was transported by his own heady pleasures as he thrust into her in smooth, rapidly increasing strokes.

Phoebe rode the storm, loving his total abandon, loving the pressure within her grow once again until he came with a great cry of triumph, true to his word as he withdrew just in time.

“Oh my sweet lord, Phoebe, but that was marvelous!” he gasped. “I daresay the servants heard it all the way down in the basement. Well, it’s time I took you away from this place where you feel the censure, and I can see you’re so unhappy.” He grinned, and Phoebe’s heart contracted at the guileless look on his face. Wentworth was always so dismissive and self-satisfied after acts like this, declaring that if there wasn’t an heir to be had after “that,” then he didn’t know what Phoebe’s problem was.

She tensed at the thought of him. Sir Roderick was sniffing around the neighborhood; a bounty was on her head. She needed to leave.

“Let us go soon,” she begged, and he nodded as he pulled on his breeches. Slanting a look at her, he said, “Why not tomorrow? You can wear that fetching new carriage dress you ordered, and we shall exit this part of the world as if you were my wife. Wouldn’t that be novel?”