Her Gilded Prison (Daughters of Sin 1)

“Anticipation for what is about to happen will affect any man like that—except my husband.”

“There is no excitement in possessing something undesirable. Your husband clearly has no discernment.” Lowering his face, he touched his lips to hers. He drew back, surprised. He’d not expected the frisson of sensation that fizzed through him. His cock hardened even more while his anticipation notched up several levels.

She did not respond. He thought quickly. In order to make this an encounter to remember he needed to fuel her with the same desire, otherwise it was worth nothing.

He rose, scooped her up and lay her on the mattress. She stared up at him in her thin night rail while he, still fully clothed, caged her with his body, gently kissing her throat, her collarbone and finally, once more, her lips. Tentatively she kissed him back but she still held herself aloof, as if terrified of succumbing to the base, elemental desire that was beginning to consume him.

His enjoyment grew. The seduction of a sweet, shy older woman who needed to be taught that love at any age was worth celebrating was more exciting than his previous hot and sweaty encounters where enthusiasm was high from the outset.

Her skin was smooth and dewy, her breasts full and firm beneath the sheer fabric that clothed her.

Smiling as he studied her, he slowly untied the bow of her lace-edged night rail and slipped his hand beneath. Her faint exhalation of surprise echoed his as he closed his hand over one of her glorious breasts. He began to massage the small peak until it hardened. He himself was so hard it was almost painful.

“Stephen, you need not go to so much trouble.” He stilled. “You’re not enjoying it?”

“Too much, but you are not obliged to pretend for my benefit.” Her words sounded as if they were forced from her, her eyes closed as if she could not look at him.

Guilt? Was she frigid? He didn’t think she was.

She whispered, “All I ask is that you join me beneath the sheets and we get this over with.”

Offended, he climbed off the bed and stood, tidying his rumpled garments. “So this really is just duty for you?” He knew he sounded like an injured schoolboy but he couldn’t help himself.

“Stephen, you don’t understand—”

“I understand very well. You want me to give you a child but you want nothing more from me.” Breathing heavily, he promised, “If I am required to...perform without us both gaining pleasure from the bargain then I withdraw my services.”

“I am fifteen years older than you. I am old and...certainly no beauty.”

“Not a beauty?” He sat heavily on the bed and looked at her. In the candlelight her eyes looked luminous with fear and his anger dissipated. He reached for her hand. “You’ve been conditioned to believe it. And by whom? Your husband, who’s never looked at any woman save his mistress. No doubt Araminta has picked up her father’s contemptuous attitude. The little jade thinks she’s too pretty by half, and I’ll admit she has spirit you’ll never have—a most engaging if infuriating commodity—but your looks are far more pleasing to me than her smug self-assurance.” At her shock he went on, “Now, I’m tired of trying to make it clear to you that I’ve been dreaming wicked, carnal dreams since I unwittingly spied on you through the casement. By God, you were a luscious sight and I want to enjoy you now.”

At her tremulous smile he laughed and threw himself onto her, demanding, “Now kiss me back or I refuse to partake in this bedroom sport.”

* * * * *

After that it was easy. Sybil’s reserve had never been so fully withdrawn within such a short time. No one had ever tried to cajole her into anything beyond the dry, formal relations that were the preserve of the drawing room and which, in her case with her husband, persisted so very rarely into her bedchamber.

She’d been married at seventeen during her first season. There’d been no flirtatious encounters with potential suitors beforehand. Humphry had proposed and that had been that. He’d been handsome and charming and he’d easily won her heart. During their six-week bridal tour in Cornwall he’d visited her once a week, performed the marriage act efficiently and in silence, and while her heart had reached out to him her body had been left cold by the experience. He’d not touched, kissed or caressed her. Ever.

Only as she grew older did she realize there was more to the act itself. Other women occasionally offered some oblique reference to which those in company might blush or titter. Sybil had no idea what they were talking about although they reinforced the suspicion that this “something more” she craved from Humphry was a physical manifestation of the affection a husband had for his wife.

It took her many years to resign herself to the fact that Humphry felt no physical attraction toward her and that as it would not be forthcoming from her husband she’d have to live without it.

Now, when she’d made her suggestion to Stephen on the wildest of impulses, she’d been determined to treat it in the same manner Humphry had gone about his bedroom encounters. It was the end result that was important. Not the process and she was just a foolish old woman if she thought it could be otherwise.

Yet slowly, with the sweep of Stephen’s hands over sensitive places, a well-placed kiss, and yes, Stephen’s increasingly believable show of genuine pleasure in her body, Sybil was losing her reserve.

In the shadows of her bedroom, as Stephen’s hand skimmed the line of her body from breast to hip, she allowed herself a tiny sigh of pleasure.

“My first victory,” he murmured against her lips, contouring her bottom and squeezing her against him. Against his jutting erection.

She jerked back as if stung but he just laughed and pulled her over, closer against him, whispering, “Desire is nothing to be afraid of, Sybil. Don’t you feel it too?”

And she did. In every nerve ending, in every secret place where pleasure had lain dormant her body was reveling in the slow but steady re-emergence of new life. It fed into her veins, sending ou

t signals to her brain to relax, just relax and enjoy what this handsome young man was offering her, which was so much more than she’d asked for.

They hadn’t made it under the covers. Sybil had planned for all the mechanics to take place in darkness and under the sheets; so when he reached down and grasped the hem of her nightgown, she gasped. He raised his arm, tugging the light linen shift with it and exposing her knees.