A Night With Him

“Surely you can’t mean you’re just going to come in and make yourself at home like you…you’re…”

“Like I’m what? Your husband?” There was a wicked glimmer in Jack Barden’s eyes.  He sat himself on the end of the bed and proceeded to nonchalantly pull off his boots.

Hazel watched in shock.  Was the man really going to spend the night in her room? Never mind that they were husband and wife.  He was the Duke of Amberly, a respected man in his circles.  Why he had ever chosen her, country girl Hazel Carling, was beyond her.

And yet…she wanted him here.

She cursed herself for allowing that thought into her mind.  This marriage was not a love match.  At least, she didn’t see how he could be in love with her.  He never said anything to make her think so.  But there was attraction.  She knew that.  And right now she just couldn’t fight it.  The duke was a very handsome man, and now, wearing only his tan trousers and his white shirt, which was open enough to show his hard tanned chest, he was almost sinfully sexy.

Hazel never thought herself any great catch.  She had long been a maid in a country inn, forced to earn her living after the deaths of her parents from cholera.  She assumed she would remain unmarried, or perhaps marry one of the pleasant, stolid farmers who viewed marriage as the easy way to procure a housekeeper.  For many poor girls in 1820s England, this was a likely fate.

Then Jack Barden rode in on his return from service in the navy and almost made her faint when his dark manly eyes fell on her.  He was a grave man, serious, intent on whatever task he had at hand.  She liked that.  In his presence she felt safe.

So she was astonished when he proposed marriage.  Was he out of his mind? He was a nobleman, expected to produce an heir and continue his honorable family line.  No, he meant it.

They had been married almost immediately, since he had connections through his title.  Hazel was in awe of his beautiful country home, a kind of dwelling she’d never set foot in.  He made one request: that she fulfil the domestic duties of lady of the house.  Of course she agreed.  Life in this place would be a pleasure.  But it soon became evident to her that he was seeing her not solely as his housekeeper.

Tonight marked one month since their wedding.  She had enjoyed the privacy of her own apartments, generously appropriated by the duke.  Thus she was greatly startled when he strode in, closing the door behind him with great deliberation, and in a state of undress she had never seen him in.  It seemed so improper.  Besides, she had just begun undressing herself, the back of her red satin gown unfastened.  She wrapped her arms around herself to keep the bodice from slipping down.

“It struck me just now when I went to my room,” the duke began, rising and beginning to unbutton his shirt, “that we are the duke and duchess.  Why should we be in separate rooms?”

She swallowed a little nervously.  It was hard not to drink in the sight of him, standing tall and broad-shouldered and unashamedly manly.  “It was your idea, sir,” she began.

“Sir? Hazel, you’re my wife.  Call me by my name.  Jack.”

“This isn’t a good idea…Jack.”  She liked saying his name.  Her eye darted to meet his.

From the second he’d seen her in that homely inn, Jack Barden knew he’d found a rare woman, the kind he needed.  The kind he wanted.  She was a lady in spite of her poverty.  Now, dressed in wine-red, her skin the shade of bronze that Italian women were blest with, and her black hair falling in thick ringlets down her back, she allured him more than ever.  He wanted to walk over and grab her in his strong arms and press his mouth to her beautiful red lips.  But he mustn’t do too much at once.  Barging into her room like this was enough of a shock.  So he held himself in.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met,” he declared, forgetting what she’d last said.

Her cheeks warmed with pleasure at his compliment.  She admitted to herself that it was sweet to be so desirable in his eyes.  If she had the courage, she would tell him how desirable he was in hers.  But how could she? He might just be playing a game.  He was a duke and had the right.  Or he might be drunk and didn’t have full control of his faculties.  Then she remembered.  He didn’t drink.

“Tell me to leave, and I will,” he spoke.  His voice was softer.

Hazel quivered.  She moved towards him, then stopped.  “Why did you come in here? It’s…still early, too early for sleep.”

His eyes rested on her face, loving the design and contour of it the more he looked.  “I know.  I was brash.  But I wondered…”

Her heart raced.  She felt her body tingle, the depths of her belly tensing up in delicious anticipation.  But…she didn’t want him to use her for the night and then leave.  Many men selfishly viewed their wives as the means to release, and marriages were truly one-sided as far as pleasure was concerned.  Besides, it had to be built on love and respect.  She was not a plaything.  She was a woman who wanted to receive the same kind of love she was giving.

She started, realizing she had confessed it, though only in thought.  She loved him.  Well, that shouldn’t be a surprise.  She was aching to be close to him, to feel his body touching hers, his strong hands holding her, his lips…

His slow, deliberate gait as he neared her snapped her back to the moment.  “From the minute I saw you, I wanted you, Hazel,” he said, his voice low and a little husky.  To Hazel’s confusion and delight, his breeches had begun to bulge in the front.  She was embarrassed, yet thrilled to know that she was the cause of his arousal.

“I don’t want a fling for a night, as if I was a loose woman you visit to pay for lovemaking,” she whispered.

He stopped.  “You think that’s what I’m going to do?” He sounded a little startled and hurt.

“Are you?” She couldn’t stop the question.

He was breathing heavily, his chest rising.  Her lovely, windblown beauty was driving him mad.  His loins ached for relief.  “No.  Don’t you see what you do to me?” he growled.

Her resolve was almost shattered.  It was agony to keep away from him.  “I want this marriage to be real, Jack.  It can’t be based on the physical alone.  I want you…to love me.”

“Hazel…” he started, coming closer.  “Damn it, I’ve loved you from the second I saw you!”

She stared.  “You never said so.”

“I thought you’d doubt it,” he rejoined.

Tentatively, she reached out and placed her hand on his chest.  He inhaled.

“You love me,” she repeated.

“Yes.  I love you.”

“I love you,” she said simply.

His eyes flamed with tenderness and frenzy.  He grabbed her upper arms and pulled her to him, and caught her lips with his in a deep kiss.

A moan caressed her throat.  This was even more magical than she’d imagined.  His mouth was hot, pressing and nuzzling hers and trying to open her lips.  She allowed it, meeting his searching tongue.  They kissed for long minutes.  His hands strayed over her bare shoulders and down her back.  Her dress, already loose, fell away from her breasts, revealing them to the heated air of the room and the lustful gaze of the duke.  He kneaded them gently, drawing more moans from her.

Abruptly, he swung her up into his arms and carried her to the bed.  He couldn’t wait anymore.  She was too seductive, too intoxicating, like a powerful wine.  He had to drink to the fullest.  He laid her down and pressed his body over hers, holding her gaze for a moment, then taking her lips again.  She opened his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders so she could caress the muscular planes of his chest and belly.  At her touch, he groaned.  The veins in his shoulders strained themselves against his skin.  His blood was pumping thick and hot.  His manhood throbbed, especially as he ground himself into her.

“I want to feel you, every bit of you,” he mumbled against her neck.  “Let me take your clothes off.”

Simple words, but so sexy in her ears.  She helped him strip away the cumbersome gown and underthings and toss them on the floor.  His shirt followed and she reached for the buttons on his trousers.  He stayed her hand.  She looked at him questioningly.

“I might not last long if you touch me there,” he explained, a tiny smile warring with the hungry look in his eyes.

She laid back, drawing him down over her.  “Then keep kissing me.  It’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever felt.”

He needed no second command.

Her hands were soft and supple on his back and up his neck, her fingers twining into his dark hair.  He couldn’t keep from sighing into her mouth.  She loved that.  He was so alive, so real, so…close.  His mouth strayed to her breasts and he lapped at them tenderly, the soft swells responding to his intimate touch.  Hazel groaned.  To be naked in this man’s arms and feeling him hard and strong and fiercely tender against her—this was paradise.  And it was only the start.   When he rolled his hips against her, she could feel his hardness.  It shocked her womanhood with delicious sparks of stimulation.  She couldn’t help but grind against him in return, sensing that she was moistening the front of his trousers.  It made her blush hot.  Her body was thirsting for him and wasn’t shy about showing it.

Suddenly his hand darted down between them, and he gently rubbed over her mound.  She inhaled, squirming.  “More,” she begged.  His light touch drove her mad.  Her hips jutted out, seeking his hand.  It was a gnawing need that only he could fill.

“You want me?” he whispered huskily, again stroking over her damp flower.

“Yes,” she gasped.  “Let me see you…all of you.”

His eyes flashed with arousal.  Without answering, he lifted himself up in order to pull off his trousers.  Hazel looked at him.  He was proudly erect and thick.  She reached out and felt him.  He quivered.

“Oh God, don’t, Hazel,” he pleaded.

“I want to touch you,” she remonstrated.  First, she kissed his chest, then swept her hands deliberately down to his waist, to the sensitive skin around his shaft.  His head fell back and his eyes closed.  Hazel loved the sight of his pleasure.  Yet she wanted to be generous and not make him climax too soon.

She found his hand and guided it back to her secret parts.  “Touch me, Jack.”

Delightedly, he did, pressing a finger into her slick hole.

She clenched around him with a “My God, that’s good!” while pulling him down to taste his mouth.

“You feel so hot and wonderful,” he murmured, adding another finger and working them slowly inside her.  “So wet, deliciously wet.”

Hazel writhed, the sensation of his invading fingers so strange and filling.  What would it be like to take his manhood into her? She had to feel it and know it for herself.  She grasped his hard biceps.

“I want you, Jack,” she whispered.

“And I want you, but it may hurt,” he cautioned gently.

“I want it.  I want to cleave to you as a man and his wife should,” she replied softly.

That did it for Jack.  He settled over her, just pressing his length along her cushioned wetness, almost losing his control as he realized that he was about to make love with his wife.  Everything he’d heard from his married friends had never prepared him for this glory.  He couldn’t believe it was so wrenchingly satiating to be with a woman this way.

It was the same for Hazel.  The goal was not simply to do the deed, but to relish each sensual second, to let the wet fire of desire drip over her and him.  His closeness, his muscular body on her, made goosebumps dot her skin.  And when he moved, rubbing his beautiful male hardness against her, she wanted to faint.  The feeling was satisfying while also not enough.  She wanted more.  She needed him entirely.

He seemed to read her thought because he pushed harder and breached her.  She gasped, catching his shoulders in a biting grip.  His girth almost hurt.  Yet the knowledge that he was a part of her, and she of him, drove out any sensation of discomfort.  This was true oneness.  As he kissed her again with deep, lustful kisses, his shaft buried in her warmth, his legs pressing down on hers, she could have died.

He rocked his hips gently, gyrating in her.  Hazel nearly screamed when he touched a new spot and sent heated pressure through her loins.  His breathing was heavy.

“You like me inside you?” he questioned hoarsely, his eyes fixed on her face.

“Oh yes, yes, yes!” Hazel gasped out.  “Don’t stop, Jack, please.  Don’t ever stop!”

He sucked in air and lapped at her neck.  “I intend to do this every chance I get if you allow me.”

“Allow you!” Hazel sounded astonished.  “I crave it!”

Jack smiled at that.  Then, with an intentional movement, he raised his hips and began driving into her with measured thrusts.  Hazel moaned.  Her hands clenched his back, the nails almost cutting his skin.  Her core was flooded with arousal and the squelch of his firm meat in and out of her folds pulled him closer to the brink.

“Touch yourself right here,” he ordered, placing her hand at the peak of her cleft.

Hazel obeyed, feeling hot sparks emanate from that nub into her deepest regions.  A vague something, a bottled-up need, a craze, a thirst, bubbled up towards the surface.  She was sure that if her fingers kept stroking and her husband kept cleaving her, she would go over the waterfall with a grand explosion.

To her surprise, though, Jack stopped and pulled out.

“What are you doing?” She couldn’t help sounding disappointed.

“Do you want the night to end so soon?” he asked slyly, rising from the bed and standing in his glorious male nakedness.

“Well…” she began with a tiny chuckle.

He reached down and pulled her towards him by the ankles.  “Let’s try it this way.  I can go deeper and it may feel even better for you.”

Hazel would have jumped off a cliff for him at that point and went along willingly as he stood beside the bed and propped her feet on his shoulders.  Carefully, he impaled her again, and Hazel’s breath was pulled from her lungs in a long, sensuous gasp.

“Oh God, dear God!” she blurted.

Jack’s thrusts were still slow and deliberate, but they were deeper, as he’d said.  With her legs up, the sensation of his length raking through her tunnel was different, angled towards the front of her inner wall.  The delicious weight of him pressing into her womb made her moan and shout.

Jack couldn’t get enough of the lovely girl making love with him.  Why had he been so long about proposing intimacy? She had wanted it just as he had.  And this was no one-night affair.  This was the start of their real marriage, the first night of many to follow.  No more sleeping in separate rooms!

“Jack, you’re going to make me explode!” Hazel broke into his thoughts with a yell.

“Do it, my bride.  Let your wetness wash my cock,” he encouraged.  He could feel that build-up in his ball sack, and he wanted to join her in that final gush of pleasure.

“Oh yes…yes…deeper…fill me up, darling…oh God, I love you!” Hazel’s head jerked up, her mouth wrenched open.  Fire filled her veins and her loins tightened.  Jack pounded a little faster, his eyes darting from his wife’s contorted face to her shining flesh swallowing his driving manhood, and he lost it.

“God…yes…oh, damn it…dear God…oh, Hazel…it’s hot…wet…” he bellowed as he felt his head go light and his shaft pulse, spewing hot seed into Hazel’s body.  She had unleashed her juices on him and he thrust uncontrollably in the wetness even as he came.  Their cries united and their hearts raced.

Jack’s legs felt like water as he regained some of his senses, so he lightly withdrew his tender tool from Hazel’s center and came to lie alongside her.  She welcomed him, nestling into his chest and throwing a leg over his.

“My darling wife,” he murmured, kissing her lips again and again.

“Forgive me for thinking you only wanted to use me,” she said penitently.

“It was understandable,” he remonstrated.  “But I give you my word: I love you and have wanted all of you from the moment we met.  I just…I thought you would not be ready after already making such great changes in your life.  You needed time in this house and in the new position as the Duchess of Amberly.”

Hazel gazed into his eyes.  Such handsome eyes, dark and simmering.  “I can’t fathom why you chose me.  Surely you know many sophisticated, noble women who would better fill the role.”

Jack shook his head deliberately.  “They may be physically lovely, but they do not have the grace or kindness that I saw in you.  Hazel Barden, you honor me by becoming my duchess…and my lover.  Will you continue with both?”

“Yes,” Hazel assented, smiling tenderly and stroking his lean jaw.  “I am the one who is honored.  I love you, Jack.”

“I love you, my Hazel.”

From then on, the Duke and Duchess of Amberly walked together on the demanding path of nobility, he to lead and protect, she to comfort and encourage.  They used their wealth and position for the aid of others, easing the back-breaking work of their dependents, arranging congenial marriages for other working girls who had no natural protectors, and making their abode a place of rest and respite for travelers.  And every night, they retreated to the master bedroom to give and take their fill of love.