care. Reyn just wanted to suckle, but that would mean leaving her lips, which would be a travesty. His cock nestled against her lower belly, and he swore she thrust the littlest bit at him. The friction was exquisite yet maddening. There were too many layers of fabric between them.
But he would stick to kissing just a “usual kiss—nothing fancy.” Odd that such a simple embrace was nearly flattening him on his arse. Lady Kelby’s innocent enjoyment was a heady thing, and Reyn savored each nip and nibble. It gave him hope that they would be able to manage with some degree of compatibility.
He had never and could never take a woman against her will, but for Reyn, that had never been a problem. Females had been throwing themselves at him since he was fourteen, and he had grinned and caught every one. It had boosted his confidence that while he might have been a disaster in the schoolroom, he knew his way around the bedroom very, very well.
So well, in fact, that he had gotten a bit bored. Hence the Reining Monarchs. To his chagrin, he discovered he did not have the necessary sin inside him to “rein” for very long. When he returned to London, he wouldn’t renew his membership.
London was far-off, and thoughts of being with anyone other than Maris held no allure at the moment. He opened his eyes a sliver and saw that a brown curl had escaped and fluttered against her cheek. He brushed it back with his thumb, marveling at its softness, then closed his eyes again and let the kiss take him on its course. He didn’t know where it might lead, only knew that it was not his to command.
Not the countess’s either. She seemed as bewitched as he was. Reyn released his fragile control and held her tighter. There was not a space of air between their bodies, and his was alight with sensation, his cock marble-hard. He didn’t want to alarm her, but he wanted more.
More for her.
His own pleasure could wait.
Reluctantly he broke the kiss, but not the embrace. “I want us to go to the workroom, Maris,” he whispered into her ear.
She showed her alarm immediately and pulled away. “But you said—”
“I will not bed you, not yet. I will only when you are ready. But I wish to continue to kiss you. Where it’s warm and we can be private.” He hoped he’d make her scream and didn’t want to take the chance that some housemaid was right next door laid up with a toothache.
She frowned. “I really should go.”
“Give me five more minutes. Ten at the most.”
“That’s a very long time to kiss, Captain.”
“Reyn,” he reminded her. “And if I take too long and you become disinterested, I shall stop immediately.”
“Y-you kiss very well. That is unlikely to happen.”
“Maris, you won’t believe me, but I feel as though I’ve never kissed a woman before today. You kiss very well, too.”
She gave him a skeptical look, then navigated the crooked path through the attics.
As he followed her, he gave thought that Maris Kelby had probably never been kissed by any man save for the earl. That they had great affection for each other was obvious. But physical passion was not apparent. God. Had her marriage ever been consummated? The earl must have been well into his sixties when they married. Reyn knew that people aged differently. He sure as hell hoped when he was an older man he’d still be able to perform. But from what little Kelby had implied, relations were impossible between them now.
Reyn was definitely not prepared to take a thirty-four-year-old virgin to bed. Or any virgin, for that matter. He was sure he’d never fucked an entirely inexperienced woman in his life. If Maris Kelby was still untouched, it explained her shyness, and made the next ten minutes absolutely critical.
He couldn’t ask her. He didn’t know her well enough. And if he didn’t know her well enough to ask that question, he certainly did not know her well enough to kiss her where he planned to in the next few minutes. The absurdity of the situation almost brought him to laughter.
Chapter 8
Maris could feel the captain’s dark eyes boring into her back. Reyn. It had taken her years to remember to call her husband by his Christian name instead of Lord Kelby. She wasn’t sure she could use Captain Durant’s first name. It wasn’t proper.
Oh, good grief. She was a first-rate idiot.