Chapter Text
Colin had been back at Aubrey Hall for five minutes, and he wanted a drink more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He stole into Anthony’s study, grateful that the rest of their guests were occupied with the ball, and sat down with a decanter of brandy.
He poured a glass, downed it, and poured another. What had Marina meant when she said that he had Penelope? That Penelope made him happy? How had he gone through the brandy that quickly? He poured a third glass, swigged it. He ought to get up to his room before the ball ended and the guests were out in the halls. Grabbing the other decanter, the one he hadn’t emptied, he headed out of the study.
He’d just reached the top of the stairs when a voice called his name. Turning, he saw Penelope standing there.
“Pen? Why aren’t you at the ball?”
“Eloise ran out after her dance with Lord Morrison. I wanted to see if she was alright, but I have not found her.” She looked down at his hand. “Is that brandy?”
“It is. Have you ever had any before?”
“No, never. Is it awful?”
“If it was awful,” he said, swinging the decanter loosely between his fingers, “I wouldn’t drink it nearly so often.”
“May I try it?”
He should say no, and he knew it, but he didn’t want to. So he unstoppered the bottle and passed it to her.
“No glass?”
He gave her a devilish grin. “I suppose you’ll have to drink from the bottle.”
She took a tiny sip, barely enough to wet her lips.
“Come now, Pen, I didn’t share my brandy with you so you could take a child’s sip.”
“Isn’t it your brother’s brandy?”
“Never mind whose brandy it is. If you ask for a sip, you ought to take a proper one.”
She extended the bottle to him. “Pray then, show me how it is done.”
So he took a slug, passed the bottle back to her, and wiped his mouth.
She tipped the bottle up and swallowed. He could see the muscles in her throat working, and it sent a lick of heat through his body.
“If we’re going to drink brandy,” he said, “then we ought to go to my bedchamber to do it. I’ve got glasses there.”
She gasped. “Colin, I couldn’t.”
“Of course you could. Who would know? No one is in the hallway.”
Penelope looked both ways as though she was crossing the street, rather than looking for people who might be secretly observing them. “Alright,” she said, after a moment.
He took her hand, the one that wasn’t holding the brandy, and tugged her down the hall to his room. He opened the door and ushered Penelope inside, locking the door behind them.
“Have a seat,” he said, and handed her a pair of glasses. She poured one for each of them and passed his over.
She took a sip and looked at him. “Why aren’t you at the ball, Colin?”
“I just returned from my visit to Marina.”
“Oh,” Penelope said, and her voice was high and tight-sounding.
“She said the strangest thing.”
Penelope’s eyes widened.
“She said that I already have people in my life who make me happy. My family and— and you.”
A blush rose on Penelope’s cheeks.
“She is right, Pen. You are always there for me. You always want what is best for me, don’t you?”
The blush on Penelope’s cheeks had spread to her chest, and Colin wondered if it had also spread to her bosom, or if her breasts were the same creamy shade as the rest of her.
He was so caught up in the thought that he almost missed her emphatic nod. “Of course I do.”
“I have such fun with you, Pen. I have never met a young lady who is so easy to talk to. It is just as easy to talk to you as it is to talk to a gentleman.”
“Oh!” she cried, and a smile spread across her face. “It is easy to talk to you, too.”
He drained his glass and reached over her for the decanter, his face coming within inches of her breasts. What would happen, he wondered, if he just leaned over and buried his face in them? Penelope would surely shove him away, would storm out of the room.
He sat upright and looked at her face, her dazed appearance. She poked her tongue out, ran it over her bottom lip. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, and she said something he had never thought to hear.
“I’ve always wanted to kiss you, Colin.”
“You have?”
She nodded and took another sip of brandy. “I saw you looking at my bosom.”
The Penelope he had known for years would never say such a thing. But this was the Penelope he had known for years, and she was making casual comments about her breasts and his attraction to them.
He didn’t know what else to do, so he nodded.
“You can— do more than look, if you want.”
He wanted. God, he wanted. But this was Penelope, and she was a good, sweet young lady, and she deserved better than a quick grope in his bedroom while they were drunk on brandy and avoiding a ball.
His fingers itched to cup her breasts, though, and in the end, that won out.
“Are you certain, Pen?”
She nodded and he put his glass down on the table, took hers and put it there as well.
“This color is beautiful on you,” he said, and trailed a finger down her neck, across her breast to the spot where skin met gown. “Are your nipples the same color?” he asked, and dipped a finger under her neckline.
She gasped and he covered her mouth with a kiss. When she arched against him and her bosom pressed against his chest, he slid a hand between them to cup her right breast, giving it a light squeeze.
“Stand up for a moment,” he said, his voice gruff. She stood and he hitched her dress up around her legs, pulled her onto his lap so that she was straddling his hips, and kissed her again.
They hadn’t been kissing for long when he felt the first movement of her hips. It was ever so slight at first, then firmer, until she was grinding against him.
“Pen, I need— I need—” He drove his hips up into hers and she gasped.
“Whatever you need, Colin.”
“Lean back a little, then. Just sit on my knees for a moment.”
She moved back so that she was perched on his knees, and he undid the fall of his trousers.
He couldn’t put his cock in Penelope, he knew, but maybe he could just rub it against her, just for a moment. He drew it out and gave it a few strokes.
“Alright,” he said, grasping Penelope by the hips, “come here.”
He tugged her to him and felt her warmth, her wetness, against him. He gave a little thrust of his hips and his cock slipped between her lips, and he was so, so close to being inside her, and this was what he truly wanted more than anything.
Penelope gasped. “It feels— different than I thought it might.”
“How did you think it would feel?”
“I don’t know.” The sentence was punctuated with a moan. “I’ve always heard that it hurts.”
“It would if I were inside you. But it only hurts for a moment.”
“Oh,” she said. “Are you not inside me?”
“You would know if I was.” He reached down between them, slipped a finger into her.
“Oh! Colin!”
“God, Penelope, you’re so wet.”
She blinked at him, her face uncertain. “Is that good?”
“It’s so good,” he said, working his fingers in and out of her. “You’re so good.”
“You’re inside me now, aren’t you?”
“My fingers are, but not my—” Could he say cock in front of a gently bred young lady? He supposed he could, since the young lady in question had seen it, but it felt strange.
“Your member?”
“Right, yes.”
“Would it feel different than your fingers if you put it in me?”
He tried, and failed, to stifle a groan. “It is larger than my fingers, so you would feel fuller.”
“And for you?”
“It would feel tight and wet and wonderful.”
She squirmed in his lap. “Put it in me, Colin.”
“I can’t, Pen. We are not married.”
“You have to be married to do it?”
“You should be.”
She seemed to accept that, although she kissed him more fiercely and pressed her hips against him more firmly.
He ground against her, his cock sliding through her slick heat. As long as he didn’t put it in her, it would be alright.
Just as he thought it, the tip of his cock slipped into Penelope and she froze. “Did you—? Is that—?”
Colin, who was struggling to form a coherent thought, let alone speak, simply nodded and gritted his teeth. He did not pull out. He wasn’t certain that he could.
Then, all of a sudden, two things happened. The first was that Colin’s hips stuttered a little. The second was that Penelope’s legs started to tremble and then gave out, dropping her onto Colin’s lap, so that he was fully sheathed inside her.
Penelope’s arms, which had been wrapped loosely around Colin’s shoulders, gripped him with unexpected strength.
“Pen, I—”
“Please don’t take it out,” she said beseechingly. “Please.”
Colin, who couldn’t have pulled out if he tried, nodded. “We shouldn’t be doing this, but I want to so badly.”
“So do I. What happens next? Is it like this the whole time?”
“No, ah, I would move. The way my fingers moved.” He pressed a kiss to her collarbone. “But I shouldn’t.”
“You should,” she said, and her voice was so certain that Colin couldn’t help but cant his hips upward. She gasped and he did it again, just to hear her.
“It really is different than I expected.”
“Better?” he asked.
“Much better. I just— I want something more. Like when you moved earlier.”
And with that, he was done for. He held her tightly to him and surged up into her, listening to her gasps and cries and moans, then swallowing them with his mouth.
Her hips were working, and she was bouncing in his lap, and he had the sudden, fierce desire for her breasts to be free of her gown so that he could watch them bounce, too.
“Next time,” he said, “I will need you naked, so that I can see all of you, watch you tremble as I please you.”
“Oh!” she cried. “Will you be naked, too? I think— I would like to look at you.”
At that, he gave a hard thrust and she clenched around him. A few more strokes and he was releasing into her and she was kissing him, and he had never felt anything like this. It had never been like this before.
He dropped his head to her shoulder and she held him close and stroked his hair and murmured to him, words so soft that he couldn’t hear them.
***
After several minutes, he lifted his head and looked at her sleepily. “Come lie on the bed with me? Let me touch you again?” As he said it, he trailed his hand across her back, running his fingers lightly up and down her spine.
Love swelled up in her, so strong that she couldn’t speak. She’d seen Colin with his hair mussed from riding, or from running his hands through it, but this time, it was because of her. The sleepy, satisfied look on his face was because of her. He smiled at her and she nodded.
“Pen?” He brushed a curl off her forehead and pressed a kiss in the spot where it been. “You ready to get up?”
She got to her feet, and as she did, his member slipped out of her, and it was the most unusual sensation. She looked down at his lap. “It looks different than it did earlier.”
He grinned crookedly up at her and extended a hand. “Help me up and I’ll explain.”
Then he got to his feet, and he was behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder. He nosed into her hair. “You smell so good. Why have I never smelled you before?”
“Because we’ve always been in public and your mother would kill you?”
He laughed, then guided her, his arms still around her, to the bed. Somehow, she managed to walk with his lips on her neck and his hand on her breast, and when they got there, he reached for the buttons on her gown and began undoing them.
“Is this alright, Pen?”
She didn’t know why he was asking, since in every respect, he’d treated her as a wife tonight, and of course a wife would allow her husband to unbutton her gown. But his fingers had stilled and he was clearly waiting for an answer, so she nodded. “Yes, of course.”
His fingers continued their work and soon her gown was on the floor, her stays and chemise joining it in quick succession, and she was bare in front of Colin, whose member was once again large and red and standing up from his body.
“Do you still want to see me?” he asked.
She nodded, suddenly feeling rather shy.
“Will you help me undress, then?”
“Yes,” she said, “but I don’t know what to do.”
“Why don’t I do it this time? Next time you can help me.”
A delicious shiver passed through Penelope at the thought of a ‘next time.’ That Colin Bridgerton would want to lie with her not just once, but twice, was nothing short of astonishing.
His shirt came over his head, and he pushed his trousers down, and soon he was standing in front of Penelope, just as naked as she was.
“You are so tanned.”
He chuckled. “In Cyprus, on several occasions, I swam in the nude. Only when no one else was on the beach, of course.”
“Colin!”
“Don’t worry, Pen. By the time winter comes around again, I shall be as pale as the snow, and you will look at my chest and wish that I had remained tan.”
He cast a look down at her breasts. “But we have much better things to do than think about the color of my chest.” He bent and took Penelope’s nipple in his mouth.
Just when her legs began to buckle, Colin wrapped his arm around her waist and helped her onto the bed, placing her on her back in the center of the mattress.
“Every time there is a ball, you must wear that shade of pink, so that I can look at you and remember tonight.” Then he returned his mouth and his hand to her breast, and it somehow made the feeling between her legs grow, until she was lifting her hips, chasing something that just out of reach.
Intent as he was on her breasts, Colin didn’t notice her hips immediately, but when he did, he dropped his hand down and began stroking between her legs. His touch was so featherlight that she hitched her hips up toward him, trying to get him to press harder, to caress her more firmly, to end the agony, but he would not do it. He was smiling, a smug, infuriating smile, as though he knew exactly what he was doing and how it affected her, as though he liked it.
“Colin, please—”
“Please what, Pen?”
“Please touch me.”
“I am touching you,” he said, and dipped a finger inside her, keeping up the motions he was making with his thumb.
She moaned, unable to keep the sound inside her.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do. Please tell me.”
“Touch me more. Harder. I don’t know.”
Colin lowered his head to her breast again, and his fingers moved steadily against her, against that spot that made her whole body tighten with pleasure. He kept rubbing and rubbing, and the most delicious feeling came over her, and she could do nothing but cry out Colin’s name.
When she came back into herself, Colin was holding her in his arms, and she could feel him pressing up against her.
“Colin? What was that?”
“That was your release, Penelope.” She must have looked confused, because he continued speaking. “Earlier, when we were on the sofa, and I thrust more deeply into you and then tucked my head against your neck? I felt the same way then.”
“Oh. Colin, it was wonderful. I’ve never felt— I didn’t know it was possible.”
“You can do it to yourself,” he said. “Like I did, with your fingers.”
“I can?”
“Yes, and for the next several weeks—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I hope you will do it and you’ll think of me.”
Then he dipped his head and kissed her, and she could feel his member pressing up against her belly, and she instinctively lifted her hips toward it. Colin groaned when she pressed them together. “Oh god, Pen, stop or I will need to take you again.”
“Like you did on the couch?” she asked, moving her hips against him with more confidence.
“Yes, like— oh— like that.”
“Take me again, Colin,” she said, feeling very bold and a little bit wanton.
“Alright,” Colin said, and his voice was deep and needy. “How do you want it?”
“I don’t know how I can want it.”
“You are so sweet, Pen. There is a position that will make it easier for both of us to have our release at the same time. I can show you if you like.”
She nodded furiously and Colin grinned and kissed her.
He maneuvered them so that she was on her hands and knees, and if it had been any other gentleman, she would have been horrified to find herself in this position. But Colin kissed her tenderly as he situated her body— a kiss to her shoulder blade, one to the back of her arm, a whole line of them down her spine, all while he whispered sweet words about how pretty she was and how lucky he was that she let him touch her thus.
Then he was draped over her back, kissing her on the neck and the shoulder, and touching that spot in between her legs, the one that made her want to push back against him and forward to chase the pleasure that his hand provided.
“Are you ready for me?” he whispered, and his breath tickled her ear and made her shiver.
“I’m ready.”
He was at her entrance, pushing in slowly, and he felt much larger from this angle. He gave her a moment to get adjusted, and then he was thrusting into her, his strokes slow and deep and his lips against her shoulder blade as he let out little grunts.
Then, when she thought it couldn’t feel any better, he reached between her legs and rubbed the little nub, slowly and firmly this time.
“Colin, oh, I’m going to—” she cried, and he rubbed a little harder and the pulsing pleasure spread through her, and at the same time, Colin let out a deep groan and she felt him spill inside her.
***
Colin barely kept himself from collapsing on Penelope after his release. Only his fear of hurting and frightening her kept his arms steady long enough to lower her to the bed and tuck her up against him. He kissed her brow and the tip of her nose and her full lips and she smiled at him, her eyes dreamy.
“That was so nice, Colin.”
“It was, wasn’t it?”
As far as he knew, Penelope didn’t have a particular regard for him. She liked him, of course, but most people liked him. He supposed that she had always regarded him as her best friend’s somewhat irritating older brother.
Still, he assumed that she’d accept his proposal of marriage. They were obviously sexually compatible, they’d always had fun dancing together, and she seemed to enjoy talking with him when he ran into her at Bridgerton House.
Before he could propose, though, he needed to get her back into her dress and on the sofa. He may have hopelessly compromised her, but he’d be damned if he proposed to her while they were lying naked in bed.
“Pen?” he whispered. “We need to get you dressed and back to your room before anyone else notices.”
“Oh,” she said, and her voice sounded strange. “Yes, of course.” She threw back the bedcovers and stood up.
She was looking anywhere but at him, so he put a hand on her arm. “We should— that is—”
“Don’t feel as though you need to— we are friends, Colin.”
“Friends. Right.” He tried to school his face so that he didn’t look as though he’d been punched in the gut. “If you need any help as a result of our, uh, intimacies, please let me know.”
“Our intimacies. Right.” Her voice was strained, and Colin didn’t know how to make it better.
“May I help you dress?”
“Of course,” she said, and demure, quiet Penelope was back. She put on her chemise, and he laced up her stays and tried very hard to keep from running his fingers along her sides. Then she slipped her gown over her head and turned so that he could button it up.
“I think it’s best if you stay here,” she said. “Eloise’s room is right next door, so if anyone sees me, I can pretend that I was coming from there.”
“Right,” he said, and the word was like ash in his mouth. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Pen.”
“Yes, tomorrow.” Her voice sounded as dry and hollow as his had felt.