She should not want him like this, Victoria thought desperately as Melbourne kissed her. They were not married. She was recently widowed. She was the Queen and he was her Prime Minister. And he was so, so much older than her. Flecks of grey spattered his hair, and there were crinkles around his eyes and lips. But she didn't care. She craved him with every breath she took; she longed for him with every moment that passed in her daily existence. And here they were, his arms tangled around her, his fingers snarled in her hair, his lips crushing hers. It felt good; it felt divine.
"Bed?" He finally broke away just enough to whisper the syllable with a tremulous voice, and Victoria nodded breathlessly. His fingers fell from her hair and then went down to lace with her hand. His room, she could see in the candlelight, was emerald green and gold. His bed was covered in a luscious brocade blanket that had been pulled back to reveal rumpled sheets - he'd obviously been waiting in bed for her to come. She had warned him, after all, to expect her.
"I must be gentle with you, Ma'am," Melbourne whispered.
"Why?" she demanded, for she'd cooked up rather fantastical ideas of being plundered from behind. Melbourne gave her a serious look and then said,
"You are still early on. Too vigorous of… well, you know… if I am too rough with you, it could ruin everything."
She frowned deeply. She could miscarry the baby by having relations that were too rough? Well, fine, then, she decided.
"Gentle will do," she told him. Melbourne smiled a little and led Victoria to his bed. She climbed up with him, and he cleared his throat as he knelt facing her.
"Would you mind… the nightgown?" He seemed nervous all of a sudden, and Victoria gave him a warm smile. She tugged at the hem of her nightgown and vividly remembered her arguments with Albert about food, about getting fat. But Lord M had assured her that she was not fat. Would he find her attractive enough, she wondered? She pulled off her nightgown and let it fall onto the brocade blanket. She tried not to cover herself up with her hands, tried not to conceal her breasts and stomach and sex.
"Victoria," breathed Melbourne, and he reached out to brush his fingertips over her collarbone, "How very beautiful you are."
"You flatter your queen," Victoria said tightly, but her nipples peaked in the night air and she saw Melbourne's eyes go there. He shook his head as he stared at her chest, and he murmured,
"It's not flattery. It's the truth. My God; it aches inside, how pretty you are."
Victoria blinked quickly and felt her breath sweep from her lungs. She reached up and pulled Melbourne's hand down lower, until he cupped her breast. His eyes fluttered shut for a moment, his thumb drifting over her pert nipple. Then his fingers compressed on the soft, round tissue, and he muttered,
"I have wanted this for so much longer than was appropriate. It's never been appropriate."
"I want to be inappropriate with you, Lord M," Victoria said. He opened his eyes and visibly gulped, and then he whispered,
"Shall I take off my nightshirt?"
"Please do." Victoria smirked then, and he let out a quivering breath before stripping off the garment and placing it beside Victoria's. She studied him then - the lean, taut muscles of his shoulders and arms, the flat plane of his chest with a dusting of greying hair, the cock that was at half mast. She reached out and wrapped her fingers around him, stroking a little. He started to firm up at once, growing harder and longer under her touch. His chest heaved and his eyes clenched shut as his hand manipulated Victoria's breast. She felt herself flush profoundly wet between her legs, and then a sensation of swollen, throbbing want took her over.
"I want you," she said in a creaking, low voice. "I want you so badly, William."
"Come here," he said, and she ignored the fact that her Prime Minister was ordering about the queen. She was with William now, her Lord M, and she would do as he instructed her. He lay on his side, his head on the pillow and his body looking more alluring than ever as he faced her. He patted the sheets in front of him and said softly, "Lie with your back to me, Ma'am."
"All right."
Victoria snuggled up against him, feeling the prod of his erection against the small of her back. She ground backward a little and heard him groan, and then his hand laced around the front of her and massaged at her breast again. His fingers trailed down over her stomach and settled at her lower abdomen.
"You are with child," he said, as though he could scarcely believe it.
"Your child," Victoria clarified, and Melbourne's voice was thick then as he whispered into her ear,
"I love the both of you more than you'll ever know."
"William." Victoria turned her head and then gasped a bit as he kissed her hard. Suddenly Victoria had a need to have him inside of her. She needed to feel him. She moved her right leg up and panted against Melbourne's lips, "Please be with me now."
He took hold of his cock and pressed it to Victoria's entrance, and his voice shook as he noted, "Damp already, Ma'am. Tell me, I beg you. Do you want this?"
"I want you," she informed him, "More than anything."
He pushed in then, and Victoria tossed her head back. Melbourne kissed the back of her long hair and moved his hand downward, through the little thatch of hair until his fingers pressed against her nub. He pulsed them there, flicking and pushing, stimulating Victoria as he rocked into her from behind. This position did not allow for the deep penetration she'd felt when she'd been atop him, nor the frenzy that had accompanied their dalliance on the wall at Dover House. But it felt good, truly good, for him to just rock back and forth and for his hand to be caressing her womanhood.
For a long while, she just lay there with her fingers cinching on the sheets, grasping at the pillow. She bit her lip and moaned as Melbourne thrust into her over and over again, as his hand worked magic on her most sensitive spot. Slowly, pressure built up within her body, and her ears began to grow warm. She felt a clench in her stomach, a heaviness in her chest, and she realised she was on the verge of breaking.
"I'm going to finish," she declared, and Melbourne just pressed harder with his thumb and sped up his thrusts a little. Victoria moaned and whispered again, "I'm going to finish."
"Find your pleasure, Victoria," Melbourne huffed. He urged her to bend her knees up to her chest so he could enter her more deeply, but he kept his hand working on her nub. She wrapped her ankles around his leg and reached back behind her, planting her palm flat on the cheek of his muscled backside. She pushed herself up onto an elbow and turned her face to look at him, and she squealed softly as everything snapped.
She kept her eyes on his as she came, as her body contracted and clenched around his cock. She met his jade-coloured gaze and whimpered, feeling her face and chest flush hot. As her bliss faded a little, she murmured,
"Spill yourself inside of me, William."
"Mmph." He tipped his head back, and his mouth fell open. His hand flew up to Victoria's breast and squeezed so hard it almost hurt, and then he whispered frantically, "I adore you, the both of you."
He tipped Victoria's body further until his thrusts were deep and long, and he slid in and out so quickly that Victoria grabbed onto the pillow for purchase. She compressed her hand on his backside, feeling the muscle there work to thrust. She puffed out a breath of disbelief; how had she not known that relations could feel this good? She let her head fall forward, her hair tumbling over her eyes, and then she heard William grunt a few times from behind her. His hips bucked unsteadily a few times, and then his thrust stopped and his cock throbbed and twitched inside of Victoria's body. He was emptying himself into her, she knew, but there was no problem with that, for she already bore a child within her.
Albert's child, she thought distantly. Or so everyone would be led to believe.
She seethed through clenched teeth as Melbourne let his softening cock slide out of her body, and then she felt him urging her to turn around and face him. He lay on his back, and Victoria instinctively curled up against him, putting her face on his chest and wrapping an arm and a leg over him. They were messy with his seed and her fluids, but she couldn't care right now. All that mattered was that they were here, together, and that they were in love. Wasn't that all that mattered?
Melbourne combed Victoria's hair out of her face with his fingers, his heartbeat racing near Victoria's ear.
"I am an old man," he complained. "I apologise if I do not satisfy you the way -"
"I am more than satisfied," Victoria told him. But then she thought about the fact that she would birth Melbourne's child, which would be presented to the world as Albert's legitimate heir, and then they would have to stop doing this… because, of course, if she were to fall pregnant again with Melbourne's offspring, it would be a scandalous bastard. Unless…
"Will you marry me, William?"
There was a very heavy silence in the room then. Melbourne's fingers stopped stroking Victoria's hair, and he cleared his throat quietly.
"I think you know why I can not," he said. Victoria pushed herself up and looked down at him, her hair brushing his chest. She shook her head and said,
"After the Princess Royal or the Prince of Wales is born, I will have a legitimate heir. And then I will surely be free to choose my own consort."
"Your consort." Melbourne shut his eyes and touched at his forehead. "I am not fit to be your consort, Your Majesty."
"Don't call me that," she hissed. "Not now, not after what we just did. Not when I have your child in my womb and you say that you love me."
"I do love you," he assured her, opening his eyes.
"Then marry me," Victoria insisted stoutly. He smiled a little, but it was a sad smile that did not reach his eyes.
"And what of children we would have? No title, out of the line of succession…"
"I do not care about that," Victoria snapped. "I care about spending the rest of my life with you."
Suddenly Melbourne went very serious. "You've already been widowed once. I am too old to -"
"I love you, William Lamb," Victoria said, feeling tears come to her eyes. "Once our child is born and baptised, I wish for you to be my husband. You have already rejected me once in this matter. I beg you, do not do so again."
He sat up slowly and laced his fingers into Victoria's hair. He leaned forward and kissed her lips carefully, and he asked,
"Is that truly what you want, then? You want to pretend forever that our child is Albert's, and then you want to wed me in what is promised to be a horrific scandal?"
"Hell take the newspapers, and Hell take my enemies," Victoria said harshly. "I want to be with you."
She touched at her lower abdomen and reminded him, "Your child grows inside of me. We are already a family."
Melbourne breathed slowly in and out of his nose, and then he kissed Victoria again. He pulled back, stared right into her eyes, and nodded.
"If it is truly what you want," he said, "then I will marry you after the baby is born."
"It is truly what I want," Victoria declared. Melbourne raised his eyebrows and sighed.
"My life has been one scandal after another. What's one more? Particularly when it is for my family's sake?"
She smiled at him and tipped her head.
"I have to go. I can't linger here. But I shall be right next door, dreaming of you."
"And I shall be right here," he said, "and I shall think of you, though you occupy my mind most of the time as it is."
Victoria pulled on her nightgown and gave Melbourne five or six more deep kisses before pulling herself off the bed. She opened his door slowly and peered outside, ensuring the upstairs hallway was empty. Then she glanced back to him and smiled, and he whispered,
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight," she said back in a hush, and then she slipped out the door.
Author's Note: Awww, they finally got together in a bed. And it was "without consequence," as Wellington would say. And he's agreed to marry her once the baby is born. Surely no drama is headed their way. ;)