His lips lazily, openly arrogantly, curved. He replayed her words again…
He stilled; his lips straightened. Thank you?
He kept his eyes closed, but his mind raced. Why had she thanked him? It was she who’d given herself to him, not the other way around. She who’d accepted him as her lover and husband-elect-shouldn’t he be thanking her?
Abruptly he recalled his earlier errors in assuming how she would think or react. If she’d had the temerity, and the audacity, to judge his ability as a portraitist, there was no telling what tack her mind might take.
He replayed her “thank you” again; a disquieting thought took hold. Surely she knew he intended marrying her-that he saw her coming to his bed as agreeing to their marriage?
Even as his mind posed the question, he knew the answer-it was perfectly possible she didn’t.
His direction was crystal clear to him. He couldn’t recall when he’d decided, but he’d embraced the path to marriage with absolute commitment regardless of his until recently deeply entrenched antipathy.
Nothing about him had changed; he’d simply seen an undeniable light. His reservations over engaging with love still existed, but were of insufficient weight to turn him from his path, to diminish in any way the compulsion that now drove him.
However, his conversion to the ranks of the matrimonially minded hadn’t come about through any action of Jacqueline’s. His antennae were well honed, well educated in detecting husband-hunting young ladies; he’d detected no sign of such intent in her. Her fascination with him, and with what had grown between them, was innocent and true, free of any calculation.
That was one of the reasons she’d captured him.
Well and good, yet although she was twenty-three, even by the standards of a county backwater she was socially inexperienced. Thanks to Thomas’s and her mother’s deaths, she hadn’t been exposed to wider society, much less the circles in which he moved. She didn’t appreciate how, in such circles, things were done, how matters were arranged.
She didn’t know the ways.
And with her only close contemporary being Eleanor Fritham…
His lips set. Hardly surprising if Jacqueline hadn’t, yet, understood his tack.
The pleasure thrumming through his veins was slowly fading; sleep beckoned, but his mind ranged on-to what now loomed as his next step.
If she wasn’t yet thinking of marriage, then it clearly behooved him to steer her mind in that direction before he specifically stated his objective. He knew women, at least in general; they preferred to think they made their own decisions in such matters. Jacqueline, he felt sure, would have the same prejudice, so he’d introduce the subject and let her decide-let her see the light as he had-before uttering the formal words and offering for her hand.
The one question remaining was how. His mind circled the problem; sleep fogged his thoughts and drew them down.
One conclusion shone through the veils of slumber.
He had experience aplenty in discouraging young ladies, and none whatever in persuading them to the altar.
Jacqueline’s senses drifted hazily, swirling through mists of pleasure, gradually focusing on the here and now, on her body, on what it felt.
On the hands that so slowly, so skillfully caressed, on the lips that touched her shoulder, lingered, then disappeared.
On the phantom lover who in the dark of the night stirred her to life. Lured her to join him.
She was lying on her side, almost on her stomach; lifting lids languid and heavy, she looked, but even her night-adjusted eyes couldn’t see.
It was the dark depths of the night. The moon had set; there was no light to guide her.
Only sensation. Only the hard, hot reality of the man beside her.
And the desire that flared between them.
She turned to him, into his arms. Reached for him.
Found heavy muscle and bone, and, as one blind, traced. Saw through her fingertips, through the palms she smoothed over his upper arms as he loomed over her in the dark, over his broad shoulders as he surrounded her with his strength.
He was anonymous, and so was she, sundered from their identities by the absolute dark, and so free to allow their desires full rein, to give and take as they would, without restraint.
Tactile sensation was their only communion, that and the incoherent sounds of passion. Neither spoke; for her part, she had no need for words. With sight denied her, her other senses expanded, until every caress, every trailing brush of fingers held her complete and unwavering attention. Effortlessly.
He took her further than before, higher, deeper into the realms of physical desire and sensual need. She heard her own gasps echo in the dark, heard the harried sound of her breathing.
She was acutely aware of how her body responded to each explicit caress, to the increasingly intimate knowing. She was aware of how she surrendered herself utterly, to him, to his passion.
He knew the boundaries well; although he pushed her to them, again and again he drew her back. In between, he let her explore, let her learn of him; he allowed her to pleasure him, guided her, taught her the ways.
Eventually, when she was giddy with need and both their skins were slick with desire, he pressed her back into the bed, spread her thighs wide and settled between. And joined them.
And it was different than before, with not even an echo of pain to dim the pleasure. With their skins so alive, their tactile senses so heightened, their passions already so inflamed, the fires roared, and the conflagration consumed them, yet still they clung, breaths mingling as they reached for the peak-and found ecstasy.
It shattered them, flung them far, left them to burn in glory among the stars, until, uncounted heartbeats later, they drifted back to the world, to the rumpled bed, to the sanctuary of each other’s arms. And slept.
15
Gerrard awoke, then mentally cursed, lifted his head and squinted across the room. The clock stated it was nearly six o’clock. Too late to…
Swallowing a resigned sigh, he raised a hand to Jacqueline’s shoulder and gently shook. “Wake up, sweetheart. You have to get back to your room before the maids are about.”
She roused slowly, dreamily, then opened her eyes and blinked up at him. Then she smiled, a cat drunk on cream; before he could restrain her, she stretched against him, angling up to press her lips to his.
With predictable results.
He inwardly groaned, but couldn’t resist the sweetness, the simple unalloyed delight. But when she drew back on a happy sigh, he gritted his teeth and set her from him. “We have to get you back. Now.”
She grumbled, but he held firm; bundling her from the bed, he scrambled into his clothes, then went to lace her gown.
Still floating on the aftermath of pleasure, Jacqueline leaned back against him, thrilled to be able to so brazenly claim the hardness of his body, and its heat. Tilting her head back, she caught his eyes, lifted her lips.
He hesitated, but then obliged…she inwardly exulted; he couldn’t resist, it seemed.
Just as well; after all she’d experienced last night, she feared she was addicted-it would be comforting if he was, too.
The kiss ended and he lifted his head, but only partially. His lips brushed her temple; she sighed and looked forward, relaxed and nearly boneless against him.
“What was your ‘thank you’ for?” His words, soft and deep, floated past her ear. “Just so I know.”
Her smile grew, softened. “For so unstintingly and devotedly showing me so much that I’d wanted to know.”
He straightened, steadying her on her feet; she felt him tightening her laces. “Are you grateful enough to bestow a reward?”