His lips touched her ear—the lobe of it, just a brush, the heat of his breath in sharp contrast to the chill of his hands. Her nipples tightened, pointing; a well of warmth rose up inside her. And then he was not just kissing her ear but catching it lightly between his teeth, his mouth tracing the edge. His tongue—oh, heavens, his tongue, flicking out. She felt it in her hands, her breasts, that rising sense of pleasure.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, just finished unbuttoning her dress, his fingers moving slowly. “Thank you for lighting the candle,” he said quietly, as he slid the sleeves down her shoulders. He pressed his lips to her neck. “I wouldn’t have been able to do this without light.”
His hands slid to her corset laces. He leisurely untied the knot, unlaced the ribbons and pulled the garment away. She wanted to grab for it, to pull it back. It wasn’t just her body he wanted; it was intimacy, and that was more than she’d given in years. She couldn’t help but feel that at any moment, he would come to his senses and leave her where she stood, trembling and hurt and wanting.
“Is there a trick to the petticoats?” He found the first button that held the top layer in place.
“Mark, what are you doing?”
“You know what I’m doing.” He peeled away one layer of muslin and started in on the next. “I’m undressing you.” The second petticoat joined the first on the floor. “I feel like I’m taking apart a watch,” he said. “It’s easy enough to disconnect the parts, but I’m fairly certain I couldn’t reconstruct the whole without expert help.”
“Truly, Mark, you have to stop.” She was beginning to shake.
Her last petticoat slid to the floor, and she stood in her shift.
“Is that what you want?”
She turned in his arms. His eyes slid down her form—uncluttered now by skirts and excess fabric.
All her scampering vulnerabilities froze in the heat of his gaze. She felt like a rabbit staring up at a hawk. But this hawk didn’t pounce. Instead, he simply leaned in and kissed her. It was a sweet kiss—just his lips against hers, his hand on her shoulder. Her body melted against his. She carried her fear inside that rising tide of pleasure, like shattered glass waiting to slice her.
As he kissed her, his hands moved. He traced her form as if he wanted to commit it to memory. The hairs on her arm stood up, brought to attention by that gentle touch.
“If we go much further, I’m going to lose my head,” she confessed.
He pushed back and looked her in the eyes. “Lose it,” he advised, and then he leaned down and fastened his lips to her breast. Heat washed over her. Her protests, weak and halfhearted as they’d been, disappeared, swallowed in the swelling need of her body.
“You like that.” His voice was hoarse. “I’ve thought about doing that for ages. I couldn’t get it out of my mind.”
Jessica nodded, not trusting her voice. And then he leaned down and did it again—his tongue swirling around her nipple, gentle and yet firm. His breath was growing ragged—she could feel it washing against her skin. The sensation rippled out from that point, powerful and intensely pleasurable. She could feel her own want grow.
Any other man, having paid this bare attention to her pleasure, would have been eager to sate his own desire. But Mark touched her as if every stroke of his tongue was new, as if she were a sweet to savor, a prize to treasure, as if her enjoyment were vital for more than just easing his way inside. Her skin burned to feel his body pressed full-length against her.
“Hurry,” she said.
He raised his head and gave her a knowing, wicked smile—one that made her feel as if he were drawing on a wealth of experience. “I’ve waited twenty-eight years for this. I don’t suppose another few hours will change anything.”
It was unlikely that he would have come here. It was improbable that he would think well of her after everything he’d learned. But her mouth dried at that bald statement. There was no mistaking his intent. He wanted her, and that was impossible.
His hand drifted down her ribs, slowly, as if he were counting them out. He found the edge of her shift and pulled it up, the fabric sliding over her sensitive flesh.
“A few hours?” Jessica said, hearing her voice rise. “You are optimistic.”
His lip quirked up at that. But he kissed his way down her body, to her navel.
“It is the most astonishing thing,” he whispered against her skin. “To touch you, to feel you tremble. To know that I’m the cause of it.” His thumbs made circles against her hips. And then he reached out tentatively and touched her thighs. Slid his hands up, parting her knees, his fingers brushing against the slick folds of her sex once more. “It is so much better than I’d imagined.”
She reached out and ran her own hands through his hair. “Just wait until I start to touch you.”
“Oh. That’s nice,” he breathed. And then he met her eyes. “Here?” he asked. She felt his thumb brush her between her legs. “Or here?”
“There.”
More sure now, the pressure he exerted; more certain, the light in his eyes as he looked at her. “And what about here?”
Sparks cascaded through her. “Yes—that.”
This time, he did not just part her sex. His finger slid inside her, and she shivered, her inner muscles tightening around him.
“And this?”
“Too much—oh, Mark, and not enough.”
He pushed back, stood up. He undid his waistcoat quickly, unwound his cravat from his neck. He didn’t rush, not even when he pulled the lawn of his shirt over his head. His chest was pale and smooth, furred over with light golden hairs that caught the candlelight.
Jessica reached up and caught his upper arms, glorying in the curve of that muscle, so strong, and yet trembling under her touch. She ran her hands along his chest, found the smooth circle of his nipple. His breathing caught, and he canted over her.
“Jessica. Please. Darling. Do that again.”
She did.
Men sometimes talked as if curves were something that only a woman possessed. But his body was a construction of subtler curves: the gentle swell of his forearm, racing down to the blunt tips of his fingers. The ripple of his abdomen. That arc where torso met pelvis. His body seemed the pinnacle of masculine artistry.
He reached for the fall of his trousers. Her breath scalded her lungs. She reached out and set her hand over his. “What are you doing?”
His hand found hers, clasped it. “Do you know why I professed to believe in chastity? Because I don’t believe in doing harm, least of all to someone I care for.”
He relinquished her fingers and proceeded to undo his trousers.
“But it’s the woman that matters,” he said, his voice low. “Not my pride. Not my reputation. Not even my principles. I should have put you first.” He pushed the fabric to his hips, and then farther down. “I wanted peace and balance. But I should have put you first. First. Last. And, Jessica—always.”
This had to be a dream. A fantasy. He couldn’t mean those words, not to her. He couldn’t be standing naked before her. But his hand, when it found hers, was warm and real. Her feet touched the floor as he led her back to the sofa. And she would never have imagined him sitting unclothed before her, could never have believed that he would pull her to straddle him. He was warm beneath her; his mouth found hers.
He didn’t just give her a kiss, he pulled her body to his, his hands entangling with hers, her tongue darting out to taste him. His hips pressed up against hers.
And his member… He was thick and strong and hard. He twitched when she touched him. And that finally grounded her. This wasn’t just a passionate kiss. It was something more. He thrust up against her, instinct instructing him where experience could not.
This was impossible.
She reached down to touch his erection. It was heavy in her hand, the head wet already. He hissed, his hands clutching her arms, as she stroked down h
is length.
She slid up onto her knees. One of his hands clasped her waist. He was the one to adjust his member into place, the one to set his hands on her hips. He was the one to apply just the slightest pressure. This wasn’t possible.
It was possible.
And then, it simply was.
His hands clenched around her arms. His breath came in explosive little gasps. His body entered hers—not in possession, but in desire. She could feel herself stretching around him. He was thick, hot.
“Jessica,” he said. Her hips sank to meet his; her body sparked above his. She could feel the tension in his arms, the tremble of his muscles as he held himself back.
It had never been like this before. His eyes met hers. He watched her intently, his gaze slitting as she rose up on him. His hands slid up her ribs to her breasts, touching her. Overriding her every thought. She wasn’t sure when she began to move, wasn’t sure when her need began to consume her, spiraling out from their joined bodies. Her hands clenched. Her toes curled. Every commingled movement sent an agony of pleasure through her, until she threw back her head and let out a little cry as ecstasy overtook her.
He grabbed her hips as she came, thrust hard into her. She could feel slick sweat on his shoulders, his entire body tensing beneath hers. He made a short, strangled sound in the back of his throat. His hips pounded into hers. He was hot, so hot, and yes, he was coming, too. He came to her without any lies between them.
He was still breathing heavily when his body stilled. His arms came around her, hard. His lips found hers in a long, drawn out kiss—the passion not the slightest dimmed by the act they’d just performed.
And Jessica still didn’t understand. She didn’t understand what had happened. Oh, she knew the mechanics of it. And she understood ecstasy. But this…this had been a new kind of pleasure. Something Jessica had never experienced before, something strange and inexplicable. She didn’t quite understand what it meant at first. Her fingers intertwined with his, her body wrapped around his. His forehead pressed against hers, and their mingled breaths waxed and waned in an intimate rhythm.
It took her a few moments to hit upon the difference. Normally, a man took, and she gave. He owned her, for those minutes. The pleasure was his. And if his desire provoked her physical response—well, that, too, belonged to him.
But this…this pleasure hadn’t been his. It hadn’t been hers, either.
No. It had been something that seemed both foreign and intimate all at the same time.
It had been theirs.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MARK TOOK HER to bed afterward.
There was nothing that quite compared to the glory of her bare skin.
In the tepid light of the candle, his fingers had to fill in what his eyes could not. The smooth curve of her shoulder. The silk of her hair, softer than he’d imagined.
He didn’t understand how men could flit from woman to woman. He had thought he was infatuated back in Shepton Mallet. That had been nothing compared to this—to the feel of her spine against his hands, each vertebra dear to him. Then there was the taste of her neck, subtly different than that of her collarbone. The flickering illumination showed bits of her in turn: pale skin and dark hair and pink lips, all enticing.
He wasn’t sure how long he spent afterward just touching her. Trying to memorize the feel of her. Long enough that the candle in the other room eventually guttered out. Long enough that wonder turned into lust once more, that he positioned himself over her, sliding into a heaven that he’d tried to imagine before and had utterly failed.
Her body. Her hands, grasping his. Every thrust he took, every gasp he wrung from her, was a precious gift. Her desire magnified his want. Instinct merged with intuition. He waited for the change of her breath, for the moan she tried to hold back. He waited until her body clenched around his, and he lost all sense of anything but her, her, her.
When sanity returned, he found himself collapsed atop her, chest to chest, her hands clasped around his lower back.
“Try as I might,” she said, “I can’t make you out.”
He caught her lips in his. “What’s to make out? I’m not so complicated.” He disengaged himself from her as best he could without relinquishing her. Now that he’d had her once—well, twice—he didn’t plan on letting go again.
She said nothing in response, simply waited.
“I suppose there are two things you really should know,” Mark said. “About the past. And about the future.”
At the word future, her breath sucked in. He could almost feel the tension steal into her limbs. But all she said was, “Hmm?”
“The near past,” he said. “You must know that I would never have risked making love with you, if there were any chance that you would be unprotected afterward. There are always risks, and even if I intend to make it right…well, I could have been struck by lightning. I wouldn’t risk the possibility that you might not have the funds to care for a child.” He could still remember that infant in Bristol and the woman who had walked away. He needed to know it wouldn’t be her. That it wouldn’t be his son there, one day.
“I—I had wondered about that.” Her hand found his face.
“Which is why this morning, I went to my solicitors and signed five thousand pounds over to you.”
She sat up abruptly, pulling the covers with her. “You did what?”
“I gave you five thousand pounds.” His words were calm, but his pulse beat wildly.
She curled in on herself. “I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I refuse.”
“Too bad. It’s already been done—the money’s signed into a trust. I couldn’t take it back, even if I wanted it.” He reached a tentative hand to touch her back.
She inched away. “I hope you don’t think you’re paying me for services rendered.”
“That would be ridiculous. You hadn’t rendered anything at that point, and by the time I touched you, you were already a wealthy woman.”
She huffed. “Your pardon. I…I don’t quite comprehend what you’ve done.”
He let the silence flow between them, unsure how to respond to that.
“I had some money,” she said stiffly. “I wouldn’t have needed it.”
He shrugged. “Now you have more.”
She let out a puff of laughter. “Oh, honestly. I can’t understand this. I just can’t understand what is happening. Yesterday, I was alone. And now…” She shook her head. “Things like this do not happen to women like me.”
And there were those words again. “Women like you?” he asked, forcing his voice to calm. “What kind of woman do you suppose you are?”
“Mark, I’m a woman who has been unchaste outside of marriage.”
“Jessica,” he parroted, “in case you failed to notice—I am a man who has been unchaste outside of marriage.”
She fell silent.
“Why do you think I came to you like this?” he continued. “I told you once—you are the point of chastity, not its enemy. What was the use holding on to principles that only served to make you feel as if you were beneath me? When I marry you, I want you to know you’re my equal.”
“Marry you? You can’t really want to marry me. You shouldn’t feel obligated, just because we were intimate.”
“I gave up twenty-eight years of chastity. It wasn’t on a whim. I’m not asking for your hand out of a fleeting sense of obligation or regret. I want you in my life. I want you to meet my brothers. I want you to bear my children.”
She took a shuddering breath. “You can’t convince me that you’ve dreamed of marrying a courtesan. And—oh, I’m trying to imagine it, but I just can’t.”
“Hmm.” He reached out a hand to her, found her fingers. “True. I never dreamed of this. But now that I’ve found you, anything else seems a nightmare. Dreams change with circumstances. Often for the better.”
“Not in my experience.” Her voice was still and flat, but she
let her fingers twine with his. “Two months ago, my dearest dream was to never sell my body again. A far cry from my childhood fantasies.”
“Am I so far from your childhood dreams, then?”
She shook her head. “I always believed I would be married. I was pretty. Everyone told me so. So I thought that one day, my perfect husband would find me. He’d ask me to marry him. We’d call the banns in my father’s church, and three weeks later, I would walk down the aisle.”
Her nails bit into his hand.
“That’s right.” Mark kept his tone carefully neutral. “Your father is a vicar.”
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