Mayhap she could give in to her desire. Take what she wanted and then leave him for good. Hurt him as he had hurt her. Break him as he had once broken her. Perhaps it was time to even the score between them.
She stopped thinking. Instead, she acted. She tugged his head down to hers, claiming his lips with hers.
He tasted of rain. Rain and Jack.
Delicious. God, so delicious.
How she ached for this man.
He made a low sound in his throat, and then he was kissing her back. Frantically. With bruising force. Carnal and wet and rough. His mouth moved over hers, his tongue sliding inside. She welcomed the invasion, rising on her toes to press herself against him. A moan escaped her.
She wanted more than kisses.
She was on fire for him. Beyond thought. Beyond common sense. All she could think about was Jack. His scent was in her lungs, his taste on her lips, his big, muscular body radiating wet heat into hers. He lifted her into his arms without breaking the kiss, somehow managing to maneuver both her and her heavy, soaked riding habit with ease.
And then he was carrying her across the stone floor of the folly, his boots echoing in the cavernous space, joining the din of the storm beyond the walls. She clung to him as he carried her, kissing him with all the pent-up need she felt for him. She became wild. She bit his lower lip, thrust her tongue against his.
He stopped, abruptly breaking the kiss. “Where the devil is the bed?”
His breaths were harsh and hot, falling over her lips. It took her a moment to realize he had asked her a question. Oh, yes. The bed.
“I had it removed,” she admitted breathlessly.
Too many memories.
Though she kept that bit to herself.
“Damn,” he muttered. “Why would you—”
“Shut up,” she interrupted, and then she kissed him again. Too much talking. Too much thinking.
She did not want to use her mind. She wanted the physical. She wanted touch. Desire. She wanted his body. And she was going to have it. Once, she promised herself. Just once. Burn him down like a stack of dry kindling. Strip him of his confidence and his excuses. Make him weak, bring him low.
Then never touch him again.
He kissed her back, the movement of his lips and tongue and teeth turning savage. It was as if he sought to brand her, to mark her the same way he had left the mark upon her throat she had been forced to cover with pearl powder.
She tore her mouth away, gasping for a breath. “Chair.”
Jack kissed her again. “Good idea.”
He carried her to an old, oversized wingback positioned near the hearth. Spinning them around, he kissed her again before settling in it, with her in his lap. Her heavy, wet skirts pooled around them. She straddled him, the drenched fabric of his trousers brushing her throbbing core. He was rigid against the falls. She ground herself against him, loving the friction, seeking more.
The heat of the day made the coolness of their wet garments somehow more erotic. She threw her hat to the floor. His had already disappeared in the furor of their embrace. His fingers were on the line of buttons traveling down the front of her riding habit, plucking them from their moorings.
She bit his lower lip, then kissed away the sting. Kissed him as she had been yearning to do, deep down inside, ever since the kisses they had shared in the drive. Her bruised knees protested her position, but she ignored them. A little discomfort was not going to stand in the way of the all-encompassing need to become one with Jack.
Nell rocked over his burgeoning cockstand. She was as drenched as their clothes, and for an entirely different reason. If she did not have him inside her soon, she would die, she was sure of it. The sound of rending fabric reached her, but she was too far gone to care. He pushed her bodice down her shoulders, down her arms. She shimmed, helping him, and together they peeled the soggy fabric down to her waist.
“Nellie.” There was no mistaking the reverence in his voice. “God, Nellie.”
He kissed her throat, then her collarbone, nipping her lightly with his teeth until she moaned, thrusting against him once more. The laces on her corset went slack. He tugged, and her breasts popped free. He tore her chemise in half. His fierce ardor matched hers, and she did not care what he ripped. She would worry about that later, when reason restored itself to her.
For now… For now, all she wanted was Jack.
The first touch of his mouth on her breast was electric.
She grasped a handful of his thick, dark hair. He sucked her nipple, sending sweet sensation radiating through her, another rush of wetness between her thighs. He flicked his tongue over her next, a long, slow exploration, before nipping her.
“Oh, Jack.”
His hand traveled beneath her skirts, his fingers coasting up her inner thigh until at last he traced her seam. “So wet for me, Nellie. Always so wet.”
“Yes.” Mindless, she jerked into his touch.
The sight of his handsome face nestled against the pale curve of her breast, his mouth latching onto the peak, coupled with the nearness of his touch to where she wanted him most, nearly undid her. She was restless, reckless, helpless, wanton.
She was out of her mind with lust. Crazed with need. Drowning in passion. Beyond the walls of the folly, the storm seemed to match the delicious turmoil within her. Lightning lit the sky, flashing through the chamber as thunder cracked overhead.
“What do you want?” he asked, circling his finger teasingly around her aching pearl without touching her there, where she was most sensitive.
“You,” she admitted easily. “Touch me, Jack. Touch me the way you used to.”
At last, he gave her what she wanted. She gasped as he rotated his fingers over her. Time fell away. The last three years might never have existed. She was right back where she was when they had been young and wild and so very in love.
She leaned into him, kissing him with such force, their teeth clacked together. She did not give a damn. This was not the time for pretty lovemaking or for delicacy. This was an inferno which could only be extinguished in one fashion. He did not seem to mind her fervor. If anything, it spurred him on. He growled low in his throat and sank a finger inside her, keeping his thumb working over her pearl.
She was ready for him. Desperate for him. She had forgotten how long his fingers were, how delicious they felt inside her. He slid a second finger deep, curling them and reaching that secret place within that never failed to make her lose control. She did not stand a chance.
Pleasure roared through her, much like the thunder rumbling outside. She kissed him harder, whimpering as an intense wave of pleasure gripped her. She was soaring, flying. Lightning shot across the sky, flashing in an echo of the sensation spiraling through Nell. She had given herself pleasure in the three years of their separation. Of course, she had. But her touch had been nothing like his.
As the last ripples of her climax left her, he withdrew his fingers, ending the kiss. He tipped his head back into the chair, breathing heavily, staring at her. His dark-green gaze seared hers.
“Now is your chance to tell me to stop,” he rasped.
And she knew why. She knew, too, what he meant. He was making her complicit. But he did not need to, for she knew what she was doing. She was the one who began this, with the kiss. She had spent the last three years resenting him, aching for him. She was going to be selfish now. Just this once. She was going to take what she wanted. Find her pleasure.
And then she was going to move on, forget any of this had ever happened. Leave him behind in the ashes of their union.
First, she was going to have him.
One last time.
A lock of dark hair had fallen rakishly over his brow. She gently brushed it back. “Do not stop, Jack. I want you inside me.”
Truth. It did not mean she loved him. It did not mean she wanted to remain married to him. All it meant was that she lusted after him. Her body wanted his. That much had not changed.
“Thank Christ,” he muttered, reached between them to undo the falls of his trousers.
And then, the thick head of his cock was where his fingers had been. He ran it over her folds, slicking the evidence of her desire for him all over her, all over himself. He grazed the nub of her sex once, twice, sending a new jolt through her. She shimmied her hips, urging him on.
“Take what you want, Nellie,” he told her, running himself over her again.
She did not hesitate. Chasing his fingers away with hers, she gripped him. For a moment, she relished the weight of him in her hand, the velvety strength and heat. He was so smooth, so long. Hers.
For today alone.
She guided him to her cunny and sank down on him. He pumped into her at the same time. And he was deep, so deep. And it was good, so very good. He filled her, stretched her. Nell stilled, eyes closed as she absorbed the decadence of it, the forbidden pleasure.
They sighed as one. Thunder crashed. Lighting lit the sky for a fleeting moment. He felt so good, she never wanted to let him go. But that was a dangerous thought. Dangerous and foolish and wrong.
She rose on her knees, until he almost slid from her, and then she moved forward again, filling herself to the hilt. He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked. One of her hands gripped his shoulder while the other was still buried in his hair. She held him to her breast as she took what she wanted, increasing her pace, her breasts bobbing with each thrust.
“Oh, God Jack.” She was going to spend. Again.
He moved with her, increasing the pace and force of his thrusts. He buried his face in her throat, holding her close as they chased their passion together.
“Come for me, Nellie,” he whispered.
She did. She gave in to him. Obeyed. Her second release was every bit as potent as the first. She clenched on him, bliss shattering her. Overtaking her.
Heaven. That was what she felt like.
Being inside his wife after years spent apart was exquisite. She tightened on him, clenching, drawing him deeper into the sweet recesses of her body. She was so wet, so hot. And he had been far too long without her.
He breathed in deeply, kissing her throat where her pulse raced, before tipping his head back to watch her once more. She was a goddess. His goddess.
If he had thought the sight of her riding her horse a miracle, he had been terribly wrong. For that image paled in comparison to the sight of her riding him. Her breasts were bare, pink-tipped offerings crushed against his chest, the hard nipples grazing his chest with each thrust. They were just as he remembered: enough to fill his palms, and so exquisitely responsive.
He held them in his hands, rolling her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers as he jerked into her, attempting to prolong the moment. But it had been so long since he had last made love to her, his ballocks had already drawn tight. Her cunny was still quivering around him with the force of her release, and he would join her soon.
It was inevitable.
As inevitable as this moment between them had been.
He had tasted how much she wanted him in her kiss on the road days ago. Though she continually resisted, though she retreated and clung tenaciously to her insistence that they would be divorced, here was definitive proof unlike any other. Nell was half-disrobed, grinding down upon him, her head thrown back, eyes closed in ecstasy.
Love for her burst open inside him, blossoming like a tightly furled bud in the summer sun. He had held himself in check for days, but today, that restraint was gone. As the storm raged outside, it mirrored the feelings inside him.
Again and again, he thrust into her. Just when he could not hold on another second, he sealed their lips with a kiss. His hips left the chair as he jerked into her. Hard and deep. He spilled as he thrust his tongue into her mouth, claiming her in every way he could. His release was a torrent, flooding her, filling her with his seed.
Some selfish part of him hoped he got her with child. If she were to have his babe, she would never leave him. But he knew it was an unworthy thought even as he rocked beneath her, the last of his mettle leaving him. He had no wish to stake his claim in such fashion. To trap her.
But what had just happened could not be undone. He collapsed against the chair beneath her, boneless. Weightless. Mindless.
Thankful.
So bloody thankful.
What power she still had over him. Power unlike any other woman before her. Power no other woman could ever exert. She was the only one who held his heart in her hands. Distance, time, hurt—nothing could alter that inescapable fact.
She was like a sorceress, and he was helplessly, happily in her thrall.
She broke the kiss first, tearing her mouth from his, her breathing every bit as ragged. Her eyes were wide, glazed, her lips parted and swollen from the savagery of their kisses. Her cheeks were flushed from pleasure, her damp hair clinging to her face in golden wisps.
“This cannot be repeated,” she said.
No four words, strung together in the Queen’s English, could have infuriated him more. Nor ended the stupor of lust and love infecting his mind more efficiently.
“Yes it can,” he returned. “And it will.”
She shook her head, her expression turning stricken. “No, it cannot.”
Nell scrambled off his lap, settling her skirts back into place, tugging furiously at her corset and chemise. He remained where he was, the echo of his release still throbbing in his ballocks.
“You are ignoring the obvious, my love.” Grimly, he watched as she struggled to right the wet fabric and cover herself.
Her breasts jiggled quite temptingly. Difficult to imagine his mouth and hands had just been adoring that satin-soft, creamy skin and now she was attempting to hide it from his view.
“I am stating the obvious, rather than ignoring it,” she corrected him coolly. “Will you not at least make yourself decent?”
His cock was already half-hard again. Curse the woman. He gripped himself just to spite her, stroking slowly. He was still coated in her dew and the remnants of his seed. If she wanted to challenge him, she had chosen the wrong time to make a stand. This would not wash. There was no way she had not felt the intensity of their joining.
“If you do not like what you see, then look away,” he told her curtly. “There is nothing more natural than a husband and wife being intimate. What we just shared was long overdue.”
Her gaze settled upon his cock, and the effect was instant.
His erection jutted forward.
“Jack!” Her tone was scandalized, but she did not remove her stare.
Because she was not nearly as unmoved as she would like him to believe. He did not fool himself—Nell wanted to be unaffected by him. She did not want to long for him. She did not want to ache for him. But she did. She did, and he knew it, because he felt the same way about her.
“I could say the same for you, darling. You are hardly decent yourself, with your pretty bubbies still on display,” he pointed out, wanting to find his way beneath her defenses once more.
“You are a scoundrel.” She spun about, presenting him with her back as she continued to struggle with the gown and undergarments he had obliterated in his frenzy to have her.
She regretted what had just happened.
And he hated that regret.
Jack tucked himself back into his trousers and smalls, then buttoned up the fall. He rose from the chair with grim intent.
“You did not seem to think me a scoundrel a few minutes ago,” he could not resist observing.
If she thought she could blithely act as if they had not just made love, she was wrong. If she thought he was done fighting for her, she was also wrong. He would fight for her forever. He had been waging war in all the wrong ways. But he knew the difference now.
He was back, and he was not going anywhere.
“It was a mistake,” she said coldly, still struggling to work her corset back into place. “I feared something had happened to you, and in my emotiona
l state, I lost my wits. As I said, it shall not happen again.”
Oh yes it shall, he promised her back silently.
Aloud, he said, “Allow me to aid you.”
The violence of their passion had left her corset’s strings gaping. If she had a hope or a prayer of getting the buttons on that indecently form-fitting habit to close, she needed to be tight-laced once more. She would have to set aside her pride.
“I do not want your help, Jack.” She cast him a frown over her shoulder. “You have done enough damage.”
He inclined his head. “So I have, and so I will be the one to fix it. Unless you do not trust yourself, that is?”
Her pride won out. Her lips pursed. “Go on, then. Lace my corset back up if you please. It is devilishly difficult to get wet garments back into place. Do not mistake my request, however. Just because I allowed my baser nature to overcome my judgment does not mean I will ever again be so foolish.”
He approached her, attempting to tamp down the ire rising within him. Their union had been explosive. It had been one of the single, most erotic moments of his life. Losing his calm now would not aid his cause.
Some of her hair had come free of its pins, sending fat curls to trail down her neck. He stroked one away from her nape, gratified when she jolted at the contact. There was that connection she sought to ignore. There was that spark, ready to burst back into insurmountable flame.
Her skin there was soft. How he longed to place his lips there. To deliver a little love bite to the curve where her shoulder met her throat. He did not. Instead, he allowed his fingertips to trail down her bare skin. Just one slow, decadent caress.
She shivered. “Cease pawing at me and lace my corset, if you please.”
Belatedly, he realized the storm had quieted. The thunder rolled farther in the distance, and the skies had brightened. Birds had begun to sing once more, trilling brightly. It was as if the passionate moments he had shared with Nell had never happened at all. No evidence remained save the state of her riding habit and corset.
“Patience, Nellie,” he said softly, going to work at last on her laces.
Her Missing Marquess Page 11
