The Governess Was Wild

by Julia Kelly

  Seeing herself through his eyes, she supposed that she was a bit brave. She’d negotiated her way onto this journey and demanded that this strange man take her along because she had more important things to worry about than propriety. It was the sort of daring thing that her friend Mary might do—or even Elizabeth, with her quiet but stubborn determination—and yet Jane was the one on this adventure. She’d ridden through rain and mud and cold. She’d refused to accept that all was lost.

  She was brave. She could have thrown her hands up and given up on Lady Margaret, but motivated by loyalty, she’d gotten onto a horse and ridden miles—days even. Jane had made the decision to break and bend her own rules. She was the one in control of her fate.

  All at once, she felt as though she could do anything. She could ask for anything. She could demand all that she wanted and she knew would never be—except that in this isolated little barn on this isolated little farm nothing else mattered. Not her position or Lady Margaret or his sisters’ reputations. So why didn’t she ask for the very thing she desired?

  Jane hesitated only a moment before pushing the well-worn quilt off her. She’d removed her stockings when she’d gone to bed, not waiting to rip them on stray strands of hay. The warmth of the wooden floor felt almost sensual as she padded across the loft.

  Her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and she could make out Nicholas’s form. He was lying on his back, his chest rising and falling with the steady breath of sleep. He didn’t stir as she approached.

  “Nicholas,” she murmured.

  He didn’t move as she sank down to her knees next to his makeshift pallet, and so she reached out and skimmed one fingertip over the sweep of his stubble-roughened jaw.

  She could kiss him again. She could wake him up and demand that he show her all of the things he could do to relieve the tension in her body. She could imagine for just one night what her life could have been if only fate had been a little kinder. She could give full flight to the dream that she might have a man by her side who cared enough to give her pleasure, to stay with her, to love her.

  She’d come this far. If he woke and cast her off him, she’d have her answer and he’d be too noble to mention it again. But there was the chance that he’d kiss her back, and that was enough.

  Jane wetted her lips and leaned over him. She kissed him as she’d wanted him to kiss her—long and deep and laced with the words that she couldn’t yet say out loud. She tasted the ale they’d drunk together on his lips. He felt soft and warm under her and smelled of a heady, contradictory mix of fresh rainwater and the musty smoke of the Pritchers’ fire. In a word, he was perfect.

  She pulled back just a little bit, a sigh escaping her lips. It wasn’t everything she wanted, but it might be enough to keep her body under check for the night.

  She lifted her splayed fingers from where they’d rested on his chest and made to stand, but Nicholas’s hand darted out and wrapped around her waist, pulling her back to her knees. In the darkness, she could just see his eyes snap open.

  “Jane. That kiss. Did you mean it?” he asked in a tone that shot heat straight to the ache between her legs.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “Thank God,” he growled before he crushed her lips with his.

  Chapter Eight

  Oh, God, yes. It was all she could think as his mouth worked over hers. He kissed her deep, pushing her to open for him, letting her taste him as he slid his tongue over hers. His fingers dove to her loose hair, tugging a little at the roots in a way that made her gasp with pleasure. He was going to undo her, giving her exactly what she craved, and all she could do was hold on, gripping his shirt and digging her short nails into the hard muscles of his chest.

  Nicholas pushed up to sitting and hauled her into his lap without breaking their kiss. Free from her preponderance of petticoats, she could easily feel the hard ridge of his cock under her skirts, and she sent up a little prayer of thanks that her married friends had taken it upon themselves to educate her in exacting detail about what to expect if she was ever in this situation. Elizabeth and Mary had told her about the heavy hardness of a man’s arousal, about how her own body could become slick and hot and urgent if she wanted him too. She knew that it might hurt when he first pushed into her, but that—if he was skilled and patient—it could be just as pleasurable an experience for her as it was for him. That it should be, and she shouldn’t be afraid to ask for it. She’d blushed a little as her friends gently teased her about her relative innocence, but now that her hands skimmed down Nicholas’s chest to dip below the hem of his shirt, she couldn’t have been happier for the education.

  “Jane,” he moaned against her mouth as she danced her fingers over the muscles of his abdomen.

  “Yes?” she asked as she pressed a kiss to the crook of his neck.

  “You’re killing me. You know that, don’t you?”

  She grinned against his skin, drunk on the power she had over him. “I’d hoped as much.”

  Her thumb brushed his hard, flat nipple, and he hissed in a breath. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “I’m determined.”

  “I’ve always liked a woman who knows what she wants.” He cupped her face with his hands, stilling them both. “Are you sure about this?”

  She held his gaze steady, determined to show him just how serious she was. “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”

  “Good,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. “If you’d hesitated, I would have gotten up and walked out. I’m not sure how I would’ve managed it, but I’d have done it.”

  And that was Nicholas—always caring for her no matter what. She’d instinctively known she was safe with him when they’d met. She had put her vulnerable self into his hands. He’d protected her as best he could, acting as her knight in rain-drenched armor that afternoon and spiriting her away from the danger of discovery without complaint.

  Her hand covered his. “You’re a good man.”

  “Not good enough for you.”

  “Certainly good enough for me.”

  It might have been a trick of the dark, but she thought she saw a touch of tension around his eyes. Before she could think too much about it, he traced the line of her lips with his thumb.

  “Open,” he ordered.

  She parted her lips, and he slid his thumb into her mouth. She closed her lips around him and sucked hard, letting the saltiness of his skin wash over her.

  His head fell forward so that their foreheads touched. “You have no idea how much you’ve tempted me. All I’ve been able to think about has been kissing you. How badly I’ve wanted to do it again.”

  She swirled her tongue around his thumb and then let go of it with a pop, feeling bolder than ever before. “Then show me.”

  His head snapped up. “Clothes off. Now.”

  She untangled herself from him and shucked off her garments as fast as she could undo the clasps, ties, and buttons. Nicholas yanked off his shirt and undid the placket of his trousers. She turned around to loosen the laces of her corset, and when she glanced back, he was naked and undeniably gorgeous.

  His hands stilled hers on her laces. Gently, he nudged her fingers out of the way to take their place, loosening the corset until she could undo the hooks at the front.

  The stiff garment dropped to the floor, and his hands went to her hips. She still wore her chemise, but she could feel the warmth radiating from him through the whisper-thin fabric as he pressed her back against the hard plane of his body. He kissed her neck, skimming his hands up, bunching the chemise as he went. When he got to her breasts, he tore the scrap of fabric off and threw it to the side. She gasped at the shock of cold air that puckered her nipples and gasped again when his hands cupped her breasts. His hands moved in unison as they taunted her, teasing and pulling and rolling her nipple between thumb and finger.

  Her back arch
ed, pressing her hips against his cock. He grunted and so she did it again, wiggling a little this time. Nicholas spun her around and laid her out on the pallet before she could even draw a breath.

  “Eager?” he asked as he covered her body with his.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Desperately,” he said, parting her legs so that she fell open for him. “I’ve been thinking about this since I laid eyes on you in that innyard.”

  “Even as you were trying to be a gentleman?” she teased.

  “Especially then.”

  She sucked in a breath, but if he noticed, he didn’t let on. He was instead very occupied with moving down her body to kiss the creamy smoothness of her inner thighs, his tongue darting out every couple of inches to trace an invisible path upward. Then he parted her lips with his fingers and planted a full-mouthed kiss between her legs. That was when Jane lost the ability to speak.

  Her hips bucked against his mouth as his tongue flicked over her sensitive bud—the clitoris, Elizabeth had told her in her matter-of-fact, physician’s-wife sort of way. But Jane found that she could care less what it was called. All that mattered was that it felt good—deliciously, wickedly, sinfully good—and she didn’t want him to ever stop.

  She cast her gaze down her body, watching with open curiosity and wonder as the muscles in her legs and her stomach began to tremble with his ministrations. This was what she’d ached for—or at least that’s what she told herself as she watched the dip and move of his head with every stroke of his tongue. Her whole body had been primed for him after three days of watching and wanting from just a few feet away. Without even trying, he’d seduced her into imagining what it might be like to lay claim to a man. A husband was out of the question—who would want to marry her?—but for a short time she could have this. Someone to hold her. Someone to kiss her. Someone to make her body sing.

  Her fingers wound in Nicholas’s hair, pinning her to him as though she could keep him there forever. Whether he sensed her urgency or just knew what she needed, he shifted a little and suddenly his fingers joined his tongue. He slid a finger into the slick wetness of her body. The fullness of him inside her and the sensation of his mouth sucking at her clitoris were almost too much.

  “God, Nicholas,” she groaned.

  She could have sworn that she felt the cheeky man smile.

  She was about to tug on his hair just to teach him a lesson when it happened. All of the heat and tension building up in her broke and rushed through her. Her hips bucked clear off of the makeshift bed, but his mouth never left her. He simply locked eyes with her in the dim light and drove her over the edge until her body shuddered back to earth.

  Jane was out of breath when Nicholas finally pulled away—not that he was much better. She was incredible. The sound of her voice crying out his name in the dark was like succor to his soul. Looking for a woman had been the last thing on his mind, but it seemed as though, while he was occupied with every other problem from his sisters’ seasons to saving his family’s legacy, he’d managed to find one who left him breathless.

  He wanted more from her. Of course he did. He was a flesh-and-blood man and she’d opened herself in more ways than one. Who wouldn’t be tempted by a naked beauty lying underneath him? But he didn’t expect her to want the same things. She was an unmarried woman and almost certainly a virgin as well. He wouldn’t ask her to make that decision for him. Not unless she wanted to.

  He dropped a kiss to the soft skin of each thigh as he sat back. Then he kissed her stomach. The valley between her small but firm breasts. The side of her neck. That, he decided, was his favorite part of her. She smelled sweet and warm just there. He smoothed her hair away from her shoulder and nestled his nose in her soft blond locks, just holding her to him.

  There was no way that she was not aware of the hard length of him that lay against her hip, but he couldn’t rouse the gentlemanly concern to care. She knew by now how much he desired her. There was no escaping it.

  He hadn’t been lying when he told her that he’d wanted her from the moment she’d strode up to him and asked what he was shouting about that first day. There was something about her determination. She’d stood there, hands on her hips, like a small immovable mountain. He’d known in that moment that she was the sort of woman who could have whatever she wanted if only she knew to ask for it. Tonight, it seemed, she was learning that same fact about herself.

  Jane trailed a finger along his spine, sending shivers down his back. “Be careful how much you do that,” he murmured into her neck.

  “And why’s that?” she asked in a soft voice.

  “You’re a very distracting woman.”

  She laughed, low and throaty. “No one’s ever told me that before.”

  He shifted onto his elbow so that he could look at her. “You are.”

  She blushed. “It’s not a very desirable quality in a governess.”

  He reached down and skimmed his hand over her hip to the dip in her waist and over one of her breasts. “You’re not a governess right now.”

  She quirked an eyebrow. “No?”

  “You’re an adventuress.”

  “An adventuress who’s running around England chasing after her very disobedient charge.”

  A dark thought he’d been putting off confronting since he kissed her in the bracken roared up in his mind. “What happens after you find her?”

  Her lips pursed before settling into a tight line. “Then I find out whether I still have a position or not.”

  It wasn’t the answer he was looking for. He’d much rather hear that she was conflicted about the thought of leaving his side. Or that she wanted him to take her with him.

  The truth was he was conflicted about the thought of parting ways. He wanted to rescue her from the confines of the schoolroom and take her with him.

  It was all irrational—crazy, even—but he couldn’t ignore the power of his need for her any longer. It wasn’t just attraction or lust or desire. It was her. Without him realizing it, she’d filled his waking thoughts and his dreams. He wanted to have more of those little inconsequential moments, like how she remarked on every early-blooming crocus they rode by, or the way she lightly touched her collarbone whenever she was lost in thought. He was attracted to her beauty, yes, but it was also her keen mind and the wicked little smile that would touch her lips when she was amused.

  “Have you ever considered what it would be like if you didn’t have to have a position?” he asked.

  She shifted to stare straight up at the ceiling. A few moments passed before she answered. “It doesn’t do me much good to think about things that will never come to pass. I can’t afford to have flights of fancy or daydreams.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she rolled to her side and her mouth was on his and she was kissing him with the full force of a woman clinging to something she could barely grasp.

  He knew he should untangle their limbs and tell her to return to her bed, but his will wasn’t strong enough. Instead he boosted her up so that her legs straddled his hips. Her hands went to his chest and her hair fell over her shoulders in a curtain. She was glorious like this—beautiful as a goddess, but all the better for being a real woman.

  “Nicholas,” she said as she traced a pattern on his chest. “I want you.”

  His entire body seized up at the power of her words.

  “Jane.” He touched her cheeks softly, “I want you too, but—”

  Her hand stopped its progress. “Please don’t tell me you won’t. Please don’t send me back to my side of the loft. I’ve never wanted to share this with anyone, but I trust you.”

  She’d said those three words to him before, but he’d never really understood what she’d meant until now.

  I trust you.

  I know you won’t hurt me.

  He was going to break his promise to th
em both. He’d already compromised her—he knew that—but somehow he could convince himself that she could still walk away unsullied despite the orgasm he’d coaxed out of her. Sex, however, would make her ruination complete. He’d told himself that he couldn’t do that—he wasn’t even supposed to covet her—but then she’d asked and he didn’t know how to deny them both. He wasn’t going to play the gentleman. He was going to be the worst sort of lout and, Lord help him, he was going to enjoy every moment of it.

  He settled his hands on her hips and squeezed gently. “You’re sure?”

  She bit her lip and nodded.

  “You’ll tell me if I do something you don’t like?”

  She took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes.”

  Without another word he gently brought her down to the pallet and rolled her onto her back. He knelt between her legs and breathed in deep. He wanted to remember everything: the crushed hay, her lingering taste against his lips, the way her hair spilled out around her. If he took a moment to memorize this, perhaps that would be enough, because this night was all he could offer her. He might be a baron, but the title was near useless when what he could give Jane paled in comparison to what she deserved. And yet he was too selfish to turn her away, because she was the woman he’d always wanted but never knew he’d find.

  Her legs opened wider as he positioned himself over her with one hand on either side of her shoulders. She was still slick and hot, and he had to hold back from burying himself deep inside her. He knew that he might cause her pain, and that knowledge knifed through him. The most he could do was take all the time she needed and make it as good for her as it could be.

  The head of his cock brushed her slit, and he looked up at her. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” she said. That steel he loved wound around the word like armor.

  He dropped a slow, sweet kiss to her mouth and pushed a little way in.