Lord Garson’s Bride

by Anna Campbell

  Perhaps because Jane was his wife and this closeness staked his right to the future, perhaps because he’d worked so hard to win her, perhaps because she was just so damned marvelous, these profound feelings were beyond anything he’d ever known. Before now, sex had been a pleasure, a diversion, an appetite. Never before had congress with a woman shaken his world to its foundations.

  Jane breathed in ragged spurts. He remained unmoving until her tension loosened. When she began to stroke his back, he opened his eyes. “Can you bear more?”

  Her gaze widened, and her wriggle threatened to blast his head off. His control hung by the frailest thread, but he’d be damned if he brought his wife this far, only to disappoint her at the end.

  “More?” she whispered, as if the concept beggared imagination.

  Garson answered with a slow withdrawal, reveling in the way she clung to every inch. When he rose on his elbows and pushed forward again, she accepted him more easily. “Does this hurt?”

  “It did.”

  At his wince, she touched his cheek with a tenderness that added a poignant edge to his desire. “A little. At first.”

  Ridiculous that Jane’s attempt to comfort him should move him so powerfully, when he was the one who had caused her pain. The awful truth was he couldn’t even say he was sorry, because this union gave him nothing but pleasure. “No longer?”

  She shifted fractionally, detonating more fiery explosions in his head. “I think I’ll like it.”

  His huff of laughter took him deeper into her body. She was so hot and tight. He’d set out to possess her, but instead she possessed him. It was a glorious sensation.

  “Shall we make sure?”

  Her hand drifted so sweetly down his face that his heart stumbled. “Yes, please.”

  When they kissed, her lips conveyed that same sweetness. He fought against the nearly irresistible urge to rush to climax. Never had he basked in such an extraordinary mixture of gentleness and passion. “Am I squashing you?”

  “In a nice way.”

  But passion clamored for its due. As the next kiss flared into hunger, the rise of her hips snapped the last chains of his restraint. He moved purposefully, claiming her with every thrust.

  With a luxuriant caress, she slid her hands down his arms. “I can’t tell you how wonderful it feels when you move inside me,” she said huskily. “If I’d known, I’d have leaped into your arms that first night.”

  His withdrawal was slow. “You like this?”

  “So much.” Her long sigh of enjoyment vibrated to his bones. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she tilted her head back as if relishing every subtle shift of his body in hers.

  “And this?” With steady purpose, he pushed forward. Her body flowered to greet him, and her low, keening sound conveyed sumptuous enjoyment. When she undulated against him, he nearly detonated into a thousand smoking shards.

  “Do it again.”

  “With pleasure,” he growled. He’d never meant anything more sincerely.

  “Goody,” she said, like a child presented with a birthday treat. He couldn’t contain a gasp of laughter.

  “Oh,” she said with surprise. “When you laugh, I can feel it. It’s…nice.”

  Her artless delight in what they did filled him with wonder. And hunger for more of her. With a guttural groan, he began to move, going full and hard, crushing her into the mattress. Her fingers turned into talons on his back, and she gripped him with every thrust. The need for her to find fulfillment before he lost himself warred with a ferocious craving to pump every last ounce of passion into her.

  He heard her breath catch, then a sobbing crescendo. “Let it happen,” he bit out, as his crisis built toward its release. “Remember the carriage.”

  “I loved what happened…in the carriage.” The words emerged in bursts.

  She clenched around him. He ran his teeth down her neck. She cried out, tightening like a mighty fist. Need rocketed beyond his control. As Jane quaked through her pleasure, the irresistible surge started in the soles of Garson’s feet, rolled up through his legs, and flooded like flame into his balls.

  His hot seed spurted into her, and he made a guttural sound of release. Jane cried out and dug her nails into his shoulders, clinging to him as they tumbled headlong into raging fire.

  *

  Chapter Twenty

  *

  “Our arrival in Town is no longer a secret.” With a mixture of bewilderment and anticipation, Jane set down her tea cup and surveyed the pile of invitations that had arrived in the morning post. They formed a tottering pile on the mahogany table in her sitting room, where she and Hugh had just finished breakfast. During the three days they’d been in London, she and her husband had taken their meals here. It had the advantage of being closer to the bedroom than the elaborate dining room downstairs.

  “We don’t have to answer them.” Hugh sent her a lazy smile from the leather couch beside the blazing fire. He wore only his crimson silk dressing gown and a loose pair of cotton trousers.

  “That’s not polite.” She shot him a cross glance, although he looked so beguiling, lounging around like a lascivious pasha, that really she just wanted to haul him straight back to bed. They weren’t long up, although it was getting on for noon. To a countrywoman like her, that seemed disgustingly late.

  Here she was sitting at the table, still in her peignoir, with her hair flowing about her. She’d soon recognized that her hair exerted a strange power over Hugh, and it was easier to leave it unbound if they were at home. Which they mostly were. He’d offered to take her to Astley’s Circus, and the Tower of London, and the British Museum, but so far all they’d managed was a stroll in Hyde Park that had quickly turned into a torrid kissing session in a secluded glade. She hadn’t yet seen the sights he’d promised to show her. Not that she minded. She basked in Hugh’s insatiable appetite for her. The woman who had once shrunk from physical pleasure was becoming a dedicated voluptuary.

  To a point where she resented any time she spent away from him. Susan had called yesterday and badgered Jane into visiting her modiste, when all she’d wanted was to remain in the enchanted world she and Hugh created together.

  “I told you society gives newlyweds some privacy,” he said with a careless gesture.

  “It’s all very well to say that, but we’ll have to emerge some time, and I need help to get through all this as a credit to you.” She watched as Mathers, the butler, cleared away the breakfast dishes.

  “If you want to be a good wife, come and sit on my lap,” Hugh purred.

  When she caught Mathers’ swiftly hidden smile, she blushed. She’d noted that Hugh’s staff at Half Moon Street held him in great affection. An affection they seemed willing to extend to the new Lady Garson.

  Once Mathers had gone, she stood and leveled a disapproving stare at her indolent husband. “You’re scandalizing the servants.”

  He still looked at her as if he’d happily snap her up between his straight white teeth and swallow her in one bite. Her heart began to dance a wild tarantella. She knew what that look meant. By heaven, she should. After that extraordinary night when she’d abandoned her fears, they hadn’t left their room at the inn for three days. An eventful trip to London had followed, and since then, they’d enjoyed three heady days cloistered inside this lovely house.

  “They’re delighted to see me happy again,” he said, echoing her thoughts.

  “Well, you’re scandalizing me,” she retorted, although once she’d locked the door, she crossed the room to curl up on his lap as he’d asked. She slid one arm around his neck and rested her cheek on his chest. Her fingers tangled in the crisp curls at his nape.

  “Do I make you happy, Jane?” he asked softly.

  She glanced up at him. “You know you do.” That was true, as long as she didn’t spend too much time pondering the emotions underlying her delight. Right now, large parts of her life were marked “Here be dragons.”

  He smiled and swooped in to capture
a kiss. Since the wedding, she’d become a connoisseur of Hugh’s kisses. There were light kisses, over in a second, as if he marked his place in a book he intended to return to later. There were the kisses that conveyed his current satisfaction with the world and his place in it. There were the slow, seductive kisses, where he coaxed her into some reckless act that once would have shocked her into next week. Then when he joined his body to hers, there were the long, open-mouthed, passionate kisses. While he was inside her, nothing else in the world existed, except him and her and the heat melding them together.

  This latest kiss expressed his pleasure in her, with a touch of “If you’re interested, we could go back to bed.” She was interested—he turned her into a shameless baggage. But she and Hugh weren’t long upright, and she wanted to talk to him about his plans.

  Then they could go back to bed.

  “I never knew I could feel like this,” she murmured.

  “Let me check just how you feel.”

  “Hugh…” she said in confusion, then laughed with relief, as his hands began to explore her body.

  “Hmmm. Soft.” He squeezed her breast, unconstrained under the silky nightdress. Before they’d left Salisbury, he’d sent Mary to the best haberdasher in town to buy some undergarments and nightdresses suitable for a bride. Jane hadn’t set eyes on her white flannel in days. She had a suspicion Hugh might have thrown it away.

  “Hugh,” she said in a completely different tone, when his long fingers teased her nipple.

  “Would I say that’s hard?”

  “I don’t know. Would you?” she asked drily and sneaked a hand down to where he rose boldly against her hip. “If it’s not, I know something that is.”

  “Hussy,” he said unsteadily, as she curled her fingers around him. His hand left her breast and tangled in the fall of her hair. “That paragon Jane Norris wouldn’t approve of such lechery.”

  “Jane Norris, alas, is no more,” she said in mock sorrow. “Jane Rutherford has taken her place, and I fear that she has no morals at all.”

  She had an inkling that might be true. The girl she’d once been would never treat a man’s body as her personal playground.

  “May dear Jane Norris rest in peace,” he intoned solemnly. “And I’ll make sure that Jane Rutherford doesn’t rest at all.”

  “So far that’s been true,” she retorted, sliding her fist up the rigid column of flesh and relishing how it swelled in her hold. “You know, we really do need to talk.”

  His deep chuckle vibrated in his chest and under her cheek. She loved being close to him like this, wrapped in his warmth and strength. He made her feel that nothing could ever hurt her. “Now?”

  “Perhaps later.”

  “That’s the right answer.” With gentle insistence, he slid her off his lap and onto the seat. Her legs sprawled across the rich red and blue Turkey carpet.

  He kneeled before her and pushed up her skirts, until blue silk and cream lace frothed about her thighs. With an intent expression, he caught her knees and pushed them apart. “You’re blushing.”

  Her hands fluttered nervously, before they settled above her breasts. “Perhaps I’m not as wicked as I thought.”

  As his gaze fastened on the shadowy place between her legs, unabashed greed curved his mouth. “We’ll soon fix that.”

  She guessed he meant to touch her there. He’d done that before, but in the course of making love. Her blush turned to fire. He must be able to see everything. It was difficult to resist covering herself.

  Her heart was skittering, and that familiar heavy feeling set up in the pit of her stomach. His scrutiny of her sex made her tremble with need.

  Hugh’s smile widened, as he took hold of her legs and tugged her forward. Peignoir and nightdress hitched up, so her bare bottom met the leather sofa. She gave a startled gasp, then another as he bent his head and…kissed her there.

  “Hugh!” she cried, lacing one hand in his soft, thick hair.

  The contact was over in an instant, but the heat of his lips still sizzled like a lightning bolt. This game between them was new, and she felt uncertain.

  “Trust me,” he said softly. He remained so close to her cleft that his breath teased the yearning flesh. “You’ll like it.”

  His first kiss hinted that she probably would, but that didn’t make it right. “Do you want to do this?”

  When he lifted his head, she met heavy-lidded eyes. She knew that look, too. His answer came as no surprise. “Oh, yes. I’ve wanted this since our first night, but I feared it might shock you.”

  “It would. It has.” Her answer sounded more like a husky invitation than a protest.

  “Should I stop?”

  The week of debauchery hadn’t totally banished her shyness. What he wanted was perverse. No respectable lady would allow it. But the woman who had discovered a world of miraculous pleasure in her husband’s arms was eager for this new adventure.

  As the silence extended, she watched disappointment flicker in those rich coffee eyes. He sat back and started to rise. “I ask too much.”

  She was incorrigible. The angels must despair of her. She caught his hand before it slid off her bare knee. “Don’t stop,” she whispered.

  His eyes flared. “Really?”

  “Really.” She hoped she sounded braver than she felt.

  Now he had permission, Hugh acted with a purpose that stoked her anticipation. He shoved her nightwear up to reveal her mound. When he placed another kiss, longer this time, on the feathery auburn curls at the apex of her thighs, every hollow in her body turned liquid.

  The evocative scent of her need tinged the air, mixing with traces of coffee, fresh rolls, and bacon lingering from breakfast. Jane wondered if she’d feel quite so abandoned doing this by candlelight. Something about bright morning sunlight pouring through the sash windows made Hugh’s intentions seem even more outrageous.

  Except as he stroked his hands up and down her pale thighs and lowered his disheveled head between her legs, she moved past amazement to curiosity. When he touched her there, his hands made magic. She couldn’t help wondering what his clever mouth might do.

  His tongue traced a hot line along her cleft, making her cry out and bury her hands in his hair. Heat roared through her and made her quake.

  He did it again, and this time he lingered to torment the source of her delight. Her belly cramped in ecstasy, and her spine turned to water. She lolled against the couch as her legs splayed on either side of him.

  She closed her eyes, so sight couldn’t distract her from the rich symphony of pleasure. Another cascading response, when his tongue penetrated her body. Her hands turned to claws, pulling his hair as she broke through into climax.

  Hugh’s deep growls told her that he was enjoying himself. His mouth and tongue and teeth tormented her, licking and sucking and biting until she saw stars.

  Jane floated back to earth and lifted eyelids that felt as heavy as bricks, to find him watching her with a gloating expression. She shivered again, when he wiped one large hand across his glistening lips. What a thrill to know that he’d feasted on her.

  “Oh, Hugh…” she said in a broken voice and caught his hand. She brought it to her lips, smelling her own excitement on his fingers. Another wave of reaction clenched her belly. “You give me so much pleasure.”

  She was exhausted after that quaking reaction to his intimate kisses, but his flashing smile, all male arrogance and straight white teeth, said he wanted more. “I haven’t finished with you yet.”

  He rose and shrugged off the crimson dressing gown. When he kissed her, she tasted her juices on his lips. The knowledge made her desire spike.

  With a couple of impatient movements, he discarded the loose trousers. Her gaze settled between his thighs, and hunger roared through her. Along with shock at her own wickedness. She couldn’t help wondering if her mouth could give him the same pleasure he’d just shown her.

  Hugh scooped her up into his arms and carried her through
to the bedroom, still shadowy with drawn velvet curtains. Carefully he placed her on the rumpled sheets they’d crawled out of a mere hour ago.

  “I’m guessing we’re not going to see the Tower of London today,” she said, as he came down over her to pepper kisses across her neck and shoulders, revealed under the loose nightgown. He gave a soft grunt of laughter and ran his teeth down the nerve in her neck. He knew that drove her mad.

  With a groan, he flopped onto his back beside her. “I feel like the Tower of London right now.”

  His joke prompted a horrified giggle, although she couldn’t deny that his erect rod was impressive. “I shouldn’t laugh.”

  “No, you shouldn’t.” He cast her a narrow-eyed look. “You should be struck silent with awe.”

  “You’re a lunatic, Hugh.” Shyness wasn’t strong enough to contain her wayward impulse. She slid down to kiss that hard flesh.

  He lurched back against the headboard. “Bloody hell!”

  She sat up and regarded him in consternation. “Was that awful?”

  “Jane…”

  She still couldn’t read his expression. Had her boldness repulsed him? “I liked what you did to me before. I wondered…”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and a hectic flush marked his pronounced cheekbones. “If I’d like something similar?”

  She was so embarrassed, she wanted to disappear. “Yes,” she said in a small voice. “Clearly I was wrong.”

  He swallowed again. “Ladies don’t…”

  If her cheeks got any hotter, she’d go up in flames. Given how mortified she felt right now, that almost seemed preferable to facing Hugh’s censure. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  Nervously she licked her lips. Did she detect a trace of him? Her forbidden kiss had been so quick, surely she only imagined a faint hint of musk and salt.

  Hugh’s eyes flared. “Forgive you?”

  He still seemed to have trouble speaking, which was strange when the kiss was over in a blink.