She hastily wiped away the evidence of those tears as she stared across the bedchamber at Daniel, he having been the one to enter the room with a tea tray rather than the butler she had expected when she bade whoever had knocked to enter.
“Where shall I put this?” he now prompted gently.
“I… Here.” Jo indicated the small table beside the chair. “I am sure you should not be bringing me a tray of tea-things,” she added with a frown.
He crossed the room. “Cook did seem rather bewildered when I wandered into her kitchen and requested the beverage,” he acknowledged ruefully.
“Bedford was busy?”
“As it happens, he was.” Daniel straightened from placing the tray on the table. “I…had the misfortune to break a wineglass in the dining room a few minutes ago. As he is now clearing away the mess, I have brought up your tea myself.”
Jo frowned. “I see.”
“Do you?”
Not completely, no. It was most unusual for an earl to go into his kitchen at all, let alone bring up a tray of tea-things to his uninvited guest.
Daniel’s gaze now roamed searchingly over her face. “It was the least I could do after my behavior earlier.”
“I must have made you very angry for you to have had the misfortune to break a wineglass.” Her own humiliation aside, Jo deeply regretted having placed Daniel in a situation where he had felt forced to relive such sad and painful memories as his unhappy marriage.
He gave a shake of his head. “I was not angry with you when I broke the wineglass. Threw it across the room and smashed it to pieces, in fact,” he admitted with a wince.
Her eyes widened. “It was not an accident?”
“My feelings were ones of…frustration, that I could not, in all conscience, accept your generous offer.” He sighed. “Please believe I meant only to protect you by my refusal. Instead, I hurt you.” His gaze roamed over the pallor of her face. “I now see I have also caused you to cry.”
So much for having wiped away the evidence of those tears. “My tears were for you, not for me.”
“What?” Daniel questioned sharply, hardly able to believe his ears.
“I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like for you to have lived for so many years with such unhappiness as you did in your marriage.”
He frowned darkly. “Jo, you were orphaned at the age of six, lived with a grandfather who sounds eccentric at the very least, and now you are subject to the scandalous whims of your disreputable cousin. If anything, you should be crying for those reasons and not on my behalf.”
“But I still remember my parents with great affection, and those years afterwards with my eccentric grandfather were good ones,” she assured him.
“Because you are an optimist, not a pessimist.” He nodded. “You are also far too good for me to sully when I cannot offer you anything but an eventual end to what could only ever be an affair,” he sounded bleak.
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “From the little I have experienced since you have…known I was female, I believe you might have offered me pleasure too.”
Daniel’s brow became furrowed. “As I am no longer that callow boy, I could most certainly give you that. I would also take great pleasure in doing so,” he acknowledged.
“Then—”
“But no matter how pleasurable I might find our lovemaking to be,” he continued, “I would still let you go when the time came for me to do so.”
“Once I have gone to live with my great-aunt or have returned to Cheshire Hall?”
His jaw tightened. “Yes.”
“And is that your only reason for refusing me earlier tonight?”
Daniel did not like the gleam of determination returning to those expressive blue eyes. “Jo—”
“Daniel.” Her chin rose in challenge.
He sighed his frustration. “I assure you my refusal earlier had nothing to do with a lack of desire for you. Good God, woman, I have admitted that desire for you, and you have felt the evidence of that desire on more than one occasion,” he added self-derisively. “Here, if you are still in any doubt.” He grasped her wrist and brought her hand to the front of his breeches, where his cock stood thick and rigid beneath that material. “I want you now.” His smile became rueful. “I wanted you even when I thought you were of my own sex.”
Her eyes widened. “You did?”
“I did,” Daniel acknowledged heavily. “So now you have heard my last guilty secret.”
Jo stepped closer to him. “Did it bother you to feel desire for a boy?”
“As I have never desired one of my own sex before, of course it bothered—” His eyes narrowed. “Are you laughing at me?”
She bit her bottom lip to stop herself from smiling, and in doing so confirm his suspicion: she could all too easily imagine how angry and confused it must have made Daniel to think he desired Jo Turner, a boy working in his stables.
She tried to prevent herself from smiling but failed miserably as the humor of the situation became too much for her, and she burst out laughing. “Poor Daniel,” she choked between bouts of laughter. “Poor, poor Daniel.”
“Do not ‘poor’ me, young lady.” The smile that lit his austere features and lightened his eyes to the color of moss told her he was now only pretending to be cross with her. “Or you will be over my knee again.”
Jo’s laughter stopped instantly, and she stilled to tilt her head in query. “I only have to call you poor Daniel again for that to happen?”
Daniel gave a groan as he saw the wicked glint that lit those long-lashed eyes. He also admonished himself again for ever having thought she was a young man, even an effeminate one. Jo’s femininity was there in the delicate curve of her cheeks, the slender arch of her throat, and the breasts now allowed to swell freely over the low neckline of her gown. She was temptation—
“Poor, poor, poor Daniel,” she said softly.
—incarnate!
Chapter 8
A temptation Daniel could no longer resist. He drew Jo into his arms before lowering his head and taking possession of lips moistened by her having recently chewed upon them.
Wet.
Soft.
Hot.
Much as her pussy lips would be?
Dear God, just to think of tasting her there…
Daniel could not deny himself, or her, any longer as the softness of Jo’s lips parted beneath his. His control snapped completely when her tongue licked silkily along his own lips before venturing into the heat beyond and stroking along the length of his tongue.
He deepened the kiss hungrily as he lifted Jo up into his arms and carried her across the room to place her on top of the bed before quickly joining her there, his body half lying across hers as he continued to kiss her. Long and deeply, tasting and exploring every inch of her mouth before lifting his head to look down at her.
Jo’s cheeks were flushed, eyes bright as the shaft of sunlight shone in through the window directly across her face.
Dear God, but she was beautiful.
So utterly beautiful. Almost angelic—
“I think I would like to take all my clothes off this time before you spank me.”
Perhaps angelic was not quite the right description for this little siren, Daniel conceded with an inward groan.
“Please.”
She would be the death of him, Daniel decided as she sat up and turned her back toward him in a silent request for him to unfasten the buttons of the gown.
He should protest. Should remind her of their earlier conversation at the very least. But instead, Daniel found his hands moving to unfasten those tiny buttons from her nape to the base of her spine.
There appeared to be thousands of the damned things as Daniel’s fingers refused to work as he instructed them to. He lost all patience with them after several minutes of fumbling to unfasten them and seeming to get nowhere as his large fingers slid off the tiny pearl buttons again and again. With an apology to Amelia and an
inward promise to buy her a new gown, he ripped the two sides of the material apart. The camisole top beneath quickly received the same treatment, baring the slender length of Jo’s spine.
Her skin was so creamy and soft, Daniel found it impossible to resist sliding his hands along that silky length, from her nape to the indent just above the cheeks of her bottom. “Are my hands too rough?” He was very aware that the manual work he had undertaken these past few days—it was either that or seek out Jo Turner and make unwelcome advances to “him”!—had roughened the palms of his hands and fingertips.
“Just rough enough.” She arched her back against those caressing hands.
Daniel’s heart leapt at her husky encouragement. His cock was so engorged now, it felt uncomfortably restricted by his clothing. “Perhaps we would be more comfortable if we were both naked when I spank you.”
She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. “Oh yes, that would be far more enjoyable. Shall we assist each other to undress?” Without waiting for his reply, she moved to the side of the bed and rose to her feet before allowing the sleeves of her gown and the straps of her camisole to slide down the length of her arms. Both garments dropped to the floor at her feet.
Daniel ceased to breathe as Jo stood before him wearing only her white drawers, stockings, and garters. Her breasts were completely bare and uptilting, and tipped by those deliciously plump nipples that were already engorged and the color of the strawberries growing in Daniel’s hothouse.
Her breasts moved upward as she lifted her hands and removed the pins from her hair before shaking the golden tendrils loose about her shoulders.
Temptation incarnate indeed.
“How long was your hair before you cut it?”
She eyed him curiously. “How did you know I had done so?”
“Because women of Society rarely have hair as short as yours is now.”
She nodded. “It reached to my waist.”
“Sacrilege.”
“I will grow it again now there is no reason for my disguise.”
“Good. No, leave the drawers on,” he instructed gruffly as she would have removed them. “I will enjoy untying them and baring your bottom myself.”
“Very well.” She straightened. “Now you.” She looked at him through thick golden lashes.
Daniel had no memory of feeling self-conscious undressing in front of a woman since Beatrix. Perhaps because the women he had bedded since had been paid for the privilege, and their approval or disapproval was not required or asked for. Something he realized he was not proud to acknowledge.
Undressing with Jo watching his every move was an unnerving experience. He thanked the hours spent in the boxing saloon and these past few days of working in the fields for the toned and tanned musculature in his shoulders and chest once he had removed his top clothing.
Daniel appeared very much to Jo now as he had yesterday when she watched him working in the field. Except this time, they were alone in a bedchamber and Daniel was standing only feet away from her. “May I help?” She waited for his nod of consent before stepping forward to unfasten the buttons on the fall of his black breeches. The falling down of the unbuttoned material revealed that he was not wearing any drawers this evening. His cock jutted forward, long and thick, from the cluster of dark auburn curls at its base.
Jo had never seen an actual cock in the flesh before now, only those drawings in the book in her grandfather’s library. The reality was so much more…beautiful, and tempting to be touched, than those sketches had implied.
Daniel’s cock was at least nine inches long, with a thick vein running along its length, the deep red and bulbous top covered in a slick sheen escaping from the slit at the top.
“Pre-cum,” Daniel supplied as he saw Jo looking at that slickness.
One brow rose. “Ergo something comes after it?”
“Oh yes, a lot of something.” He breathed slowly in and out as he removed the rest of his clothing himself in an effort to stop from reaching out and pulling Jo in close to his body.
He wanted to wrap one of her legs about his waist and take her where she stood. But Jo was not some bawd or one of the demimonde he was accustomed to bedding, and she deserved more consideration from him than that.
Besides which, whatever the two of them did together this evening, he could not take her at all. There were many other ways to give and receive pleasure without the need for full penetration. After all, an orgasm was release no matter how it was achieved.
“What does it taste like?”
Dear sweet Lord— “Sweet and salty at the same time, I am told.”
“As you are far more experienced than me, I will not ask by whom you were told,” she teased.
“I’ve had far more years to be more experienced than you—” He broke off as Jo placed her fingertips against his lips to silence him.
“Here, in this room, there is only the two of us.” She stood so close, Daniel could smell the perfume of her body and the spicy scent of her arousal. “No past. No future. Only now.”
Daniel could find no argument with those statements.
He took her hand in his and walked to the bed before sitting down. “Lay yourself across my thighs and let me bare that delicious bottom.”
Jo’s cheeks flushed a fiery red as she did as he asked, the hair on his thighs no doubt feeling prickly against her bare abdomen, the jutting of his engorged cock hard against her side. “Oh,” she gasped softly as he pulled down her drawers at the back and bared her bottom. The muscles in those curvy cheeks clenched instinctively.
“Relax,” Daniel encouraged as his hands roamed caressingly across those taut orbs for several minutes until he felt her tension easing. Which was when he lifted one of his hands and delivered the first smack to the left cheek of her bottom.
“Yes,” she gasped.
The second smack landed on the right cheek.
“Oh yes,” she cried again.
Daniel paused in his endeavor to admire the red imprint of his hand on her creamy flesh. “I believe I was too gentle with that second one.” He delivered another smack to the right cheek so that they both glowed with the same amount of redness. “Perfect.”
As had happened to her the last time Daniel spanked her, Jo felt those smacks all the way to her core. Her nipples tingled as her breasts dangled down toward the carpet, and a heat gathered between her thighs, swelling and dampening the folds there.
“More?”
She knew she should be demanding he stop. Be outraged this was happening to her again at all.
She did not and was not.
She had asked for this. As good as begged for it. Had certainly challenged Daniel into doing it.
“More,” she confirmed huskily as she placed her hands palm down on the carpet for better support.
Four more smacks were delivered, two on each cheek.
“Are you wet between your thighs, Jo?”
“Very.” Her voice felt locked in her throat, whether from excitement or pain or a combination of the two, she no longer knew.
“And swollen?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“That’s good. Very good.” Daniel lifted her so she sat across his thighs, her spanked bottom stinging at this contact. “I wish to eat your pussy now.”
Her eyes widened. “Eat my…?”
“The honey pot between your thighs.”
“But—”
“No buts, Jo,” he told her sternly as he slid her off his thighs and down onto the carpet in front of him. “You asked for this, and now that I have you at my mercy you must take all of your punishment without protest for disobeying me,” he cajoled. “Now lie back. All the way back. Good girl. Slip off your drawers. Good. Now bend your knees and part your legs for me,” he instructed. “Very good.” He moved to kneel on the carpet beside her, the heavy weight of his cock jutting forward and only inches away from the moistness of her lips.
Jo tensed as the hand closest to her b
reasts now trailed a sensuous pattern across her rib cage, her navel, fingers lightly entangling with her golden curls on her mound before parting them and moving lower still.
“Mm, nice and wet.” Those long fingers stroked the folds between her thighs. “And so very swollen.”
Jo gasped in surprise as she felt Daniel’s fingers stroking a little higher, round and around but not quite touching the source of the pleasure, which now coursed and sang throughout the whole of her body.
The clitoris, one of her grandfather’s books had called it, describing it as one of the places a man might touch a woman. The only times Jo had seen or felt it, when she bathed, it had always seemed like a useless piece of flesh hidden beneath a protective hood.
It was no longer hidden, that protective hood all the way back, the nubbin feeling swollen to twice its usual size as Daniel’s fingers continued to caress and stroke the slick, wet folds surrounding it. All the time he did so, his intense gaze remained fixed on her face.
“Please,” Jo eventually groaned when she could no longer take the ebb and flow of a pleasure that seemed just out of her reach.
“Please what?” he tormented.
“Please touch me there!”
“I already am—”
“Daniel, I shall go insane with need if you do not touch me there!” She glared her frustration.
“I would rather kiss you there.”
Jo watched Daniel as he moved to kneel between her parted legs before lowering himself until his face was between her thighs. “Dear Lord…” she gasped as his tongue rasped pleasurably along her folds, bottom to top. Jo eyes went wide as she then watched his lips part and take the whole of her clitoris into the heat of his mouth before sucking deeply.
She threw her head back, her spine arching as the heat of undreamed-of pleasure surged through the whole of her body, transporting her as it exploded along her every nerve ending.
Jo was breathing hard by the time those waves of pleasure abated. “That was… Thank you.”
“There is more,” Daniel assured softly. “So much more.”
Tamed by the Earl Page 8
