Jason waved a hand to stop him. “You do not give her enough credit. Jacinda is far more clever than anyone sees and she is more than capable of separating fact from fiction.”
His friend arched a brow with disbelief, but said, “Very well. I hope you are correct in your assessment. I also hope that you yourself can keep fact separated from fiction.”
Jason glared at him. “You are an idiot. Now, if you will excuse me, I must be off and dance with Jacinda again to seal the success of this night.”
Jason turned to go, but Seth called after him, “Good luck!”
Jason frowned because he wasn’t certain about the tone of his friend’s voice, but continued, maneuvering through the crowd until he saw Jacinda standing beside the dance floor, talking to Isabel.
He smiled as he approached them. “Good evening ladies.”
Isabel returned the smile as she reached over to squeeze his arm. “Hello, Northfield. I see you found my husband.”
“He found me, my lady,” Jason said with a put-upon sigh. “And I ask you to take him back, for you are the only one who can bear him.”
She laughed at his teasing, but Jason was already focusing his attention on Jacinda. She was not smiling, but looked...skittish.
“I think it may be time for our second dance,” he said, holding out a hand to her.
She glanced at his hand like she didn’t want to take it. “So soon?”
He pressed his lips together in displeasure. “Would you refuse me?”
She shook her head. “No. Of course not, Jason. Never.”
Those words, meant to address the dance made him think of other things. Sinful things. Passionate things. Would she refuse him in her bed either?
His desire must have been clear on his face, for Jacinda blushed deeply and took his hand. Before he took her to the dance floor, Jason looked at Isabel. The other woman was observing him closely, her brow knitted with what seemed to be confused concern. He ignored it.
“Do you think you and Grace might be of assistance in convincing Mrs. Wentworth to take Jacinda home after this dance?” he asked.
Both Isabel and Jacinda stared at him in surprise. “Why?” they asked in unison.
He laughed at their shared outburst.
“The element of mystery, ladies,” he explained before he guided Jacinda to the floor and they began to twirl to the strains of the waltz.
He had chosen both songs they would dance to on purpose, so that they would not have to involve others. He wanted the dances to be intimate in nature, both to start the whispers he was working for...
And because he rather liked holding her against him, feeling the heat of her skin, smelling the scent of her hair, knowing he would be able to strip all her propriety away in a few short hours and have her as he wished.
“You are looking at me in a very strange way,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
He smiled to reassure her. “Because I’ve begun to think of my visit to you tonight.”
She looked up at him with wide eyes. “Even after the ball?”
“I told you, Jacinda. Every night.”
She swallowed. “Then I’ll leave my window unlatched for you.”
“Will you tell me then what Carnthorn said that put you so out of sorts?” he pressed.
She winced, albeit slightly. “Does it matter? You know what he desires. He only presses his suit.”
Rage bubbled in Jason’s chest, dangerously close to overflowing in an instant. He tamped it down, refusing to make his expression one of anger that might confuse the onlookers.
“Despite my claims on you,” he growled.
She shrugged, turning her face away. He didn’t like that she refused to tell him more. That he wasn’t certain where her mind was spinning away to.
“I thought you wished for other men to take notice of me,” she whispered.
He frowned. Clearly she did not understand the full ramifications of their arrangement. Something he would explain to her tonight when they were alone. After he had her, after he touched her.
After.
The music ended and he bowed to her before taking her arm to lead her from the floor.
“Come, we will find your aunt. We’ll tell her you turned your ankle at the end of the dance. Pretend a limp.”
Jacinda looked at him like he was crazy, but she did as he ordered and allowed him to take her across the floor where her aunt waited with Isabel and Grace.
And even though the increased stares in Jacinda’s direction told Jason that his plan was beginning to take hold, he could not help but feel less than satisfied with the evening.
Chapter Twelve
“When a man loses control with his body, you must know you are beginning to affect his mind. Use this information as you will.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures
Jacinda didn’t pace as she waited for Jason this night, but the knot of anxiety lingered in her chest at the thought of him coming into her room, making love to her...and probably continuing his line of questioning about her exchange with Carnthorn earlier.
How could she explain to Jason that every time the dark duke spoke to her, the idea of becoming a mistress rather than a wife became more interesting? Not Carnthorn’s mistress, of course...the man frightened her. But someone’s.
Surely Jason would judge her very harshly for that thought. His expression whenever it came up was already hard and unyielding.
She heard a faint click as her window opened, and turned from her fire to watch Jason climb inside. He stretched his back as he drew the shades and smiled at her.
“Much better. Thank you for leaving the window unlocked.”
She nodded slightly. “I’m pleased it made things easier for—”
She didn’t get to finish, for he came across the room like a charging bull and swept her into his arms, his mouth slanting across hers hard and fast. There was never a moment when she considered resisting. She wrapped her arms around his neck and met his kisses as passionately as they were given.
He tugged at her nightgown and it fell away with a flutter of cotton, leaving her naked in his arms. How had she been uncomfortable like this just a few days before? Now it felt like home.
She went to work on his clothes, the two of them struggling to shed, to unbutton, to kick away garments without breaking the intensity of their kiss. Finally he was as naked as she was. She let her hand travel down the length of his body and grasped his erection, reveling in his hardness. He moaned at her touch and a sense of power, boldness, swelled within her.
He lifted her, wrapping her legs around his hips as he carried her across the room to press her against the wall next to her window. She gasped in surprise, a sound that turned to one of pleasure when he angled his cock to the entrance of her sex.
“I can’t wait,” he panted, almost as an apology.
“Then don’t,” she urged him, fully aware that she was more than ready for the hot slide of his body into hers.
He lifted and filled her with one stroke. She clung to his shoulders, her fingers pressing into the flesh as she arched her hips with every hard, pounding thrust of his cock. All the other times they had joined together, he had been very gentle, attuned to her needs. This time he was animalistic, scraping his teeth over her throat, cupping her backside with both hands as he pounded deep within her.
And oh, how she liked it.
She liked how he needed her so much that he had lost control. She liked seeing the gentility and gentleness stripped away to reveal something raw beneath. She certainly liked the feel of him gliding inside of her with such animal strength and power.
“I want you to come for me,” he growled next to her ear just as he changed the way he thrust. Now he swirled his hips, keeping her from returning the movement by fully pinning her to the wall.
The pleasure he demanded had already begun to build, but now that he had stolen all her control, it rushed up faster, making her aware of her entire body, her nerves tingling, her blood rushing
.
He rolled his hips again, locking eyes with her as he did it, and she gasped as pleasure mobbed her, spiraling from between her legs out to her entire body. He thrust hard, drawing the sensation out mercilessly until he barked out his own release and pulled away from her just in time to spend between them.
Jason pressed his forehead to hers, their shared breath ragged. She cupped his cheeks, looking into his face before he set her back on the floor and steadied her when her shaking legs took a moment to adjust to her weight.
He leaned down to kiss her one more time, but when he pulled away there was a seriousness to his face.
“Will you tell me now what Carnthorn said that changed your mood tonight?” he asked.
She stared at him in disbelief before she pushed past him and gathered up her worn dressing gown to throw over her nakedness. As she tied it at the waist, she glared at him.
“I knew you would interrogate me. Did you seduce me first in order make me bend easier to your will?”
She didn’t know what she expected his reaction to her peevishness to be, but it wasn’t the cool arch of his eyebrow as he continued to stand, utterly naked in the place where he had made love to her not a moment before.
“Were you seduced?” he drawled.
She folded her arms, looking to find some form of protection against the effect this man had on her. The movement didn’t help. His stare still made her achy and needy, aware of herself in a way she had never wished to be.
And she supposed that proved the point of his question.
“Fine. Seduced is a poor choice of word,” she admitted with as much ice in her tone as she could muster when her body was still hot with him.
He tilted his head. “I don’t understand this outburst, Jacinda. You already told me that the duke spoke to you of becoming his mistress again.”
Jacinda clenched her jaw as she thought of Carnthorn’s rough hand on her wrist. “Yes.”
“But it was more than that,” Jason continued, his tone matter-of-fact.
Jacinda just barely suppressed an urge to childishly stomp her foot. “Oh, I do hate it that you are a mind reader.”
That drew a smile to his face. “I’m not. I just know you.”
She froze at that assertion and looked at him intently. She and Jason had been dancing around the edges of an unlikely friendship for many years. Now that had blossomed into something more. A something more Jason kept telling her not to hold on to, because it wouldn’t last. He wouldn’t allow it.
“Do you know me?” she asked, her voice soft.
“I’m beginning to,” he said, his voice just as quiet as he locked his gaze with hers. There in the depths of his stare, she thought she saw...something. But he turned his face and cleared his throat before he revealed too much. “Make this easier on yourself, Jacinda, and confess all. I shall wheedle it out of you if you don’t.”
His tone was back to being playful and she recognized, for the first time, how empty that teasing really was. It was only a mechanism to keep others at arm’s length.
And that was where he wanted her. She could not foolishly forget it.
She tightened her folded arms and moved to sit beside her fire. “Fine,” she said. “Carnthorn implied that a marriage would not equal the freedom I so desperately desire. That you—and by extension, I suppose, any other man—would tire of me once the chase was over. That my husband would abandon me to run around and seek his pleasure while I sat home. Probably weeping.”
Jason’s tight face turned to a quick smile at her last dry comment and she returned the expression. But he was quickly serious again.
“His scenario troubles you,” he said, not as a question, but merely a statement. Still, she felt he was waiting for her answer.
“Yes,” she admitted without hesitation. “How could it not? I have been all but locked up in a house where I was not wanted for seven long years. Perhaps a husband would offer me a prettier prison, but what Carnthorn described still sounds like forced confinement to me.”
Jason shook his head and quickly stepped into his trousers and tugged them up. When they barely covered his hips, he sat down in the chair beside hers and leaned in closer. She felt his presence and fought to keep her face expressionless.
“Carnthorn assumes that because he mistreats his wife that all men do,” Jason said with a disgust to his tone that was unmistakable. “Plus he is trying to turn you to his side. But you know there are married couples with care and respect between them. Seth and Isabel, for one.”
She blinked at his example. “But they are in love.”
He didn’t seem to understand her meaning. “And?”
She threw up her hands in exasperation. “A love match, for me?”
He hesitated long enough that she knew it was as foolish a notion to him as it was to her, but for some reason he continued the ruse. “Why not?”
“So many reasons, Jason.” She shook her head without getting into every humiliating one of them.
He pursed his lips, displeasure plain on his face. “Well, at least I promise you I’ll be certain to find you a husband who is better than a bastard.”
Jacinda shook her head. “Your life is very different from mine, Jason, so you may not understand the concept I am about to put forward.”
He arched a brow. “Which is?”
“We may have to settle for what we can get,” she said, as matter-of-fact as he had been earlier. “Or perhaps I must turn to the other side of the bargain entirely.”
“Where you become a mistress,” he said, his tone flat.
She nodded.
He pushed to his feet and snatched up the rest of his clothing without a word. There was no denying his pulsing anger as he haphazardly threw the items on. She watched him, trying to maintain distance when what she wanted to do was hurtle herself into his arms and beg him not to be displeased with her. Plead with him not to discard her.
She didn’t. There was no use in the act, for he would leave at once point or another. At least she could maintain a shred of dignity.
Once he was fully dressed, he caught her hand unexpectedly and hauled her to her feet. He held her gaze, forcing her not to look away by gripping her shoulders.
“Let me try my way, Jacinda. Please.”
She wrinkled her brow at the earnest desire in his tone. He was truly passionate about this plan, it seemed. About saving her.
She nodded. “I’ve already said I will.”
He looked at her a few seconds more, then dropped his mouth to hers, kissing her with an unexpected passion that woke her body in an instant. But he took it no further. With a quiet groan, he parted from her, turned and left her room with not another word.
She moved to the window, leaning on the edge to watch him pick his way back down below. Once he had disappeared across the lawn to wherever he hid his horse during their rendezvous, she turned her attention to the moon above instead.
His way. A road to a marriage she had given up on years ago. And yet there was no satisfaction in that potential for a future, not because of the issues they had discussed tonight...but because either way their game ended, she would never be his.
Chapter Thirteen
“If one has the choice, it seems uncommonly stupid not to pick anything but happiness.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures
Jason fought the urge to down his drink in one gulp and instead focused on the positives of the scene going on before him. It was a beautiful, warm day, never a guarantee for an English summer. He was at Seth and Isabel’s home in London, which had a beautiful garden behind it. And happening in that garden was a party he himself had orchestrated for Jacinda’s benefit.
Best of all, he had managed to help Isabel and Grace convince Jacinda’s nasty Aunt Cordelia that she would be very well chaperoned for the day, which meant Jacinda was free.
She looked it too, standing on the long expanse of grass, a pall mall mallet in hand, a broad smile on her face. She looked relaxed. She looked liberat
ed. She looked beautiful.
Which was why his drink was such a temptation. Her beauty, her smile, her laughter, they were not his to enjoy. They were meant to tempt other men.
She shook her head as Isabel attempted a shot, and then her laughter drifted over the grass to tickle his ears.
“You are a dreadful cheat!” Jacinda accused with laughter as a lock of chestnut hair fell across her eyes. She swept it away thoughtlessly, completely unaware of how bewitching the action was. “I saw you kick the ball.”
“Entirely accidentally,” Isabel said, but her flushed cheeks told a different story.
Jacinda placed a hand on her stomach and continued to laugh as she shook her head. Jason suppressed a sigh. He loved seeing her like this. He wanted to see her like this forever.
His musings were interrupted by the approach of three other men who were guests of the party. All of them were watching Jacinda. He tensed as he observed them a bit more closely.
One was Viscount Chesterton. He was a few years older than Jason, but certainly not too old for Jacinda. He had a minor fortune and a very old estate called Hollycleft Park in the north. Jason had heard nothing untoward about the man. The viscount didn’t gamble excessively, he drank only occasionally, he was not known to frequent courtesans. A man of moderation was how many in their circles described him.
Far too boring for Jacinda, but Jason pushed that thought aside with a vengeance. He was not meant to dismiss any man who looked her way.
The second gentleman was Lord Bygale. He had a larger fortune than Chesterton, but was also much older, probably into his fifties, and a widower with two children whose names Jason had never cared to learn. He had a hard time picturing Jacinda sharing her breakfast with the older gentleman and tried very hard not to think of her in his bed.
The final intruder was Mr. Cyril Dunnaby. Jason knew little about the man, except that he was a distant cousin of a duke or someone equally important, a fact Dunnaby never let the world forget. Jason had played a hand of cards with Dunnaby once three years before and had nearly torn his hair out with boredom as the man dropped name after name of those of noble birth in an attempt to impress. He was also rather round in shape, his belly straining against the corset he obviously wore beneath his clothing. Otherwise, there was nothing unkind that could be said about him.
A Moment of Passion (The Ladies Book of Pleasures) Page 12
